StAG §5 case — father born in Germany in 1961 to German mother, now found German Embassy passport-register proof. How strong is the case?
Hi everyone,
I’m trying to understand how strong my father’s StAG §5 declaration case is.
My father was born in Germany in March 1961. His mother was German, born to German parents, and his father was foreign. Because he was born before 1975 to a German mother and foreign father, we understand that this is the type of case StAG §5 was meant to cover.
His mother passed away in 1967 in a foreign country, when he was still very young. Because of that, we did not have her original German passport.
My father submitted his StAG §5 declaration and received a BVA file/reference number in March 2024. The application included:
- My father’s German birth certificate / birth extract
- My father’s foreign/French birth extract
- My father’s baptism certificate
- My grandmother’s birth certificate / birth extract
- My grandmother’s death certificate
- My grandfather’s birth certificate / birth extract
- My German great-grandmother’s birth certificate / birth extract
- My German great-grandfather’s birth certificate / birth extract
- Wedding marriage of my grand parents
The main missing item was originally my grandmother’s German passport.
However, after further research, I recently received a response from the Political Archive of the German Federal Foreign Office. They sent me a scan from a passport register of the German Embassy in Tunis. The record relates to my grandmother and shows that her German passport was issued on 27 March 1961 and later renewed/extended in March 1966. The archive response also gives the archive reference/signature for the passport register.
My father was born on 23 March 1961, only a few days before the passport issue date shown in the register.
This document has now been submitted to the BVA as additional evidence that his mother was a German citizen around the time of his birth.
My questions are:
- Does this now sound like a strong StAG §5 case?
- Is a German Embassy passport-register entry usually accepted as strong proof of German citizenship if the original passport is missing?
- Could the fact that the passport was issued a few days after my father’s birth still be an issue, or would it normally support that she was already German at the time?
- Is there anything else the BVA might still ask for?
- Has anyone had a similar StAG §5 case approved using archive/passport-register evidence instead of the original passport?
I know nobody can guarantee the result, but I’d appreciate opinions from people with experience in StAG §5 / BVA citizenship cases.
Thanks in advance.