Hello everyone,
I would like to ask for guidance regarding a possible German citizenship case for my mother.
My mother was born in Turkey in 1977. Her biological father was born in 1950 and later acquired German citizenship while my mother was still a minor, before she turned 18.
At that time, my grandparents were divorced. My grandfather later remarried. According to our family information, only the children from his later marriage were registered with the German authorities and they obtained German citizenship / dual citizenship. My mother, although she was also his biological minor child at the time, was never registered or included.
We are trying to understand whether this could create any possible claim today, or whether there might have been a failure to include her in the father’s naturalization file.
My main questions are:
- If a father naturalized as German while his biological child was still a minor, could the child have been included in the father’s naturalization at that time?
- If only some minor children were registered/included, but another biological minor child from a previous marriage was not, could this be relevant today?
- Would the correct route be a citizenship determination procedure (Feststellung der deutschen Staatsangehörigkeit) rather than a new naturalization?
- Could § 5 StAG be relevant in such a case, or is this outside its scope?
- Which documents should we try to obtain first? For example, the father’s Einbürgerungsurkunde, the naturalization file number, birth certificates, divorce records, and proof of the other children’s German citizenship?