u/lolonlol

My girlfriend is stuck in meetings all day and I don't really feel like talking about this with my friends or colleagues right now, so I guess Reddit gets to hear my rant. Maybe some of you have experience with this or can share your thoughts.

I moved to Germany in 2013 to study. At some point I decided to stay permanently, and in October 2024 I submitted my application for German citizenship.

Shortly after, I received a confirmation that my application had been received, along with the information that processing could take up to 20 months. Twenty. Months. Not much you can do about that, so I waited.

Earlier this year, I received a letter asking me to submit a whole bunch of additional documents. Apparently, it would have been too easy if the online application had asked for all of those from the beginning.

Then, at the beginning of July, I attended my appointment for the loyalty declaration and commitment to Germany's free democratic constitutional order.

Three weeks ago, I received a letter telling me to pay the citizenship fee and schedule an appointment to receive my naturalization certificate. Great news. I paid the fee, booked the appointment, and today was finally the big day.

However, my employment situation has changed since then.

At the end of July, I resigned from my job. Starting in December, I won't have a job anymore. My girlfriend and I have wanted to move in together for a long time, but it never really worked out. Eventually we both decided to quit our jobs and move. In the worst-case scenario, we have enough savings to support ourselves for several years.

At today's appointment, I was asked whether anything had changed regarding my employment situation. Of course, I answered honestly.

The caseworker left the room to discuss it with someone, came back a few minutes later, and told me that I would not be granted citizenship today after all.

He explained something about needing proof of financial security for the next six months (or something along those lines, unfortunately I don't remember the exact wording). Apparently, a notice confirming unemployment benefits would have been sufficient. But right now I'm only registered as a job seeker and don't yet have any official unemployment benefits decision.

So now I have to wait until:

1. I've completed my move, which means my case will be handled by a different authority.
2. I have official documentation showing that I'm receiving unemployment benefits.

And since there's likely to be a waiting period before I can receive unemployment benefits, I probably won't get that documentation until around three months after my employment officially ends.

So after nearly two years of waiting, paying the fee, and showing up to receive my citizenship certificate, I walked out empty-handed because I was honest about having resigned from my job.

That's my rant. Hopefully I didn't forget anything.

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this rant in German and used a generative AI tool to help structure and translate it into English.

Edit: After reading some of the comments and calming down a bit, I have to admit that my title was pretty clickbaity. In reality, it's probably more accurate to say that dishonesty would have been punished rather than honesty being punished.

A few additional details that I forgot to mention:

• I'm originally from another EU country neighboring Germany.
• The main reason I want German citizenship is so that I can vote and stop needing a registration certificate every time I have to prove where I live.
• I also partly blame my employer for this situation because I have a four-month notice period.

If my notice period had only been three months, I would have received my citizenship certificate today and simply handed in my resignation next week. Ironically, that same four-month notice period has already cost me a job opportunity in the past because the prospective employer wasn't willing to wait that long.

So apparently, my unusually long notice period managed to cause problems for me more than once. 😅