Which documents a German citizenship application needs, and where to get them

An application for German citizenship under Article 116(2) or §15 is really a chain of certificates: from you to the relative who held German citizenship, generation by generation, and then the proof that they were German and what happened to them. Here is what each link needs, and where to get it.

The forms are on the Bundesverwaltungsamt's site. For Article 116(2): Paket A, which holds form A (from age 16) or A_K (under 16) and the Anlage AV. For §15: Paket E15 with form E15 or E15_K and the same Anlage AV. The Anlage AV is filled in once per generation between the applicant and the persecuted person: a grandchild fills one for the father and one for the grandfather. The §5 declaration is form EER.

• A population registry extract from the Ministry of Interior, with the parents' details. Order it on the government services site or at a Population Authority office.
• A marriage certificate, if the surname changed.
• A passport or ID card, as a legible copy.
• For §15 only: a police certificate, when the BVA asks for it.

For each person between the applicant and the ancestor: a birth certificate naming the parents, and a marriage certificate if the name changed. In Israel that is a registry extract. Someone born in Palestine before 1948 may need the Mandate records at the State Archives. Someone born in another country orders from the registry there, with that country's apostille.

This is the document the file rests on. One of these is usually enough:

• An old German passport, or a Heimatschein.
• A German birth certificate (Geburtsurkunde) from the Standesamt of the town of birth. For older records: the state archive, for example Landesarchiv Berlin. Births before 1876 are in Jewish community registers.
• An entry in the town's residents' register (Meldekartei).
• The parents' naturalisation certificate, if the family itself naturalised in Germany.

A Standesamt answers emails in German and English, charges 10 to 20 euros per certificate, and posts it. If you do not know the exact town, the emigration record or the restitution file usually names it.

For Article 116(2) it is enough to show that the relative was Jewish and lived outside Germany on 25 November 1941, or was deported later. For §15 you show that they lost citizenship before 1955, or were denied it, because of the persecution. The sources:

• The Arolsen Archives: a free online search of refugee card files, deportation lists and displaced-persons files.
• Restitution files (Entschädigungsakten): at the Landesamt für Bürger- und Ordnungsangelegenheiten in Berlin, or the equivalent office in the state where the family lived. These files often hold the whole chain.
• The expatriation lists published in the Reichsanzeiger, for anyone deprived by name before 1941.
• The Palestinian immigration or naturalisation certificate, from the State Archives or the Central Zionist Archives. Its date decides whether the route is 116(2) or 15.
• A Jewish community register, or Yad Vashem's victims database, to show Jewishness as the ground of persecution.

Every Israeli certificate needs an apostille: at the Foreign Ministry for government documents, at a magistrates' court for notarial certifications. Every document not in German, English or French needs a certified German translation. Hebrew certificates are translated; English ones are not. A certified translator in Israel usually charges NIS 150 to 300 per page. That is most of the cost of the application, because the application itself has no fee.

Submit certified copies of every certificate plus one plain copy. Documents are not returned, so do not send a sole original. Copies can be certified at the embassy by appointment, by a notary, or by an honorary consul. The file goes to the German embassy in Tel Aviv, which forwards it to the BVA in Cologne, or by registered post straight to the BVA. The wait is two to three years; there is no point asking about the status before 30 months.

A sibling or parent who already received citizenship on the same route shortens the path: the BVA already holds the family's file. Then the birth certificates that link you to them and a copy of their naturalisation certificate are enough.

Kav Yashar builds this list from your chain, reads every certificate you upload and marks what is missing. You order, translate and file. We do not.