"The current German constitution, called the Basic Law, is clear and concise: a German is anyone with a German passport. Citizenship cannot be revoked. And discriminating against citizens on the basis of their religion, origin or language violates the fundamental values of the constitution. This is one of the lessons learned from the Nazi regime's reign of terror from 1933 to 1945, which systematically disenfranchised, terrorized and murdered the Jewish German population in particular."
""Whether you are German is decided between your ears, not on paper," wrote Stefan Moller, a politician from the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the social media platform X in July 2023. His remark is one of hundreds of reasons why numerous German courts have repeatedly confirmed the unconstitutionality of parts of the AfD. AfD program a 'continuation of Nazi ideology' Historian Rolf-Ulrich Kunze from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in southwestern Germany sees the AfD as part of a historical continuum, partly because of statements like these. "From my perspective, the AfD's program is a seamless continuation of this Nazi ideology," he told DW."
""At that time, it was the distinction between Reich citizens and state citizens that was regulated in the so-called Reich Citizenship Law of the Nuremberg Laws. This is directly comparable to the AfD's idea of a distinction between 'real Germans' and 'passport Germans.'""
The Basic Law defines a German as anyone holding a German passport and makes citizenship irrevocable. The constitution forbids discrimination against citizens based on religion, origin, or language, reflecting lessons from the Nazi era. The Nazi regime systematically disenfranchised, terrorized, and murdered Jewish Germans and other targeted groups, denying them German identity. Contemporary debates about who counts as German have intensified, with far-right figures asserting cultural or mental criteria for Germanness. Courts have repeatedly ruled parts of the AfD unconstitutional, and historians link some AfD rhetoric to Nazi-era legal distinctions between citizens.
Read at www.dw.com
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