Descent-based citizenship served to absorb millions of expelled Germans.

Evidence

In accepting responsibility for Nazism’s ruthless population policies, the FRG’s Basic Law granted asylum to persecuted foreigners and overturned the Nuremberg Laws that limited full citizenship to ‘Aryans’. Moreover, it conferred citizenship on German refugees, who qualified according to the Imperial and Weimar precedent of jus sanguinis, or law of descent. It promised the ‘right of return’ to those who remained outside the FRG, including those in the GDR. Thus the FRG dissolved the Third Reich’s distinction between Reichsdeutsche, that is Germans with Reich citizenship, and Volksdeutsche, ethnic Germans from beyond the Reich’s borders who had not previously held Reich citizenship. It provided the common denominator of descent to incorporate what were in fact diverse peoples divided by region, cultural traditions, and historical experience. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 183

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Over twelve million ethnic Germans were expelled from postwar Europe — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1530; Residence, not just descent, came to confer German citizenship. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 208; German citizenship law defines national belonging through racial blood descent — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1716 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Over twelve million ethnic Germans were expelled from postwar Europe #corroborates (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1530
• German citizenship law defines national belonging through racial blood descent #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1716
• Residence, not just descent, came to confer German citizenship. #qualifies (0.78) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 208