The FRG’s citizenship law unified diverse German groups by descent

Evidence

The three western Allied zones that became the FRG absorbed nearly three-quarters of the expellees. 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: German citizenship law defines national belonging through racial blood descent — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1716; German imperial thinking long rejected multi-ethnicity and pursued ethnic homogeneity — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 66; A constructed shared victimhood unified diverse displaced German groups. — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 184 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• German citizenship law defines national belonging through racial blood descent #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1716
• German racial-biological nationalism emerged as a substitute for failed political nationhood #expands (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 446
• German imperial thinking long rejected multi-ethnicity and pursued ethnic homogeneity #expands (0.75) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 66
• A constructed shared victimhood unified diverse displaced German groups. #complicates (0.75) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 184