German citizenship test to include questions on Israel and Holocaust

The test for German citizenship will in future include questions on the Jewish religion, the Holocaust and the state of Israel.

"Anti-Semitism, racism and other forms of contempt for humanity rule out naturalisation," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told the Spiegel weekly in its Thursday edition.

"Anyone who does not share our values cannot get a German passport," Feaser said in the report first published on the magazine's website.

In the new citizenship test, which applicants must pass to acquire German nationality, candidates could be asked the name of the Jewish place of worship, the founding year of Israel or Germany's particular historical obligation to it, according to Spiegel.

The punishments for Holocaust denial and the membership requirements for Jewish sports clubs would also be among the possible questions, according to the magazine.

Commitment to protecting Jewish life

Germany recently agreed to ease strict citizenship laws, reducing the time needed to be able to apply for a passport and making dual nationality more available.

The overhaul of Germany's citizenship legislation was a key pledge made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left-led coalition government when it came to power at the end of 2021.

The change to the law was put forward in August last year but came under scrutiny following Israel's war on Gaza and in the context of a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, according to the government.

In addition to a commitment to the constitution, applicants will now also be required to make a commitment to protecting Jewish life in Germany.

Under normal conditions, candidates will be able to apply for citizenship after five years in Germany, as opposed to eight previously.

Those who are particularly well-integrated and have very good German language skills will be able to obtain nationality after just three years.

Unacceptable double-standard

A leading political expert said earlier that the new German law requiring immigrants to recognise Israel’s right to exist as a condition to gain nationality is Berlin’s attempt to whitewash its brutal Nazi past at the cost of Palestinian lives.

“Germany demands acknowledgment of Israel's right to exist as Israel wages a genocidal war in Gaza,” says distinguished Jewish-American scholar and activist Norman Finkelstein,

The bill states that it is “pushing for the acquisition of German citizenship to be dependent on a commitment to Israel's right to exist and a declaration that the naturalisation applicant has not pursued or will pursue any endeavors directed against the existence of the State of Israel”.

According to Finkelstein, Germany’s military support for Israel, in light of the law, shows that it is willing to uphold an unacceptable double-standard, namely that it is permissible for Israel to wrong Palestinians but not for Germans to oppose that.