Dual Citizenship / doppelte Staatsbürgerschaft
End of January:
In January 2019 we had to go and get H’s German ID card /Ausweis renewed at our local town hall. So we don’t have to sit around all morning waiting, we booked on-line a time slot and got a code number. We still arrived early just in case. We each took a seat and promptly put them back and sat on them.
There was a monitor on the wall showing codes and corresponding room numbers. Every now and then new number pairs would appear and old ones disappear.
With every update a bell would ring. As with the other ‘waiters’ sitting around we would all looked up in sync and then someone would stand up and go off in the direction of the room number indicated by the green arrow next to the code. Sometimes another bell with a slightly different tone would also ring indicating the arrival of the nearby lift. This confused one at first but after a while one could differentiate by which bell one had to look up to.
After a while something interesting happed to speculate upon while waiting. The code 5005 appeared but without its corresponding room number (see left). Even after a monitor refresh its still sat there on its own!
It was probably a glitch in the system or someone had forgotten to delete the code as the appointment was taken. We started to look around, trying our best not to stare. But we couldn’t see the eyes of anyone fixed on the monitor with a puzzled or panic look that might indicate the unlucky person who had drawn a blank with the 5005 ticket! It was still on its own as our code appeared and we went off in search of the room indicated.
We knocked, entered, was asked to sit down and H went through the formalities of identification, signing on a screen for use on the ID card and paying for the right to be officially German for another 10 years. I was asked if I was renewing my ID as well. I said that I didn’t have one, explaining that I was British and although I had been living in Germany since 1973 there wasn’t ever a need to apply for German citizenship as I never saw it as a hindrance not being German.
The woman behind the deck smiled to my reply but I couldn’t really tell if it was either with interest or possible pity. I reflected on the fact that over the years on numerous occasions that it has been an advantage to be British living here. That I could have had both nationalities for quite some time never crossed my mind. Well that’s not quite true. I had thought about it and still hadn’t done it until now is probably material for another post..
I felt a moderately painful nudge in the ribs from H that brought me back out of my reverie and as I looked at her she mouthed ‘Brexit’. I nodded and remembered her anxiety about the March deadline coming up and the possible consequences if Britain, in worse case, left the EC without a deal. As is my nature, and to H’s constant frustration, I usually leave important decisions like this one to the last minute, with bouts of bruised ribs as a consequence.
I must say my reluctance to see what may happen at ‘home’ was slowly getting to me. It was in my mind the wrong decision to even contemplate leaving and hoped they would wake from this nightmare before it was too late. As a consequence up to that point I had ignored the warnings.
Britain will always be in the broad sense ‘home’, but a home I remember from my youth and as I hadn’t taken part in its social changes for almost half a century it was slowly dawning on me that the present day Britain had changed more than I wanted to concede too and had become in many ways ‘foreign’ to me.
Of course Germany is also home but as I didn’t spend my first 22 years here I can’t relate to things others of my age experienced while growing up. There is always something missing while talking to friends and family in either Britain or Germany. One gets a saddened frustration of being in some ways an outsider on both sides of the Channel.
So with H’s painful prompt and the realisation of the possible mayhem approaching I took the opportunity to ask how to go about getting German citizenship. I felt H’s relief in her voice as she took the piece of paper with the telephone number of the department where immigration formalities were taken care off.
I rang the number on getting back home. I asked for an appointment to see what I would need and to my surprise, as I had heard it can take up to months, I had one for the following week! This time on the phone we were given a code and time slot for the appointment.
This meant we would not have to take a ticket on arrival as there had been a lot of people queuing and sitting around that morning, mostly non-European by the look and sound of it. With the immigration wave over the last months one had seen and heard more non-European faces and voices, but it struck home, in the county offices, the high concentration of different nationalities with their individual fates trying to make a better life for themselves.
Before the appointment I went into the Net to get an idea up front of what would be needed. I usually get slightly flustered at such appointments and forget half of what I’m told, so its a good idea to have ones own check list beforehand of questions to ask and possibly need.
I found the website of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees / Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) and the conditions for naturalisation. I checked also the German texts as they are more detailed in places.
I made a check list and added a few notes to it. Click on the link to take a look. At first glance it looked good so I didn’t panic.
Begin of February:
We arrived at the appointment with half an hour to spare found seats and waited. As before a bell, other than the lift bell, would ring and someone would stand up and wander off into one of the numerous corridors. Our time slot came and went. Eventually our code appeared ‘only’ ten minutes late. We were only relieved that the code appeared at all.
We found the room, knocked and entered. There were two inhabitants sitting at desks opposite one another with computer screens between them blocking any direct eye contact. The woman closest to the door asked us to sit down and following introductions we explained why we were there.
The women promptly said. “The date of the application is important for the process and not the date of when citizenship is finally given”.
Wow! She had answered ’The Question’ before we had asked it!
I looked at H, were both relieved.
As we had heard that the nationalisation process in some German cities was taking up to six months and more, we were a little worried that the procedure would not be finished before the March Brexit deadline. But know it didn’t really matter how long the process took. The main thing was to get the ball rolling. Even through I was now relieved and timing was not a problem I still wanted to get it all over with without delay as I had scheduled a leg operation at the beginning of May (another post).
She went on to explain that the question ‘Is there still time?’ is usually the first question asked and now she answers it upfront to break the tension as early as possible. It seems I was not the only Brit in town that was going through the process (I found out later there were 27).
Following a few formalities including handing over a copy of my residents permit / Aufenthaltserlaubnis, I was given a checklist of things I needed to do and bring with me next time. This included a ten page questionnaire that was to be completed but only signed when I came back next time.
Luckily most of the things on the checklist were straight forward and included the conditions I had found on the website. I must say I was mildly surprised when I saw that I needed a CV. I went into mild shock when she told me it had to be handwritten! She must have seen the look on my face and apologised but this was a stipulation and as archaic it is, it had to be so.
I was really buff, nobody writes CV’s by hand anymore. There are even templates being sold in the Net in various formats to get one started! Over the years I have seen quite a number of CV’s from applicants applying for a job in my company. Some were plain and some fancy, the CV that is. Mostly they were just lists of achievements with dates and little or no prose and never handwritten.
And here I was having to go back and practice my non existent pen writing skills again! I really though I had this behind me!
She asked when I would like to come again after I had finished my homework. I said ASAP expecting at least a month which would have been plenty of time to get everything done. She looked at her calendar and said “How about next week”’
I was again surprised at how quick this was going!
I of course said “Yes please!” and we got a new code and time slot.
She prompted me to get registered for the Naturalisation Test / Einbürgerungstest as quick as possible as this could be the longest delay in the process. This was because in our town the test could only be taken every two months. Also getting the results from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees / Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge in Nürenburg could take a further four to six weeks.
Before I could ask she carried on to say that all other formalities, like the questionnaire and the other necessary documents listed (Birth certificate, financial independence etc.) can be processed independently of the test. Also when the test certificate arrives I only needed to hand it in to her without having to make an appointment.
So before we went home it was off to our local College of Further Education / Volkshochschule to book the test. The next test was scheduled for the beginning of March. So I got my name down, paid the 25 Euros and we struggled home in a snow storm.
End of February:
At home I went through the list again. Most of the documents I had anticipated beforehand and copied and ready in a folder.
They wanted information to education, so I added copies of my school certificates. Not that my school reports were relevant to my application but I can understand it was a standard request.
They also wanted evidence of German language skills. It seems that being in Germany for two score and six years didn’t count. It looked at first like I would have to take a language test! But it turned out that my year ‘updating’ my English Med. Lab. Technician qualifications to the German equivalent was adequate. I was quite relieved after finding that out. I wasn’t concerned with an aural test it was a written test I was worried about!
Next was the ten page questionnaire.
Most of it was straightforward. The last page before signing was a statement concerning Declaration of loyalty / Loyalitätserklärung in a hardly readable small point font. I found the content interesting so I translated it with the help of Google. Click the link above to have a look.
I decided to leave the handwritten CV to last and get into the right frame of mind to execute it properly. My old panic / frustrations concerning handwriting were appearing in the peripheral and I needed to keep them at bay.
The last time I had handwritten anything of length was my CV for applying for work in the pharmaceutical industry in 1984! It was mandatory and just for the HR department to file away and said little about the qualifications needed for the job I was going to do. The time before that was writing my application in 1968 when applying for my first job in a hospital lab. Both times I was in panic trying not to make mistakes. It was not the physical writing that was the problem, although being left handed and not using the hand over the text method resulted in the letters appearing on the paper leaning 45 degrees to the left or worse the letters laying down on top of each other, but because I’m dyslexic.
It doesn’t matter if it’s in English or German, although German is slightly better than English if the words are of normal length which is unfortunately not the case with German in general. I just can’t see the words in my mind and as my pronunciation is also terrible due to not reading correctly I can’t in some cases even start the word I’m typing so that auto-correction would give hints.
To complicate matters further as I am handwriting my hand seems to take off on its own getting ahead of the letters I need to write! Quite often I have to go back and correct myself. This ‘method’ is ok on the computer but not when one is coming to the end of a full page of written text and one makes a mistake and has to start again from the top!! Thinking about it, maybe I could have made clear ‘readable’ corrections in the CV but I was in the distant past writing my job application with my father hovering over me and with each mistake I would be made to screw it up and start again with a clean sheet. It took ages. Luckily my first application hit home and it’s quite possible I took the job so I didn’t need to write anymore applications.
So the weekend arrived. I dug out a copy of my last handwritten CV from 1984, typed it into word and added the relevant prose covering the next 35 years. I printed it out and had H check my spelling and grammar. After making a few corrections (it was better than I thought it would be) I again printed and started to copy it as slowly as I could making sure to start breathing again after finishing long words.
After each paragraph I would take a break and meditate a while. Then with a fresh start tackle the next block. I hadn’t been so nervous in a long time! Panic really set in when approaching the end of a page. A mistake then would mean starting the page again! I did make two ‘typos’ but luckily at the top of a page. The CV came to three and half pages and it took about an hour although it felt much longer. H read it, handed it back smiling and I filed it away with relief and tried to get back to normal with a fresh cuppa tea..
I completed the form made a copy for myself, added it to the folder plus the other documents and their originals just in case they had to see them.
As before, we arrived for the appointment, listened for bells, went to the room indicated, entered and handed over the paperwork. Everything was in order, I said that the test was scheduled for March and we left after paying 255 € for the application.
March:
In March I took my citizenship test. I turned up at the local college to find about ten people in semi-dead silence sitting at desks evenly distributed around the classroom. There were two women standing up front, one rummaging around in a pile of paperwork while the other asked for my name and passport. I handed over both of them, she looked at my passport, and I got a friendly but dry remark “Ah another British refuge!”.
With this an almost subliminal murmur of amused acknowledgement rippled around the room. I just smiled with an artistic hint of embarrassment.
My passport was returned and was followed by “Mobile?”
“Yes and turned off!” I said with another smile.
This didn’t deter her from still asking me to put it on the front desk with the others before I went looking for a vacant space to sit in. As I wandered off I heard her from behind giving me subtle hints in what direction to go so as to be as far as possible from the others in the room.
It was like being at evening classes again in the late 60s. That was at a time when I was speculating on what to do profession wise. I just had no idea and even now I have retired I’m still have no idea.. Not that I was there long (the evening classes that is) it was a mini computer course with tests to see if I was able to conceive and adapt to working in the branch. As I didn’t pass it, apparently I wasn’t! That little setback didn’t stop me starting as a hobby to work with and program them professionally most of my life..
Anyway as we sat around waiting for the stragglers to arrive I looked at the big clock dominating one wall. The test should have started five minutes ago. A newcomer came in and turned out to be another Brit. He also got the ‘refuge’ remark and as he looked for a free seat I remarked with a semi-loud under my breath murmur that I would rather have a passport in blue with a circle of yellow stars.
As I looked around I got a favourable response to this from a few in the room.
As the woman from Admin (the other was a teacher) went off looking for the latees we were informed about how the test would run. There would be 33 questions with 4 possible answers of which only one was correct. We would have one hour to finish and 17 questions had to be correct to pass. With examples on the blackboard we were shown how to tick a box and how to correct any mistakes we may inadvertently make.
This mini lesson in form-filling went something like this.
If a tick in a box was wrong the box had to be completely filled in to indicate a wrong answer and then a tick can be made elsewhere. If one changed ones mind and the filled out box indicating a wrong answer happened to be the correct answer then one had to circle the now filled out wrong answer, to indicate that this answer was correct.
I, seeing always complexity in something simple, did for a split second contemplate raising my hand to ask what we were to do if we realised that the circled-corrected incorrect answer was incorrect! But I thought better of it as we would have probably been there all day discussing which shapes to use for the next level(s) of correction.
In the meantime Admin had returned with one in tow. Formalities were carried out and a further empty seat was seated upon. We were then informed that each of us would have their own personified questionnaire each with a different set of questions. I wondered about making sure we were all evenly distributed around the class room with at least three chairs between us, when we would each have a random set of 33 questions from a pool of 300 general questions plus 10 specific for our state.
Names were readout, hands raised and a surprisingly thick wad of paper plunked down in front of us. I’m glad they had said up front that one could go when one was finished, as I didn’t believe I would need an hour to answer only 33 questions!
We were told to first to check and if needed to correct my data on the front page. The form had to have exactly the same data as our passports; otherwise there would be trouble at mill in that the test would be void. It’s good that I checked as they had Romford down as birth place which is correct. On my passport it says Hornchurch which is were I was registered. Although they were at the time of my birth separate districts. The next four pages were a repeat of the correction process given to us earlier on the blackboard. The questions were three to a page which would account for the large number of pages before me.
Well I was finished in about three minutes. This was all a bit surreal. I had a detached feeling I was looking on at what I was reading and ticking. It was sort of automatic and robot like and then I was suddenly finished! I found this over all too quick, so I spent a further minute going through the questions again to see if I had overlooked anything.
No, all in order and every question ticked. I then signed the last page got up handed over the questionnaire picked up my Mobile and with a friendly nod left. I wasn’t the first to leave either, second actually. All quick and painless.
On reflection I think practicing in the week before the test once a day was a good idea. All the questions are officially online. The web page allows you to tick one of the four possibilities and you are them informed of the correct answer. One could move backwards and forwards between questions.
I was getting through all the questions in about 50 minutes. A few I would get wrong, mainly because I jumped on an answer before reading all the answers first! Most questions started with ‘What is ..’ but a few started with ‘What is not ..’ which was tricky at first.
Any questions I could not answer or wasn’t sure of I would ask H. She also had sometimes problems when it came to the political system. The first run through took quite some time. I’m not sure how many I got right but it was about 70%. This I was pleased about, as over 50% was enough to pass.
If I got a question wrong I would note the number and at the end of the session go back and repeat them. Sometimes I would start at the end and go forward or jump around at random to make sure I wasn’t learning a sequence / pattern and not focusing on the question before me. This helped in the end as I was making at first more mistakes this way. All in all it was an interesting experience being back in a class room.
I found H sitting outside and reading. She was somewhat surprised to see me. She asked me what questions I had had, but I could not recollect any of them! As we stood there putting on our coats, the other Brit came out and we chatted a bit. His wife was Dutch and they lived in Germany and as his Dutch was not that good he decided to go for German citizenship and not Dutch. The main thing for him with this Brexit lark was to get also an EC nationality so that he wouldn’t have problems with his UK pension. Something about having to pay tax on it. Not sure what he meant by that.
I don’t get that much pension from the UK as I only worked from 1969 to 1973 in London, and from that time only paid into the German system. Actually I am very surprise I get anything! Berlin did all the work for me when I applied for my German pension which was nice of them. What surprised me even more is I’m now getting double the amount in UK pension as I was getting in my wage packet when I was working there! Ok its 50 years on, but still mind boggling!
Thinking again about a blue yellow stared passport, if there was to be a test to become European, what language would it be in? Although the logical choice, I doubt if the language would be English, as they are doing there dam-ness to leave Europe at the moment and making a right botch-up of it to boot!
So it was now just waiting for the results.
End of March:
My test certificate arrived within three weeks, much quicker than I anticipated. All 33 questions were correct which I had hoped/expected. I went to the council offices and gave up the last piece of the puzzle. I was told if all goes well I could order my German ID sometime in April. They would be in touch so I could come and pickup the Certificate. At that point timing looked good.
I had heard from friends and seen in the net that there could be an official ‘welcome’ ceremony / party with the German equivalent of pomp and circumstance; I just hoped it would not be that embarrassing.
Begin of April:
In April I received a letter that said I could come and get my citizenship certificate. I went on-line and registered a time slot. H had another appointment on the day so I went alone, thinking it was nothing more than to just pick up the certificate.
As before, on arrival: sit, bell, code, corridor, knock and enter.
I sat down and was given a sheet of paper with a short text. The women said she was just going to make a copy of the certificate and while she was away I should read it through as I would have to read it aloud when she got back.
Oh!!
I carefully read it through making sure I could read and pronounce everything correctly in my head. On returning she asked me to take my time and read it to her. When I was finished she said thank you and I think I remember signing it.
She handed over the certificate shook my hand and said “Congratulations you are now German!”
Again Oh!!
I was a little surprised as I thought I would become German when I got my ID card!
“No” she said. “You are now, by giving your oath and getting the certificate, officially a German citizen. The ID only indicates that the procedure has been carried out”.
I thanked her and as I was about to leave I mentioned that I had heard that there could be a ceremony of some kind. She gave me a faint smile and said ‘no’ not in our district.
I thanked her again for her time and left.
On the way home I had mixed feelings. It was a little weird that after so long that I got an ‘additional’ nationality. I was also both relieved and with a touch of disappointment that there wasn’t going to be an official party.
H was surprised and a little disappointed that she had missed the ‘mini ceremony’. She asked me about what I had to read aloud but I just could not recollect the text.
So I looked it up and here it is.
On reading it again I remember it vaguely. What is a little unusual is that the English text is longer than the German..
End of April:
I could now order and pick up my German ID card. H tagged along this time. It fits nicely in my wallet along with my bank and credit cards. Now after 46 years I can leave my oversized British passport at home instead of carting it about with me all the time! I will have to remember not to panic when I go for my wallet and miss the shape and size of it, as they have always been next to each other in my pocket.
One thing I forgot to ask before leaving was what do I say when I’m officially asked my nationality! Do I pick one of the two or do I have to say both and if so in which order?
In January 2019 we had to go and get H’s German ID card /Ausweis renewed at our local town hall. So we don’t have to sit around all morning waiting, we booked on-line a time slot and got a code number. We still arrived early just in case. We each took a seat and promptly put them back and sat on them.There was a monitor on the wall showing codes and corresponding room numbers. Every now and then new number pairs would appear and old ones disappear.
With every update a bell would ring. As with the other ‘waiters’ sitting around we would all looked up in sync and then someone would stand up and go off in the direction of the room number indicated by the green arrow next to the code. Sometimes another bell with a slightly different tone would also ring indicating the arrival of the nearby lift. This confused one at first but after a while one could differentiate by which bell one had to look up to.
After a while something interesting happed to speculate upon while waiting. The code 5005 appeared but without its corresponding room number (see left). Even after a monitor refresh its still sat there on its own!It was probably a glitch in the system or someone had forgotten to delete the code as the appointment was taken. We started to look around, trying our best not to stare. But we couldn’t see the eyes of anyone fixed on the monitor with a puzzled or panic look that might indicate the unlucky person who had drawn a blank with the 5005 ticket! It was still on its own as our code appeared and we went off in search of the room indicated.
We knocked, entered, was asked to sit down and H went through the formalities of identification, signing on a screen for use on the ID card and paying for the right to be officially German for another 10 years. I was asked if I was renewing my ID as well. I said that I didn’t have one, explaining that I was British and although I had been living in Germany since 1973 there wasn’t ever a need to apply for German citizenship as I never saw it as a hindrance not being German.
The woman behind the deck smiled to my reply but I couldn’t really tell if it was either with interest or possible pity. I reflected on the fact that over the years on numerous occasions that it has been an advantage to be British living here. That I could have had both nationalities for quite some time never crossed my mind. Well that’s not quite true. I had thought about it and still hadn’t done it until now is probably material for another post..
I felt a moderately painful nudge in the ribs from H that brought me back out of my reverie and as I looked at her she mouthed ‘Brexit’. I nodded and remembered her anxiety about the March deadline coming up and the possible consequences if Britain, in worse case, left the EC without a deal. As is my nature, and to H’s constant frustration, I usually leave important decisions like this one to the last minute, with bouts of bruised ribs as a consequence.
I must say my reluctance to see what may happen at ‘home’ was slowly getting to me. It was in my mind the wrong decision to even contemplate leaving and hoped they would wake from this nightmare before it was too late. As a consequence up to that point I had ignored the warnings.
Britain will always be in the broad sense ‘home’, but a home I remember from my youth and as I hadn’t taken part in its social changes for almost half a century it was slowly dawning on me that the present day Britain had changed more than I wanted to concede too and had become in many ways ‘foreign’ to me.
Of course Germany is also home but as I didn’t spend my first 22 years here I can’t relate to things others of my age experienced while growing up. There is always something missing while talking to friends and family in either Britain or Germany. One gets a saddened frustration of being in some ways an outsider on both sides of the Channel.
So with H’s painful prompt and the realisation of the possible mayhem approaching I took the opportunity to ask how to go about getting German citizenship. I felt H’s relief in her voice as she took the piece of paper with the telephone number of the department where immigration formalities were taken care off.
I rang the number on getting back home. I asked for an appointment to see what I would need and to my surprise, as I had heard it can take up to months, I had one for the following week! This time on the phone we were given a code and time slot for the appointment.
This meant we would not have to take a ticket on arrival as there had been a lot of people queuing and sitting around that morning, mostly non-European by the look and sound of it. With the immigration wave over the last months one had seen and heard more non-European faces and voices, but it struck home, in the county offices, the high concentration of different nationalities with their individual fates trying to make a better life for themselves.
Before the appointment I went into the Net to get an idea up front of what would be needed. I usually get slightly flustered at such appointments and forget half of what I’m told, so its a good idea to have ones own check list beforehand of questions to ask and possibly need.
I found the website of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees / Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) and the conditions for naturalisation. I checked also the German texts as they are more detailed in places.
I made a check list and added a few notes to it. Click on the link to take a look. At first glance it looked good so I didn’t panic.
Begin of February:
We arrived at the appointment with half an hour to spare found seats and waited. As before a bell, other than the lift bell, would ring and someone would stand up and wander off into one of the numerous corridors. Our time slot came and went. Eventually our code appeared ‘only’ ten minutes late. We were only relieved that the code appeared at all.
We found the room, knocked and entered. There were two inhabitants sitting at desks opposite one another with computer screens between them blocking any direct eye contact. The woman closest to the door asked us to sit down and following introductions we explained why we were there.
The women promptly said. “The date of the application is important for the process and not the date of when citizenship is finally given”.
Wow! She had answered ’The Question’ before we had asked it!
I looked at H, were both relieved.
As we had heard that the nationalisation process in some German cities was taking up to six months and more, we were a little worried that the procedure would not be finished before the March Brexit deadline. But know it didn’t really matter how long the process took. The main thing was to get the ball rolling. Even through I was now relieved and timing was not a problem I still wanted to get it all over with without delay as I had scheduled a leg operation at the beginning of May (another post).
She went on to explain that the question ‘Is there still time?’ is usually the first question asked and now she answers it upfront to break the tension as early as possible. It seems I was not the only Brit in town that was going through the process (I found out later there were 27).
Following a few formalities including handing over a copy of my residents permit / Aufenthaltserlaubnis, I was given a checklist of things I needed to do and bring with me next time. This included a ten page questionnaire that was to be completed but only signed when I came back next time.
Luckily most of the things on the checklist were straight forward and included the conditions I had found on the website. I must say I was mildly surprised when I saw that I needed a CV. I went into mild shock when she told me it had to be handwritten! She must have seen the look on my face and apologised but this was a stipulation and as archaic it is, it had to be so.
I was really buff, nobody writes CV’s by hand anymore. There are even templates being sold in the Net in various formats to get one started! Over the years I have seen quite a number of CV’s from applicants applying for a job in my company. Some were plain and some fancy, the CV that is. Mostly they were just lists of achievements with dates and little or no prose and never handwritten. And here I was having to go back and practice my non existent pen writing skills again! I really though I had this behind me!
She asked when I would like to come again after I had finished my homework. I said ASAP expecting at least a month which would have been plenty of time to get everything done. She looked at her calendar and said “How about next week”’
I was again surprised at how quick this was going!
I of course said “Yes please!” and we got a new code and time slot.
She prompted me to get registered for the Naturalisation Test / Einbürgerungstest as quick as possible as this could be the longest delay in the process. This was because in our town the test could only be taken every two months. Also getting the results from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees / Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge in Nürenburg could take a further four to six weeks.
Before I could ask she carried on to say that all other formalities, like the questionnaire and the other necessary documents listed (Birth certificate, financial independence etc.) can be processed independently of the test. Also when the test certificate arrives I only needed to hand it in to her without having to make an appointment.
So before we went home it was off to our local College of Further Education / Volkshochschule to book the test. The next test was scheduled for the beginning of March. So I got my name down, paid the 25 Euros and we struggled home in a snow storm.
End of February:
At home I went through the list again. Most of the documents I had anticipated beforehand and copied and ready in a folder.
They wanted information to education, so I added copies of my school certificates. Not that my school reports were relevant to my application but I can understand it was a standard request.
They also wanted evidence of German language skills. It seems that being in Germany for two score and six years didn’t count. It looked at first like I would have to take a language test! But it turned out that my year ‘updating’ my English Med. Lab. Technician qualifications to the German equivalent was adequate. I was quite relieved after finding that out. I wasn’t concerned with an aural test it was a written test I was worried about!
Next was the ten page questionnaire.Most of it was straightforward. The last page before signing was a statement concerning Declaration of loyalty / Loyalitätserklärung in a hardly readable small point font. I found the content interesting so I translated it with the help of Google. Click the link above to have a look.
I decided to leave the handwritten CV to last and get into the right frame of mind to execute it properly. My old panic / frustrations concerning handwriting were appearing in the peripheral and I needed to keep them at bay.
The last time I had handwritten anything of length was my CV for applying for work in the pharmaceutical industry in 1984! It was mandatory and just for the HR department to file away and said little about the qualifications needed for the job I was going to do. The time before that was writing my application in 1968 when applying for my first job in a hospital lab. Both times I was in panic trying not to make mistakes. It was not the physical writing that was the problem, although being left handed and not using the hand over the text method resulted in the letters appearing on the paper leaning 45 degrees to the left or worse the letters laying down on top of each other, but because I’m dyslexic.
It doesn’t matter if it’s in English or German, although German is slightly better than English if the words are of normal length which is unfortunately not the case with German in general. I just can’t see the words in my mind and as my pronunciation is also terrible due to not reading correctly I can’t in some cases even start the word I’m typing so that auto-correction would give hints.To complicate matters further as I am handwriting my hand seems to take off on its own getting ahead of the letters I need to write! Quite often I have to go back and correct myself. This ‘method’ is ok on the computer but not when one is coming to the end of a full page of written text and one makes a mistake and has to start again from the top!! Thinking about it, maybe I could have made clear ‘readable’ corrections in the CV but I was in the distant past writing my job application with my father hovering over me and with each mistake I would be made to screw it up and start again with a clean sheet. It took ages. Luckily my first application hit home and it’s quite possible I took the job so I didn’t need to write anymore applications.
So the weekend arrived. I dug out a copy of my last handwritten CV from 1984, typed it into word and added the relevant prose covering the next 35 years. I printed it out and had H check my spelling and grammar. After making a few corrections (it was better than I thought it would be) I again printed and started to copy it as slowly as I could making sure to start breathing again after finishing long words. After each paragraph I would take a break and meditate a while. Then with a fresh start tackle the next block. I hadn’t been so nervous in a long time! Panic really set in when approaching the end of a page. A mistake then would mean starting the page again! I did make two ‘typos’ but luckily at the top of a page. The CV came to three and half pages and it took about an hour although it felt much longer. H read it, handed it back smiling and I filed it away with relief and tried to get back to normal with a fresh cuppa tea..
I completed the form made a copy for myself, added it to the folder plus the other documents and their originals just in case they had to see them.
As before, we arrived for the appointment, listened for bells, went to the room indicated, entered and handed over the paperwork. Everything was in order, I said that the test was scheduled for March and we left after paying 255 € for the application.
March:
In March I took my citizenship test. I turned up at the local college to find about ten people in semi-dead silence sitting at desks evenly distributed around the classroom. There were two women standing up front, one rummaging around in a pile of paperwork while the other asked for my name and passport. I handed over both of them, she looked at my passport, and I got a friendly but dry remark “Ah another British refuge!”.With this an almost subliminal murmur of amused acknowledgement rippled around the room. I just smiled with an artistic hint of embarrassment.
My passport was returned and was followed by “Mobile?”
“Yes and turned off!” I said with another smile.
This didn’t deter her from still asking me to put it on the front desk with the others before I went looking for a vacant space to sit in. As I wandered off I heard her from behind giving me subtle hints in what direction to go so as to be as far as possible from the others in the room.
It was like being at evening classes again in the late 60s. That was at a time when I was speculating on what to do profession wise. I just had no idea and even now I have retired I’m still have no idea.. Not that I was there long (the evening classes that is) it was a mini computer course with tests to see if I was able to conceive and adapt to working in the branch. As I didn’t pass it, apparently I wasn’t! That little setback didn’t stop me starting as a hobby to work with and program them professionally most of my life..
Anyway as we sat around waiting for the stragglers to arrive I looked at the big clock dominating one wall. The test should have started five minutes ago. A newcomer came in and turned out to be another Brit. He also got the ‘refuge’ remark and as he looked for a free seat I remarked with a semi-loud under my breath murmur that I would rather have a passport in blue with a circle of yellow stars. As I looked around I got a favourable response to this from a few in the room.
As the woman from Admin (the other was a teacher) went off looking for the latees we were informed about how the test would run. There would be 33 questions with 4 possible answers of which only one was correct. We would have one hour to finish and 17 questions had to be correct to pass. With examples on the blackboard we were shown how to tick a box and how to correct any mistakes we may inadvertently make.
This mini lesson in form-filling went something like this.
If a tick in a box was wrong the box had to be completely filled in to indicate a wrong answer and then a tick can be made elsewhere. If one changed ones mind and the filled out box indicating a wrong answer happened to be the correct answer then one had to circle the now filled out wrong answer, to indicate that this answer was correct.
I, seeing always complexity in something simple, did for a split second contemplate raising my hand to ask what we were to do if we realised that the circled-corrected incorrect answer was incorrect! But I thought better of it as we would have probably been there all day discussing which shapes to use for the next level(s) of correction.
In the meantime Admin had returned with one in tow. Formalities were carried out and a further empty seat was seated upon. We were then informed that each of us would have their own personified questionnaire each with a different set of questions. I wondered about making sure we were all evenly distributed around the class room with at least three chairs between us, when we would each have a random set of 33 questions from a pool of 300 general questions plus 10 specific for our state.
Names were readout, hands raised and a surprisingly thick wad of paper plunked down in front of us. I’m glad they had said up front that one could go when one was finished, as I didn’t believe I would need an hour to answer only 33 questions!
We were told to first to check and if needed to correct my data on the front page. The form had to have exactly the same data as our passports; otherwise there would be trouble at mill in that the test would be void. It’s good that I checked as they had Romford down as birth place which is correct. On my passport it says Hornchurch which is were I was registered. Although they were at the time of my birth separate districts. The next four pages were a repeat of the correction process given to us earlier on the blackboard. The questions were three to a page which would account for the large number of pages before me.
Well I was finished in about three minutes. This was all a bit surreal. I had a detached feeling I was looking on at what I was reading and ticking. It was sort of automatic and robot like and then I was suddenly finished! I found this over all too quick, so I spent a further minute going through the questions again to see if I had overlooked anything.
No, all in order and every question ticked. I then signed the last page got up handed over the questionnaire picked up my Mobile and with a friendly nod left. I wasn’t the first to leave either, second actually. All quick and painless.
On reflection I think practicing in the week before the test once a day was a good idea. All the questions are officially online. The web page allows you to tick one of the four possibilities and you are them informed of the correct answer. One could move backwards and forwards between questions.
I was getting through all the questions in about 50 minutes. A few I would get wrong, mainly because I jumped on an answer before reading all the answers first! Most questions started with ‘What is ..’ but a few started with ‘What is not ..’ which was tricky at first.
Any questions I could not answer or wasn’t sure of I would ask H. She also had sometimes problems when it came to the political system. The first run through took quite some time. I’m not sure how many I got right but it was about 70%. This I was pleased about, as over 50% was enough to pass.
If I got a question wrong I would note the number and at the end of the session go back and repeat them. Sometimes I would start at the end and go forward or jump around at random to make sure I wasn’t learning a sequence / pattern and not focusing on the question before me. This helped in the end as I was making at first more mistakes this way. All in all it was an interesting experience being back in a class room.
I found H sitting outside and reading. She was somewhat surprised to see me. She asked me what questions I had had, but I could not recollect any of them! As we stood there putting on our coats, the other Brit came out and we chatted a bit. His wife was Dutch and they lived in Germany and as his Dutch was not that good he decided to go for German citizenship and not Dutch. The main thing for him with this Brexit lark was to get also an EC nationality so that he wouldn’t have problems with his UK pension. Something about having to pay tax on it. Not sure what he meant by that.
I don’t get that much pension from the UK as I only worked from 1969 to 1973 in London, and from that time only paid into the German system. Actually I am very surprise I get anything! Berlin did all the work for me when I applied for my German pension which was nice of them. What surprised me even more is I’m now getting double the amount in UK pension as I was getting in my wage packet when I was working there! Ok its 50 years on, but still mind boggling!
Thinking again about a blue yellow stared passport, if there was to be a test to become European, what language would it be in? Although the logical choice, I doubt if the language would be English, as they are doing there dam-ness to leave Europe at the moment and making a right botch-up of it to boot!
So it was now just waiting for the results.
End of March:
My test certificate arrived within three weeks, much quicker than I anticipated. All 33 questions were correct which I had hoped/expected. I went to the council offices and gave up the last piece of the puzzle. I was told if all goes well I could order my German ID sometime in April. They would be in touch so I could come and pickup the Certificate. At that point timing looked good.
I had heard from friends and seen in the net that there could be an official ‘welcome’ ceremony / party with the German equivalent of pomp and circumstance; I just hoped it would not be that embarrassing.
Begin of April:
In April I received a letter that said I could come and get my citizenship certificate. I went on-line and registered a time slot. H had another appointment on the day so I went alone, thinking it was nothing more than to just pick up the certificate.
As before, on arrival: sit, bell, code, corridor, knock and enter.
I sat down and was given a sheet of paper with a short text. The women said she was just going to make a copy of the certificate and while she was away I should read it through as I would have to read it aloud when she got back.
Oh!!
I carefully read it through making sure I could read and pronounce everything correctly in my head. On returning she asked me to take my time and read it to her. When I was finished she said thank you and I think I remember signing it.
She handed over the certificate shook my hand and said “Congratulations you are now German!”
Again Oh!!
I was a little surprised as I thought I would become German when I got my ID card!
“No” she said. “You are now, by giving your oath and getting the certificate, officially a German citizen. The ID only indicates that the procedure has been carried out”.
I thanked her and as I was about to leave I mentioned that I had heard that there could be a ceremony of some kind. She gave me a faint smile and said ‘no’ not in our district.
I thanked her again for her time and left.
On the way home I had mixed feelings. It was a little weird that after so long that I got an ‘additional’ nationality. I was also both relieved and with a touch of disappointment that there wasn’t going to be an official party.
H was surprised and a little disappointed that she had missed the ‘mini ceremony’. She asked me about what I had to read aloud but I just could not recollect the text.
So I looked it up and here it is.
| English | Deutsch |
|---|---|
| I solemnly declare that I will respect and observe the Basic Law and the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, and that I will refrain from any activity which might cause it harm. | Ich erkläre feierlich, dass ich das Grundgesetz und die Gesetze der Bundesrepublik Deutschland achten und alles unterlassen werde, was ihr schaden könnte. |
End of April:
I could now order and pick up my German ID card. H tagged along this time. It fits nicely in my wallet along with my bank and credit cards. Now after 46 years I can leave my oversized British passport at home instead of carting it about with me all the time! I will have to remember not to panic when I go for my wallet and miss the shape and size of it, as they have always been next to each other in my pocket.One thing I forgot to ask before leaving was what do I say when I’m officially asked my nationality! Do I pick one of the two or do I have to say both and if so in which order?
Leave a Comment