Shea Levin — text status

Germany has received more than 170,000 citizenship applications since 2023 from victims of the Nazi regime and their descendants, and Israelis lead the list by a wide margin, filing close to 45 percent of them. The surge followed a 2021 reform that widened eligibility to descendants. Last year, 5,924 of the 11,500 approvals worldwide went to Israelis, and applications from Israel have broken records since the October 7 massacre. Officials say that for many, a German passport is a calculated fallback plan rather than a sign of immediate immigration.