Tina Turner Turning Swiss

Wouldn’t be the first time - but I can swear to you I went through the process. I had all the paperwork for the German citizenship - and was told I needed to go get the final paperwork signed off by the US Embassy. I schlepped over there and that is where they told me this was not going to happen unless I gave up my US citizenship. They specifically told me it was one thing for a German to get a US citizenship (and they could keep their German citizenship), but it was not possible for a US citizen to get a German citizenship and keep their US passport! I can assure you that this not only happened to me, it happened to my good friend Michael (born in the US but raised in Germany - and he only had until he was 18 to decide which country - thus his sister was American and he was German) and also my American friend Ric who also thought this would be a good idea, but got the same song and dance from the US Embassy when he had gone there a couple years before I did this (we didn’t compare notes until later). Maybe it was just the US Berlin Consulate that was ill-informed.

Sorry to dwell on this and hijack my own thread, but it does piss me off to know I could have completed all of this ages ago with no problem - and am only just now finding out. I did get a permanent residency/work permit (good for life) back then, so it was/is no huge deal for living there - but still.

nm

Could it be, perhaps, that the requirement to get the final paperwork “signed off by the US Embassy” was unique to Germany? I can’t imagine why it would be a requirement, but it seems to me that it could be possible.

When my American ex-wife became a naturalized Canadian, the Canadian paperwork had no such requirement. She didn’t need to visit the US Embassy, or otherwise let the US government know what she was doing. She just went ahead and did it, and ended up with dual US-Canadian citizenship. This leads me to believe that the US government sign-off on German paperwork may be something that Germany requires; but few, if any, other places do.