Can AfD Revoke German Citizenship?

Every few months, a new headline makes naturalized Germans nervous: what happens to my German passport if a party like the AfD comes to power? As a law firm working daily with expats going through German bureaucracy, we get this question a lot.

This article looks only at the law:

• What is possible today,
• What would have to change for it to become possible,
• How long that would take, and
• What the actual worst case looks like.

It is general legal information, not legal advice on your individual case.

Table of contents

The short answer on whether the AfD can revoke German citizenship obtained by naturalization

Right now, no German government, the AfD, or anyone else can revoke the citizenship of naturalized Germans by decision or decree.

The German Constitution protects citizenship. Changing that would require rewriting the constitution. This needs a two-thirds majority in both chambers of parliament.

So far, no single party has come close to getting a two-thirds majority.

In short, “no single party can change the constitution alone.” But it doesn’t mean that “it can never happen.”

What the law says today about revoking German citizenship

The starting point is Article 16(1) of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), Germany’s constitution:

“German citizenship may not be withdrawn. Loss of citizenship may occur only pursuant to a law, and, if it occurs against the will of the person affected, only if he does not become stateless as a result.”

Two things matter here.

• First, it says “no German”. It doesn’t distinguish between someone born German and someone who naturalized. Once you hold German citizenship, this protection applies to you exactly as it applies to someone whose family has been German for generations.
• Second, involuntary loss is only allowed by a specific law, and only if it does not leave the person stateless. This is a direct response to Nazi-era practice, when the regime stripped citizenship from Jews and political opponents by decree. The drafters of the Basic Law wrote Article 16 to make that impossible.

Legal exceptions that allow government to revoke German citizenship

Article 16 allows the ordinary legislature to define specific grounds for loss of citizenship, as long as it never creates statelessness. The Nationality Act (StAG) currently uses this power very narrowly.

The two most relevant provisions:

§ 28 StAG

A German citizen who also holds another nationality automatically loses German citizenship if they

• voluntarily join the armed forces of that other country without German government authorization, or
• if they voluntarily and actively fight for a foreign terrorist militia abroad. This was added in 2019, aimed at people who left to fight for groups like ISIS (§ 28 StAG).

§ 17 StAG

§ 17 StAG lists the general grounds on which German citizenship can be lost. It includes

• Release of German citizenship on your request
• Adoption by a foreigner
• Voluntary acquisition of a foreign citizenship

What do the laws have in common when it comes to revocation of German citizenship?

• They only ever apply to dual nationals
• They are framed as the person’s own “loss” of citizenship through their own voluntary act. No government decision can “revoke” or “strip” citizenship as punishment.

The Federal Constitutional Court has made clear that this distinction matters.

The trigger for revocation of German citizenship must be something you can foresee and avoid. Ordinary criminality, even serious criminality, does not meet that bar.

When can you lose German citizenship?

There is one provision that is more relevant to naturalized expats. It is § 35 StAG.

§ 35 StAG allows the authorities to withdraw (“Rücknahme”) a naturalization obtained unlawfully. For example, through fraud, bribery, or knowingly false statements in the naturalization application.

The authority has ten years after naturalization to withdraw the unlawfully obtained naturalization. If the naturalization is revoked, you revert to the nationality you held before (so it does not create statelessness).

This exists today and has nothing to do with a political party. If you haven’t falsified any information on your naturalization file, it does not apply to you.

Could AfD pass a law to revoke German citizenship obtained by naturalization?

No, AfD couldn’t just pass a law to revoke your German citizenship.

The reason is that Article 16 of the Basic Law itself provides that protection. An ordinary law passed by a simple Bundestag majority cannot override it.

Any law that tried to authorize revoking citizenship more broadly (say, from naturalized citizens who commit serious crimes, or dual nationals in general) would be unconstitutional and could be struck down by the Federal Constitutional Court.

It already happened when CDU leader Friedrich Merz floated the idea in 2025 of stripping citizenship from dual-national criminals. Constitutional lawyers pointed out that Article 16 blocks it. You can read more about the legal analysis of the Merz proposal here.

So the only route to revoke German citizenship is a constitutional amendment, i.e., changing Article 16 itself.

What would it take to actually change Article 16?

Constitutional amendments in Germany go through Article 79 GG of the Basic Law, which sets two requirements:

1. A two-thirds majority in the Bundestag (the directly elected parliament).
2. A two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat (the chamber representing Germany’s 16 state governments).

Mechanically, this is not slow. If the votes exist, a constitutional amendment can be drafted, debated, and passed within weeks.

The real barrier is political arithmetic, not procedural delay.

No party, including the AfD, has ever come close to a third of the seats in the Bundestag on its own, let alone two-thirds. Moreover, two-thirds of the Bundesrat requires broad buy-in from state governments.

As of Sept 2026, every other major German party (CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, FDP, Die Linke) has publicly rejected proposals to weaken Article 16’s citizenship protection. That means, even if the AfD won an election and formed a government, it would still need the cooperation of the very parties currently opposing this idea.

Can AfD revoke German citizenship after changing the German constitution?

No, a government could not revoke citizenship however it liked. Two further layers of protection would remain:

• International law. Germany has ratified the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and is bound by the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Nationality. These treaties (separately from Article 16) require that any ground for stripping nationality be objective, proportionate, and non-discriminatory. Article 9 of the Statelessness Convention specifically forbids denaturalization on racial, ethnic, religious, or political grounds. Germany could in theory withdraw from these treaties too, but that is a further, separate political and diplomatic step. You can read the analysis of these international law limits here.
• EU law, for anyone who is also an EU citizen. German citizenship includes EU citizenship. The European Court of Justice ruled in the Rottmann case (C-135/08, 2010) that when a member state strips someone of nationality in a way that also costs them EU citizenship, national courts must review the decision for proportionality under EU law. This means revoking German citizenship is no longer purely a domestic matter.
• Equal treatment. Any rule that treated naturalized citizens worse than citizens by birth would also have to survive scrutiny under Article 3 of the Basic Law (equality before the law).

In short, a constitutional amendment would be a necessary first step, not a final one.

The worst-case scenario: what happens if you become stateless?

If you genuinely lost German citizenship and had no other nationality to fall back on, you would become stateless. Germany, like most Western states, has ratified the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. This gives stateless people a specific (but limited) legal status:

• You cannot be deported to nowhere. International law does not allow a state to expel you to a country that will not accept you. But you also have no automatic right to stay, and can be left in prolonged legal limbo while your status is sorted out.
• You can apply for a residence permit and a stateless person’s travel document (Reiseausweis für Staatenlose). But this document is far more restrictive for travel.
• You lose the political rights that come with German citizenship. This includes no voting rights in German elections, no EU citizenship, and no unrestricted right of residence anywhere in the EU.
• You cannot access certain jobs and can face hurdles with banking, employment authorization, and family reunification.
• Children born to a stateless parent can also face complications acquiring a clear nationality. Currently, German law (§ 4(3) StAG) gives German-born children of long-term resident foreign parents a route to German citizenship at birth. This is independent of the parents’ status.

Conclusion

• Today: German citizenship cannot be revoked by government decision. The constitution (Article 16 GG) forbids it, protects naturalized and native-born Germans equally, and bans creating statelessness.
• To change this, a party or coalition would need a two-thirds majority in both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat to amend Article 16 itself. Technically possible under Article 79 GG, procedurally fast once the votes exist, but politically far out of reach for any single party, including the AfD.
• Even after such an amendment, international law (the Statelessness Conventions, EU law for EU citizens, and Germany’s own equality guarantee) would still constrain what grounds for revocation could survive legal challenge.

NOTE: This article does not constitute individual legal advice. Names and personal details from the underlying proceedings have been anonymized to protect client confidentiality.

References

• Article 16 GG — Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (official English translation)
• Article 16 GG — German original
• Article 79 GG — amendment procedure (official English translation)
• § 17 StAG — grounds for loss of citizenship
• § 28 StAG — loss through foreign military/terrorist service
• § 35 StAG — withdrawal of unlawful naturalization
• LTO: Constitutional analysis of proposals to denaturalize dual-national criminals
• Verfassungsblog: International law limits on denaturalization
• Graf Kerssenbrock: Legal status of citizenship revocation, 2025