Germany will enforce two decrees on Friday to make it easier for people who fled the Nazi regime as well as their descendants to have their citizenship restored, the Interior Ministry said.
The move follows a campaign by descendants of refugees from Nazi Germany who are angry that their applications for citizenship have been rejected despite constitutional guarantees.
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Britain's 2016 Brexit referendum triggered a spike in applications from the descendants of people who fled there between 1933 and 1945.
"Germany must live up to its historical responsibilities," said Interior Minister Horst Seehofer in a statement, adding that he wanted to help people whose parents or grandparents were forced to flee.
"With the legal decrees … we will create a swift ruling that is immediately valid for these people to get German citizenship," he said.
Article 116 (2) of Germany's Basic Law states that former German citizens who were deprived of their citizenship on political, racial or religious grounds between 1933 and 1945, as well as their descendants, can have their citizenship restored.
However, the "Article 116 Exclusions Group" represents more than 100 people, mostly of Jewish descent, who have had their applications rejected or been told that they are not eligible to apply.
Its members, from Britain, the United States, Canada, Israel, and other countries, say that this is unjust and have challenged the decisions. One common reason for rejection has been that applicants were born to a German mother and non-German father. Until 1953, German citizenship could only be passed on through the father.
Germany received more than 1,500 applications from Britain under Article 116 in both 2017 and 2018 compared to 43 in 2015, prior to the Brexit referendum.
The new decrees loosen the required conditions for citizenship, for example by allowing individuals born to a German mother but whose father is not German to have their citizenship restored, provided they were born before April 1953.
The Die Welt newspaper quoted Nick Courtman of the Article 116 Exclusions Group as cautiously optimistic following the news.
According to Courtman, while the move by the Interior Ministry is helpful, the only way to genuinely solve the problem is by changing the law.
