Spiegel's investigation reveals a fraud network to obtain German citizenship through a false claim of Jewish parentage

According to an investigation by the German magazine "Spiegel", suspects created fictitious biographies and genealogies, claiming to be the children or grandchildren of real Jewish families who were forced to flee Germany during the Nazi era.

The plan was based on Article 116 of the German Basic Law, which allows victims of withdrawal of citizenship during the Nazi era and their children and grandchildren to regain German citizenship. The circle of beneficiaries later expanded under Article 15 of the Nationality Law.

These procedures are characterized by wide facilities, as the applicant for citizenship is not required to live in Germany, speak German, or give up his current original citizenship. According to Spiegel, this flexibility appears to have turned into a loophole exploited by fraudsters.

More than 500 thousand euros for the passport

The documents reviewed by the German magazine reveal intermediaries and regulators suspected of marketing citizenship services through Chinese platforms, in exchange for amounts that in some cases exceeded 500,000 euros.

According to the investigation, the process began with preparing forged documents containing new names and places of birth, then authenticating copies of them with a notary, before submitting them to German representations abroad.

One of the most prominent cases is a Chinese man named Liu H., who obtained citizenship under the name "Derek Wong" after claiming to be the grandson of the Jewish couple Karl Siegfried and Gertraud Süsskind. However, a review of the family tree, according to "Spiegel", showed that they are not related.

Liu was wanted in a serious case related to the kidnapping and murder of two Chinese men in the Philippines, before the United States extradited him to China in July 2026.

Real families discover the deception

"Spiegel" investigated several families whose stories were used in naturalization applications, and spoke with real members of them. Descendants of the Suskind, Rafskowski, Drucker and Warszewski families confirmed that the people who appeared in the files as their relatives did not belong to their families.

Attorney Tamir Rosenblum, the grandson of Arthur and Ruth Rafskowski, said after learning the names of people who claimed to be part of his family: “This is disgusting.” The magazine indicates that some of the fabricated lineages included large numbers of children and grandchildren, which may allow other fraudsters to rely on a kinship relationship that had previously been presented to the authorities.

Did the German audit fail?

The unit responsible for compensatory naturalization at the Federal Office of Administration employs 31 employees. The number of applications submitted from abroad reached 14,148 in 2025, compared to 13,556 in 2024.

Spiegel points out that the authorities are checking ancestral records and genealogies, but some of the documents submitted are certified copies, which does not necessarily guarantee the authenticity of the original document.

In one case, an alleged family tree included significant time discrepancies in the dates of birth of its members, including two children whose births were only about nine months apart.

32 suspects and the investigation is continuing

The number of suspects reached 32 people, about half of whom had already obtained German citizenship, while the others had applied to obtain it. The Public Prosecution Office in Dusseldorf and the Federal Criminal Police Office are investigating suspicions of forgery of documents and violations of the nationality law. Spiegel says that the true size of the network is still unknown, and the number of cases may be much larger.

The most disturbing irony is that the scammers may have bet on the historical sensitivity of the file: it is enough to say that you are a descendant of a Nazi victim to make your story more difficult to question.

Edited by: A.J.M