Germany Opens the Floodgates for New Citizens

Germany’s largest cities are approving citizenship applications at strikingly high levels, with rejection rates in some cases close to zero, raising concerns in government and fuelling a heated political row over immigration and integration.

According to figures seen by Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag, Berlin approved more than 20,000 naturalisation applications in the first half of 2025, rejecting only 674—just 3%

Hamburg issued 5,730 German passports and turned down only 14 requests, while Munich approved 3,815 applications, with just ten refusals. In most other major cities, success rates were similar, although Dortmund was an exception, rejecting 365 out of 2,072 cases.

Germany’s Interior Ministry has expressed doubts that the process is being properly enforced. In a letter to state authorities, officials warned that “an increasing number of applicants” showed “little or no substantive understanding of the constitutional commitments” they must sign before naturalisation.

The ministry has urged citizenship offices to strengthen personal interviews with applicants, amid repeated cases of forged language certificates and doubts over genuine integration.

Philipp Peyman Engel, editor-in-chief of the Jewish weekly Jüdische Allgemeine, told broadcaster Welt that the country risks “sitting on a powder keg” if migration is not brought under control.

He noted that studies predict Germany could become a Muslim-majority country between 2040 and 2050. He warned that a sizeable minority of Muslims posed challenges in relation to crime, security, antisemitism, and women’s rights.

Engel also accused Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) of breaking promises since taking power. The centre-right CDU/CSU promised lower electricity taxes, Taurus missile deliveries to Ukraine, solidarity with Israel, and tougher deportations, but failed to deliver, he said.

Meanwhile, the government’s broader migration strategy is under legal and political fire. Since spring, German police have turned back some would-be asylum seekers at the border—a measure hailed by the Merz government as a “migration turnaround” but already declared unlawful by a Berlin court. The European Court of Justice is now set to rule on the practice.

Despite government claims of a “60% drop” in asylum applications over the summer, more than 100,000 new asylum seekers have arrived in 2025, the 13th consecutive year that threshold has been crossed.

The suspension of family reunification rights for some refugee groups is expected to curb inflows only modestly. In 2023, Germany recorded a record high of over 130,000 legal immigrants through family reunification visas. The figure eased slightly to just under 124,000 last year. By mid-August this year, 73,000 such visas had already been issued.

Critics warn that naturalisation combined with limited deportations risks turning temporary asylum into permanent settlement. “Almost everyone who applies ends up with a German passport, and that creates enormous problems for our society,” according to Philipp Peyman Engel.