Dual citizenship?

I am an American citizen, but am currently living in Germany. I have a German mother and a American father. I am wondering if I can apply for dual citizenship. Does anyone know? I was born in New Jersey, USA in 1968.

Thank you for your help.

Jil

Check out these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-citizenship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law

The US allows dual citizenship, but will always treat you as a US citizen when they deal with you. That's good when you need help from the US. It's bad when they require you to file taxes on your income from other countries. You have your US citizenship automatically by being born in the US.

I don't know the rules for obtaining German citizenship.

Good luck!

A belated post-script here:

You may find yourself faced with quite a decision crisis if you do decide to apply for German citizenship. German laws which address your particular situation were changed pretty drastically on January 1, 2000. If you were born of a German mother and foreign father before 1975, you didn’t automatically become a German citizen unless your mother requested this for you before Dec 31, 1977. Assuming this isn’t the case, the new regulations are fairly strict and bottom line, you’ll probably have to choose your citizenship after you’ve satisfied the new 8 yr residency requirement (it used to be 15 years.) Even with all of the changes, German law still doesn’t appear to allow “dual citizenship.”

Some of the requirements:
You agree to give up your previous citizenship (i.e. US)
You've never been convicted of a major felony
You’re able to support yourself and your family
You can demonstrate proficiency of the German language
You formally declare your allegiance to the (German) Federal Republic’s Constitution.

Before you begin to finalize this kind of decision, you probably should contact a US Embassy in your area. They should be fairly fluent in German citizenship requirements and can provide you with more specific information and legal aid for US citizens abroad. I’ve posted a few links below of US Embassies (you didn’t indicate which city you’re living in). It’s probably well worth a phone call and if possible, an interview to completely educate yourself before making a final decision. It looks as if you may have a rather difficult one to make.)

You could, of course, also post your questions directly on www.legalmatch.com.

The best of luck to you.

http://berlin.usembassy.gov/

http://duesseldorf.usconsulate.gov/

http://frankfurt.usconsulate.gov/

http://hamburg.usconsulate.gov/

http://leipzig.usconsulate.gov/

http://munich.usconsulate.gov/