Possible Section 15 StAG claim based on exclusion from Sammeleinbürgerung in Distrikt Galizien?
Hi everyone,
I’ve been researching a possible German citizenship restitution case under Section 15 StAG and wanted to get some opinions from people here who are more experienced with these applications.
My family was Jewish and lived in Stanislawów (then in Galicia/Poland, today Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine) during the Nazi occupation in WWII. They were forced into the ghetto, later went into hiding, survived the war, spent time in DP camps, and eventually immigrated to the US in early 1951.
What caught my attention is the situation in Distrikt Galizien between 1941–1944. From what I’ve read, the Nazi administration carried out collective naturalizations (Sammeleinbürgerung) through the Deutsche Volksliste, granting German citizenship to large numbers of local non-Jewish residents.
My understanding is that Jews living in the exact same jurisdiction were categorically excluded from those mass naturalizations solely on racial grounds. Section 15 Nr. 2 StAG seems to specifically address exclusion from collective naturalizations, and I found the BVerwG 1 C 18.99 case, which appears to say that discriminatory exclusion of Jews from regional mass naturalizations can create a restitution claim.
The complication is that my family had no German ancestry or “Volksdeutsche” background at all — they were Polish Jews from Galicia. So this would not be a standard Article 116 or descent-based case.
Does this sound like a plausible Section 15 argument, or am I stretching the interpretation too far? Has anyone here seen successful claims based specifically on exclusion from Sammeleinbürgerung/Deutsche Volksliste naturalizations in occupied Poland/Galicia or any where else?
I already have most of the family records and document chain, but I’m trying to figure out whether the legal theory itself is realistic before investing further into the process.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.