THE EXPATRIATED GERMAN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1398, 26 March 1912, Page 8

THE EXPATRIATED GERMAN.

NEW NATIONALITY REGULATIONS,

The German Federal Council has adopted the draft of tho now Nationality Law, which makes the loss of German nationality more difficult and its reassumption easier than heretofore.' In particular the existing provision is abolished whereby a German loses his nationality after ten years' uninterrupted residence abroad, if he lias not had his name entered in a Consular Itegister. Tho new law provides also that tho assumption of foreign nationality, if it is voluntarily applied for, entails tho loss of German citizenship. It is further provided that a German-re-siding abroad who has not performed his military service before tho end of his thirty-first year, or has beoi guilty of desertion from the colours, shall loso his German nationality. A Bill to be submitted simultaneously for the amendment of tho Military Hervico I.av provides, however, that Germans residing overseas can, in certain circumstances, bo relieved of the obligation of active service- Moreover, tlio privilege already enjoyed by overseas Germans of exemption from military training is to bo extended to cover Germans living in foreign countries in the Continent of Europe. The reassumption of German nationality is made easier by the provision that in futuro the stipulation that all persons so dcing shall thereafter livo "within the frontiers of the Empire shall not apply to original Germans and their descendants. A simiiar object is served by a further clause to tho elfect that women who have ceased to be German subjects owing to marriage with a foreign j," mav regain their lost nationality 011 the death of their husbands or the dissolution of their marriage.