We helped gain EU citizenship in the post-Brexit era

This is a true story about a 21-year-old UK citizen from London, who wanted to work as a ski instructor in Austria and Switzerland in the season 2021/2022.

Unfortunately, Freddie had only UK citizenship, and after the transition period after Brexit had ended, working in Austria or Switzerland was possible only with huge paperwork. However, his grandmother, who lives in London too, was born in Germany in 1923. Stephan Heidenhain secured German citizenship for him and his entire family living after more than 80 years, when his grandmother had to emigrate from Berlin.

In 1939, Prof. Oskar Fehr fled Berlin with his wife and his two minor daughters, the younger, Kitty Lucie Alice, born in December 1923. One of the most renowned German-Jewish ophthalmologists with the Virchow-hospital (now the Charité) in Berlin, Prof. Fehr, born 1871, had been ousted by the anti-Jewish laws of Nazi-Germany from his own clinic. His last belongings were confiscated in Hamburg, when embarking on the ship to the UK, shortly before the war broke out. Immediately after that, he was interned on the Isle of Man as “enemy alien”. When he wanted to get back to work as an experienced specialist, he had to study again at the age of 70, as his degrees were not accepted in the UK. In November 1941, the whole family became stateless, when their German citizenship was revoked and all assets, still left in Germany, were confiscated on the basis of the infamous 11th regulation to the German Imperial citizenship law. However, Prof. Fehr finished his studies, started his clinic again, practising as an octogenarian until the mid 1955s. Prof. Fehr and his family, being naturalized UK citizens integrated successfully in the UK.

In October 2021, bnt facilitated the application of Kitty Fehr, then already 97, with the German Embassy in London and the Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA) in Cologne for German citizenship, taking care of the application documents and the archival research in Germany and the UK to proof the conditions of the application under Art. 116 cl. 2 of the Grundgesetz (German Constitution) and maintaining the communication with the BVA. At the age of 98, Kitty, her daughter Helen Glanville, director of London based Hawkeye Media group, a crisis media training company, and her grandson Freddie were granted German citizenship, after an elapse of 80 years.

If you are also planning to acquire a EU-citizenship for work, because of Brexit etc., and if you have a connection to a EU country, e.g. Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic or Slovakia etc., get in touch with us. Let’s see what we can do for you.

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