Abdallah A. was born in Lebanon in 1990, but from the age of just two months he lived in Berlin with his Palestinian family. Germany is where A. grew up, went to school, worked, and waited to become a German citizen. In September last year, he finally received a German passport. But only a few weeks later, the state of Berlin revoked his citizenship.

The trigger was a series of press inquiries sent to Berlin authorities, including the State Office for Immigration (LEA) and the domestic intelligence agency. The inquiries came from hard-right news portal Nius, newspaper Berliner Zeitung, and influencer and Weltwoche columnist Anabel Schunke. The case revolves around social media posts related to Palestine and Israel. This emerges from documents that are now part of emergency proceedings before the Berlin Administrative Court, obtained exclusively by Jacobin.

At the center of the case is Germany’s 2024 citizenship reform. While the move made naturalization easier in some respects, it also expanded the process by introducing a formal commitment to Germany’s special “historical responsibility” — using language critics consider deliberately broad and open to interpretation. Particularly since October 7, 2023, and amid debates over alleged “imported antisemitism,” critics argue this has created significant room for arbitrary evaluations of political speech.