Hi all,

Even though this topic has been repeatedly discussed, due to everchanging rules, it still remains an evernew one. I have applied for Einbürgerung in Karlsruhe somewhere in September, all necessary documents were furnished. Four months have gone by and there has been no response from the Behörde. Can anyone share their latest experiences with the whole process and the time it took for them to become citizens.

Best regards

Generally, the govt. has to respond within 3 months for any kind of service requested by residents. You can write a letter requesting for status and if anything else is needed from your side. You will hear different timelines from t7 guys at different ABH. Good luck.

Hi Cebit,

Thanks for your response. I havent yet enquired the status of the visa as i was expecting an "automatic response"... Once i had submitted my documents, i asked in detail if any documents were missing. The concerned person had responded saying that now all documents were complete. I will contact those guys in the coming days.

Thanks again...

@strangerules:

Einbürgerung and equiry regarding status of visa.....the two do not have anything in common. To comment further, please advice some case history and details e.g. since when you are living in Germany, how many months of RV you have paid, what is your current visa status, have you done your Integartion in Germany course? and under which category you filed the Naturalization application, whether it was a single application or along with family and kids or was it on basis of German spouse?

Hi Raj,
Yes i am sorry, it was more than a typo error from my side. I dont mean any visa status. I meant Einbürgerung...
Regarding my status, Am in Germany for about 10 years. Working since 8. Have NE since two years. No schufa ... Am working in a university. It was an application for me alone and i had hoped that on the basis of my "credentials", they would consider my application.
Oh and i did do my B1 certificate course which was required. and Einbürgerungstest i also passed and submitted the same to the AB.

@strangerules

I presume that you applied under para §10 (Einbürgerung nach Anspruch) and in that case i also find it strange that there is no reply or acknowledgement of receipt of your documents. I will recommend to contact your respective Einbürgerungsbehörde in written and simply ask about the status of your application.

Good luck and keep us posted.
Raj++

P.S: this is not a legal advice!

Hi Raj,

I dont know under which para i applied. I would assume the one which you mentioned.

Thanks for the messages. Incase you are a german citizen already, could you please detail your process and the duration...

Thanks

Hi you,

Would you update if you heard back from EBH? Many thanks.

Hi 

Update and more like a rant:

So finally i decided to go there personally on March 11 to the concerned person and ask directly what is the status. The woman there was kind enough to inform me that well we have been trying to repeatedly contaact the German authority in Berlin to get a green signal from there whether they have my marriage certificate report. And that she had sent another request on march 11 itself two hours before i had come to inquire about my status. And it would take a few more weeks...

To my surprise, the next day i receive a letter which says: They would like to verify my marriage certificate once again and birth certificate. For that they would need about 350 Euros. 

I went there after a few days and this time there was a guy. I pointed out that firstly, the marriage certificate has already been verified AND that is the REASON why my wife is living wiht me in Germany. The verification was done on the order of the Germany consulate in India and they had already sent papers here. His answer was as expected and i had to really bite my teeth... He said, they do not have any report. Secondly, if I think that they verified it, then i should contact the embassy directly and ask if they have the report with them...And ask them to send one to the ausländer behörde directly.
This is because of the so called Deutsche genauigkeit...

To me it is obviously self-contradictory. If he was so genau as he claimed it to be, then the  report should have been already communicated to the AB and then to the EInbuürgerungsstelle. Because they keep records of everyone. If they know whether i have schufa or not, then they definitely know that my marriage certificate has been verified. And ONLY because it was verified could my wife come and live with me. 

Logic does not seem to be their strongpoint, which i already knew... I dont know what to do now...I will try to contact the embassy and visit the Ausländerbehörde (NOT THE EINBÜRGERUNGSSTELLE) and ask them if they have the report or not.

Its been 7 months now . 

Hi,

thanks for update. That is very strange and I am sorry for that. It has been 3 months that I applied based on married to a German status. Nothing came up for me so far.

I know it is said to be patient as it takes a while, but it is begining to worry me a little.

I hope your paperwork will be back in order soon.

So I have a surprising update. Logic and reasoning did indeed work out with the  AB.
In my case it was the following, I got a letter after 6-7 months stating that they need to verify my marriage certificate and birth certificate. They then asked for 355 Euros additionally for this verification... Despite my initial protest that my wife joined me ONLY after the stipulated
marriage certificate verification, so the AB MUST have a proof  somewhere, the concerned authority told me that either i ask the  consulate which did the verification to contact the Einbürgerungstelle
directly and send them a copy of the verification or pay for the whole  thing again... He told me that yes i know it can be painful because we germans are tooo genau...

So i decided enough is enough and went  directly to the person who was responsible for issuing my wifes visa. I could not get in touch with her at first directly, but had to go to the room number which had come up at the display. There i explained to the person the entire situation and said firstly, My wife came to germany for which the minimum requirement was verification of marriage certificate. Then why must it be verified again? He was a nice person and he directly contacted the Einbürgerungstelle (which is only one floor above) and informed him about that and said incase you need proof of marriage, please check the file with my wifes details... I was told that i would hear from them the next day itself and i waited. This wait lasted two weeks and i went again today to the visa stelle and told them the same thing again. This time the sachbearbeiter was a different person and she again contacted the Einbürgerungsstelle. Finally, the person who handles my Einbürgerung asked the lady to send me directly to him.

When i went there, to my surprise, he said well see you pointed out that your wife came by nachzug and we do indeed have a proof of your marriage so it need not be done again.
But now my birth certificate may indeed need verification which he says will inquire again and will let me know how much i need to pay for that. I am only happy that hte first thing worked out and logic did indeed win. Faith is restored...

That's a good news ! At least things are coming along. There is nothing new on my end. Still waiting to be heard.

Ludicrous is all i have got to say about the whole process. I just read the news that Karlsruhe will try to woo more migrants. And that i think is for the press so that they are happy. Now from my side,
Its been one year and 3 months and still counting. Bizarre arbitrary new rules keep coming up. I still dont have a German passport and it seems like I wont be having it in the near future.
And FOR SURE NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING AGAINST THEM. No complaints whatsoever...

So after what i thought that logic had worked turned out to be a case of Vorfreude. To just update I have a PhD degree from germany so that I qualify for the so-called Hochqualifizierte... I have a work contract and everything that is needed for the citizenship.
So after they seemed to have all the documents, they decided to inform me that they would have my Birth certificate verified. I obliged and paid the fees necessary which was more than the total cost of the EInbürgerungsüprocess. After one month they wrote again that they would need a translation of my birth certificate in German. So what i did was I had a translation from my mothertongue into English and then from English to German and gave all of them in original... Then they decided lets check his school certificate and they took one month to inform me about it. Ok I did that gave them that too...

Then how could all run smoothly right? Yes. They wrote back again after a month in complete violation and understanding of the associative property learnt at school mathematics (if A=B and B= C then A=C). Therefore they said the translation into german was from English to German and they need from mothertongue to German, therefore the old one is invalid . OK--> Assuming for a second that I was in a parallel universe where even that logic works,  I did that too. got it done and gave everything in this universe allowing my mind to go on a holiday. One would think that this is sufficient.

Unfortunately,  I needed my brain to do daily chores. Therefore i allowed logic to slip back into my life and came back to this universe atleast mentally. Now here comes a new email. Now we want you to get your birth certificate translated from my mother-tongue to English. The English one is invalid because it is done by some notary guy or some logic which i failed to understand. ANd if that was not sufficient, I have been informed that the person who was handling my case previously has not been changed. I am still speechless therefore instead of going out and shouting I am writing here. So unless they have the translation from Mothertongue to English directly, they will NOT proceed further.

To paraphrase George Orwell, All men are created equal, some are just more equal than others.

Hi,

did you ever think about hiring a lawyer? 

Your story is one of the 'good examples' for 'How to get a gastric ulcer' 

Nevertheless.. have a nice weekend!

Detlef

Just three months? It's been almost an year and half since I initiated the process and I haven't heard anything from them.

Hallo Detlef,

Thanks for your reply.
In the interest of Deutsch, schreibe ich hier auf Deutsch weiter.
Meinen Sie dass es mir überhaupt helfen wird mit einem Anwalt gegen die Einbürgerungsbehörde zu gehen? Es wird ja soviel kosten im sinne von nicht nur Geld sondern auch Energie, Zeit und Kraft.

Ah und sie haben Recht. Ich werde trotzdem versuchen ein Schönes wochenende zu haben
Aber eins bleibt sicher, wenn mir jemand nach langfristige Perspektive in Deutschland fragen wird, werde ich die zukünftige leute wirklich abraten. Dies muss ich leider mit nem sehr sehr schweren Herzen tun weil ich hab mich hier wirklich eingelebt und fühle mich wohl...Warum sollen andere hartarbeitende, gutgemeinte mitbürger sowas erleben? Bizarre ist es alles...

Viele Grüße

Dear Rahul, Please read the entire blog...
I had applied in August 2013... So i think you are "winning" by 3 months. Did you also apply in Karlsruhe?

Do you have an idea as to how much one would have to spend on a lawyer for such a case?

Yeah, I read all your posts.  I was responding to sweetpuppy though.  I can understand what you feel but at least you have hope since the Amt is responsive in your case.  Everytime I ask for the status they say that it's going to take 6 to 4 week and 6 months pass by without any response.  Now what if they make me go through the same process as you after 2 years. I am only worried about that.

I applied in Erfurt though which is notorious for such delays.