Germany’s Interior Ministry has ordered consulates to withhold citizenship certificates under a postwar restitution law after investigators found that dozens of applicants, most of them Chinese nationals, allegedly posed as descendants of people persecuted by the Nazis.
The Federal Office of Administration and the Interior Ministry instructed German missions abroad last week not to hand over naturalization documents “until further notice” and to postpone ceremonies, according to emails reported by Der Spiegel and confirmed in subsequent accounts. A ministry spokesperson said the procedures for so-called restitution naturalizations are under review “to further secure the procedure against corresponding criminal activities.”
The pause follows a Der Spiegel investigation published in early September that detailed an alleged scheme exploiting Article 116, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law. That provision states that former German nationals whose citizenship was revoked between Jan. 30, 1933, and May 8, 1945, “for political, racial or religious reasons, and their descendants, shall be renaturalized on application.”
Prosecutors in Düsseldorf and the Federal Criminal Police Office are investigating 32 suspects on suspicion of document forgery and violations of the nationality law, authorities have confirmed. At least 28 of those under investigation are Chinese nationals, according to the Düsseldorf prosecutor’s office. German citizenship had already been granted in roughly half the cases. The suspects are said to live in Cyprus, Israel, Britain, and the United States.
Investigators allege the applicants submitted forged or notarized copies of documents and invented genealogical links to real Jewish families who fled or were stripped of citizenship under Nazi rule. In one example cited by Der Spiegel and other outlets, applicants claimed descent from Karl Siegfried Süßkind and Gertraud Süßkind, a couple who left Germany for British Palestine.
The Chinese applicants, including one identified as Liu H. who obtained citizenship in 2024 under the name Derrick Wong, were not actual descendants. Another person, identified as Tian C. and living in London, is accused of using the same fabricated lineage.
Some of those under investigation were already sought internationally on suspicion of serious crimes, including kidnapping and murder, Der Spiegel reported. Prosecutors have said they could not confirm details of foreign cases because they fall outside the German inquiry. The scheme was reportedly advertised on a Chinese social-media platform for more than half a million euros.
An Interior Ministry spokesperson, responding after the initial Spiegel report, said the ministry regretted the “identity thefts” in which “applicants misused biographies of those affected by National Socialism.” The spokesperson added that once sufficient information is available, the Federal Office of Administration will “immediately initiate withdrawal proceedings” in cases of fraudulently obtained citizenship. Unlawful naturalizations can generally be revoked within 10 years.
The Cologne-based office received 14,148 applications for restitution citizenship in 2025, Der Spiegel reported. Officials have noted that the special procedure differs from ordinary naturalization: staff often help applicants assemble proof rather than requiring them to produce every original document, a practice rooted in the law’s reparative purpose. Legitimate descendants may now face delays while certificates already prepared are held and files are rechecked.
The Interior Ministry, led by Alexander Dobrindt of the Christian Social Union, has described the suspension as a temporary measure to protect the integrity of the process, not a repeal of the constitutional right.
A Slovak member of the European Parliament said Wednesday that street violence, sexual attacks and Islamist agitation seen in parts of Western Europe have not occurred in Poland or Slovakia because those countries rejected the same migration policies as countries like France, Germany, and Belgium.
Milan Mazurek of the Europe of Sovereign Nations group spoke during a debate on Islamist entryism and Muslim Brotherhood networks. “Why we don’t have it in Slovakia? Why we don’t have it in Poland? What is the difference? We did not follow your insane migration policies,” he said.
As non-stop videos of riots in France in Belgium flood social media — including burning schools, teachers doused in gasoline, and police officers beaten unconscious — the contrast between countries like Poland and Slovakia with Western Europe has never been more clear.
BREAKING: Schools are burning across France as violent student blockades grow. The mayhem shows no sign of slowing down despite 625 arrests.
Oct. 1
Nelson-Mandela high school in Nantes burned, façade and hall destroyed. The school is expected to be closed for several days.
A fire at the Talensac private high school destroyed the entrance and doors.
Fires reported outside the Berthollet, Baudelaire and Sommeiller high schools; firefighters said they were working to stop the flames from reaching the buildings.
At the Lumière High School in Lyon, the facade was damaged by a fire. Police are investigating the case as arson.
At Haubourdin, near Lille, heavy damage was reported, and municipal buildings were ransacked; Beaupré High School will remain closed due to ongoing student blockades.
Sept. 30
A flaming car was rammed into Émile-Zola high school n Wattrelos. The school has been closed and a police investigation has been launched.
At the Paul-Éluard high school in the multicultural Paris suburb Saint-Denis, the gate was set on fire. The Paris region president said gate replacement, security and cleaning would cost €100,000. The total damage across regional high schools is now nearing €1 million, including roughly ten gates out of service.
At the Gustave-Eiffel high school, bin fires spread to the facades of two houses opposite the school. Firework mortars were reportedly fired at the school building.
In the Bordeaux area, clashes and fires were reported at Montesquieu, Les Iris and Élie-Faure, as well as Gustave-Eiffel. Ten arrests were reported for arson, damage and projectiles. A firefighter was injured near Montaigne the day before.
Sept. 29
At Jean-Mermoz high school in Montpellier, fires destroyed the caretaker’s lodge at a side entrance. Students were evacuated.
Mass arrests
As of Sept. 30, 356 high schools were disrupted, 625 people arrested, and 83 police officers and gendarmes injured, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.
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Mazurek opened by addressing what he called progressive liberals, telling them: “Send them back! That’s for you, progressive liberals, because it was you who destroyed Western Europe.”
He said Western European cities “are in flames” and “controlled by violent criminals, rapists, murderers, and radical Islamists like Muslim Brotherhood.”
Certainly, the riots in France have shown a state increasingly losing control to a multicultural student body, many who reject not only France, but also the French people.
BREAKING: Migrant student youths have set fire to multiple buses and even fire trucks in the French city of Marseille as chaos spreads.
The Marseille transport authority, RTM, said several of its buses "were targeted near high schools in the north and east of Marseille," that "drivers had to leave their vehicles in a hurry and one of them was assaulted."
The regional Marseille government said an "unacceptable line" had been crossed at Victor Hugo High School, where "the principal, the deputy principal, the general secretary and the team leader were assaulted and doused with gasoline," according to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, cited by BFMTV.
France is descending into chaos as student blockades grip the country. Over 650 arrests have been made.
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Mazurek referred to video from France of “young people of migration descent calling for killing of police in the name of Allah.”
He warned that the same open borders approach was being forced on Central and Eastern Europe “into acceptance of the same people that destroyed the West. The same people who are raping women and children in the streets of Western European cities.” He concluded, “We need to defeat you and start with mass deportations from Europe.”
A White female supervisor at Baudelaire High School is beaten by a mob of multicultural students during a blockade in Seynod.
The woman is completely surrounded when a Black male punches her in the face multiple times.
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https://t.co/GGrDgjV4YL
Muslim population estimates place France at roughly 8 percent to 10 percent and Germany at 6 percent to 7 percent, with Sweden higher. Poland’s share is estimated at 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent, and Slovakia’s at about 0.1%, according to census figures and researcher estimates.
Overall foreign-born people accounted for 2.6 percent of Poland’s resident population and 4 percent of Slovakia’s. Those were among the lowest shares in the EU; the bloc average for people born outside their country of residence is far higher, and several Western European countries exceed 20 percent. Many of these foreign populations in Slovakia and Poland are also not from the Third World, but instead from neighboring Ukraine and other Eastern European nations.
BREAKING: Another major school arson attack at Blaise Pascal High School in the French city of Rouen.
The entire entrance is currently in flames.
School staff can only stand and watch it burn.
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Police-recorded sexual violence rates in 2023 stood at about 192 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants in Sweden, 131 in France and 63 in Germany, according to Statista.
Poland and Slovakia rank at the bottom of European figures. Rape counts compiled through the European Institute for Gender Equality run roughly 500 to 600 cases a year in Poland, or about 1.3 per 100,000 people, and about 100 cases in Slovakia, or about 1.8 per 100,000.
Meanwhile, Sweden recorded nearly 9,000 rape cases in the same period, France more than 40,000 and Germany more than 13,000.
Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention has found foreign-born suspects several times more likely to be registered for rape and lethal violence after controls for age and sex, with higher ratios for some Middle Eastern, North African and sub-Saharan African origin groups. French Interior Ministry data for 2023 show foreign nationals, particularly from African countries, overrepresented among suspects in sexual violence and attacks on officials. German police statistics show elevated non-citizen shares among suspects in violent and sexual offenses.
Furthermore, large riots with arson and attacks on police in high-immigration districts, including France’s ongoing 2026 school unrest that led to thousands of arrests, have no equivalent scale in Polish or Slovak cities.
Islamist attacks and fatalities since the mid-2010s have been concentrated in France, with smaller totals in Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Poland and Slovakia have recorded no serious Islamic terror attacks. Notably, both Eastern European countries feature safe and secure Christmas markets, unlike Germany.
The European Parliament adopted a related resolution the following day by a vote of 381-167 calling for scrutiny of Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks and limits on certain EU funding.
More than 148,000 people remain subject to outstanding arrest warrants in Germany, and only 11.2 percent of them hold exclusively German citizenship, and overall, 87 percent of arrest warrant suspects are foreigners, according to figures the Federal Ministry of the Interior provided in response to a parliamentary inquiry.
Welt newspaper obtained the ministry’s reply to a question from Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Sebastian Münzenmaier.
Münzenmaier told Welt am Sonntag: “The figures speak for themselves: The overwhelming majority of criminals wanted on arrest warrants do not have a German passport.” He called for a “rigorous change of course” that would include permanent and complete border controls, the immediate termination of the stay of foreign criminals, and the enforcement of prison sentences in the country of origin.
While German citizens form the single largest group, at 16,671, Germany also features a population where 81 percent of people hold exclusively German citizenship. Romanian nationals follow closely with 16,123, then Polish nationals with 12,721, Georgian nationals with 6,869 and Turkish nationals with 6,696.
Alexander Throm, the domestic-policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group, said: “Every open arrest warrant poses a security risk.”
He added that “the high proportion of foreign offenders, including many from other EU countries, shows that action must be taken.”
Throm also noted that border controls introduced in September 2024 have done more than limit illegal migration: “They have not only curbed illegal migration. Since their start in September 2024, over 17,500 people have also been apprehended at our borders with outstanding arrest warrants.”
Heiko Teggatz, chairman of the German Police Union, called the total worrying and said it “of course, represents a security policy problem.” State police forces, he told the paper, rarely have the staffing to mount dedicated searches; most arrests occur as a “chance hit or bycatch.” The union has long cited personnel shortages as a central obstacle to improved public safety.
Marcel Emmerich, the Greens’ domestic-policy spokesman, agreed that the volume of open warrants constitutes a serious problem, “especially when it comes to dangerous persons, extremists, violent or sex offenders.”
However, Emmerich rejected broader border checks, noting: “Instead of hoping for random hits at border controls, targeted searches are needed, especially for dangerous perpetrators of violence, threats and people from the field of politically motivated crime.”
Sebastian Fiedler, the Social Democratic Party’s domestic-policy spokesman in the Bundestag, cautioned against reading the aggregate figure as evidence of 148,000 undetected dangerous offenders still inside the country. “A significant portion of this is due to substitute prison sentences for unpaid fines. In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than half of all outstanding arrest warrants in total were such cases, he said. Warrants can also remain active against people who have already left Germany or been deported, so that any remaining sentence can be enforced if they return.
“For example, they will continue to be put out to tender for a search so that if they re-enter the country, a remaining prison sentence can be enforced,” Fiedler said.
While the crimes may include many petty offenses, the totals are stark. German nationals represent a minuscule share of the open arrest warrants in a country where 81 percent of the country is made up of German nationals.
A French member of the European Parliament and former police commissioner called for attempted-murder charges Thursday after masked protesters set fire to the entrance of a Bordeaux police station, blocking officers inside as smoke filled the building.
Matthieu Valet, now affiliated with the National Rally, said the attackers blocked the main door of the Capucins station and ignited trash bins piled against it while officers were still inside.
“It’s a criminal act of extreme gravity; we could have had a massacre,” MEP Valet wrote on X. “The perpetrators must be found and prosecuted for attempted murder. Ten years after the Viry-Châtillon attack, where police officers were burned alive while trapped in their patrol car, nothing has changed.”
BREAKING: Rioters attempted to murder police officers in Bordeaux, says French MEP.
Criminal rioters blocked the entrance to the Capucins police station and then set the station on fire.
They were actively trying to prevent the police from exiting the building, reported French MEP @mvalet_officiel.
Smoke filled the entire police station while the crowd cheered from outside. Officers tried to put out the flames but suffered from smoke inhalation and needed to evacuate.
French MEP Valet: “It’s a criminal act of extreme gravity; we could have had a massacre! The perpetrators must be found and prosecuted for attempted murder. Ten years after the Viry-Châtillon attack, where police officers were burned alive while trapped in their patrol car, nothing has changed!”
Bordeaux prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul said a group of about 10 hooded individuals deliberately stacked bins at the station’s entrance around 4 p.m. and set them alight during a high-school demonstration. The fire spread quickly along part of the facade. Three national police officers inside escaped through a rear emergency exit. No injuries were reported but the officers reportedly suffered from smoke inhalation.
Prosecutors opened an investigation for destruction of property by a means dangerous to people, committed because of the victims’ status as public officials, and for joining a group formed to prepare violence or property damage during a public demonstration. Those offenses can carry up to 20 years in prison. Authorities have not so far filed attempted-murder charges.
This is not the first time that protesters have been accused of setting buildings on fire and blocking exits. Earlier this week, rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exit with 100 students and staff inside. A harrowing video from BFMTV captured the moment.
BREAKING: Rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exits when staff tried to put the fire out.
A film crew recorded the terrifying attempted murder.
“The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit.”
“The fire continues. You see all the silhouettes moving behind it; they continue to feed this fire, making it stronger and stronger. The school staff is not even going to try to put it out anymore; they can’t manage it. We can hear the principal here asking the hundred confined students to step back and move up to the first floor.”
The building was full of staff, students, and journalists, but these rioters appear ready to kill anyone still inside the vocational chemistry school.
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Graffiti reading “Vengeance for Eden” was sprayed on the station wall, referring to a student seriously injured by a police grenade launcher earlier in the protests in the Paris region.
The attack came on the margins of nationwide student blockades and marches over teacher shortages and school conditions, now in their third week. A high school in nearby Lormont was vandalized the same morning. Across France, the protests have produced thousands of arrests since late September, along with repeated use of fireworks mortars, stones and burning barricades.
BREAKING: France in a state of chaos.
Police charge protesters on Place de la Bastille in Paris after students slam them with projectiles.
After the charge, students continue to hurl paving stones.
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The 2016 Viry-Châtillon case, in which officers were burned to death inside their vehicle during unrest outside Paris, remains a frequent reference point in French debates over attacks on police. Interior Ministry officials have defended recent tactics while announcing a temporary suspension of certain stun grenades after some minors picked them up and blew off their hands.
"It’s no longer a firework. It’s a homemade bomb."
Protesting "students" in France, some draped in Algerian flags, craft firework mortars into weapons to target police in Aix-en-Provence.
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In nearly every video, racial and ethnic minorities, mostly Blacks and Arabs, are seen driving much of the unrest and physical violence.
The latest figures from the interior ministry indicate that 761 police officers have been injured in the ongoing unrest, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez in an Oct. 7 hearing before the National Assembly’s law committee.
The count covers injuries since Sept. 28.
On Thursday, Oct. 8 alone, the Interior Ministry reported 48 additional officers and gendarmes injured. Nuñez said arrests and detentions stood at 6,629 as of the evening of Oct. 6.
According to Education Minister Édouard Geffray, about 65 teachers and education staff have been injured in the riots.
In a video posted to the social media platform X, a young woman was filmed screaming at a man whom she said she had seen expose his penis and begin masturbating on the bus, despite children being present. The man, who appears to have a migration background, speaks German with a clear accent.
“You can’t just sit there and start masturbating with your penis. There are children here! It’s broad daylight!” she asked him.
A third party filmed the encounter and blurred out the woman’s face. However, the man is clearly visible in the video. The Remix News translation of this video has been censored on X, which means it cannot be embedded, but readers can view it here. Below is the original German video.
It remains unclear whether the woman or anyone else on the bus filed a police report. However, Berlin police are permitted to investigate this incident even without a formal complaint. To make an arrest, they will first need to obtain a warrant.
"Please stop touching me… You’re touching me and I don’t want that."
A migrant male sexually assaults a young woman on a German train, while criticizing her piercing, saying it is for prostitutes who "do everything. Sucking, swallowing."
German public transport in 2026. https://t.co/NUjcBhtuMS