Trial in absentia

In German constitutional law, absence means that, according to the laws of various countries, the mere absence from the home state for a certain period of time results in the loss of the right to be a subject in that state. In Germany, this used to apply only in individual states, as in Prussia, Saxony, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, while in others, the formal dismissal from the "subject federation", as in Schleswig-Holstein, Electorate of Hesse, Brunswick, or yet the permanent settlement outside the state territory, so that from this the will not to return (animus non revertendi) could be concluded, had to be added, as in Hanover, Saxony, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Hesse-Homburg.

The German Reich Law on the Acquisition and Loss of Federal and National Citizenship of 1 June 1870 (Gesetz über den Erwerb und den Verlust der Bundes- und Staatsangehörigkeit) stipulated that citizenship in a federal state, and thus federal citizenship, is lost simply by being absent from the home state for ten years and staying abroad, i.e. outside federal territory (Legitimationless stay abroad), which can, however, be avoided by registering in the matriculation register of a federal consulate. Some changes and deletions resulted from the Federal Law of 21 July 1870 (BGBl. p. 498), the Imperial Law of 22 April 1871 (RGBl. p. 87), the Imperial Law of 20 December 1875 (RGBl. p. 324) and the Introductory Law to the Civil Code of 18 August 1896 (RGBl. p. 604).

This regulation remained valid until the entry into force of the Nationality Act (Reich and Nationality Act, StAG or RuStAG of 22 July 1913) on 1 January 1914 (RGBl. 1913 p. 583 - BGBl. III Gliederungsnummer 102-1, last amended by the Act of 23 July 1999, BGBl. I p. 1618) as well as for cases in which citizenship is derived from an ancestor who emigrated before 1913; in the latter case, a positive extract from the consular register is sufficient as proof that German citizenship was at least not lost under this provision. What is also remarkable about the RuStAG is that the term "citizenship" is not precisely defined here.

The National Socialist "Ordinance on German Nationality" of 5 February 1934, in which the nationalities of the Länder were abolished, marked a turning point; this ordinance remained valid until 1945, but Länder nationalities were practically never reintroduced after that.