Abstract

The Kingdom of Italy and Imperial Germany issued a new citizenship law in 1912 and 1913 respectively. The legislative processes were long and complex in both countries. In each case, the aim was to define who could be a citizen of a state that had been established only a few decades earlier and was committed to a strict understanding of national belonging. The article compares the two legislations and underlines the relevance not only of global migrations but also of colonialism for the shaping of new citizenship laws