Overview

• Interior Minister Herbert Reul ordered police to capture multiple nationalities for suspects and victims, with the change applied retroactively from July 1.
• The ministry re-evaluated 2024 figures, finding that one in six suspects with German citizenship also held another passport, led by German–Turkish (10,307) and German–Polish (6,652) combinations.
• Criticism from the Greens, SPD, the Left, and the police union warns of stigmatization of dual nationals and questions any investigative value.
• FDP figures welcome added transparency, and Union lawmakers urge other states and federal forces to adopt the NRW approach.
• NRW is currently alone in using this method, and nationwide comparability remains limited because the BKA still accepts only a single nationality per person.