Social fraud with bogus paternity costs the state millions

What father would acknowledge paternity for a child that is not his? As a rule, probably none, because he would then be exposed to maintenance claims. And yet it happens, frequently, and costs German taxpayers millions every year. How can that be? And why is this question met with silence or a desire for anonymity everywhere?

Here’s how it works: A penniless man – found at the local pump room – is handed 5,000 to 20,000 euros in cash and in return agrees to recognize a foreign mother’s child as his. The man has no further obligations, because officially there is nothing to get from him. He only has to go to the youth welfare office or registry office, to the district court or notary once.

With his acknowledgment of paternity, the child’s mother – who often has many children – is entitled to social benefits in Germany for herself and all her children. The recognized child also receives German citizenship. “On average, there are five people who come into the German social system with a single abusive acknowledgment of paternity,” says Tobias M. (name changed), an employee of the social authority of a western German city. The mayor of this city, whose population of around 300,000 corresponds to that of a Berlin district, says: “It costs us five million euros a year here.” His city is just one of many where this is the case. The state is powerless.

Politicians remain staunchly silent and allow fraud

Above all, he is unwilling. Anyone who asks politicians about the subject only gets silence. The scam has been around for a long time, it works, for decades. Years ago, it was used to obtain residence permits and social benefits for foreign women with children. Over the years, the business field has been professionalized. In the meantime, large families living illegally in Germany are also exploiting the state and thus the German taxpayer.

How can this be possible? Section 1592 of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB) simply states in paragraph 2: “The father of a child is the man who has recognized paternity.” Whether his genes were involved makes no difference to the BGB. The legislature simply did not think of the scenario mentioned at the beginning. He wanted to make it easy for fathers to protect mothers, for example in the event of an unwanted pregnancy. There were attempts to change the legal situation in order to put an end to the abuse, but they turned out to be half-hearted or ill-considered and were partly quashed by the Federal Constitutional Court.

Tobias M. would like to freak out on some days. He makes house calls to some of his “clients” and what he sees there is not for the faint of heart. Lots of people are crammed into rubbish, children are uncared for, drugs and alcohol are openly consumed. The children do not go to school. “It’s a certain group of people from a certain area of ​​Europe,” M. tries to express himself cautiously, and when asked he clarifies: Yes, almost all of them are Sinti and Roma from the Balkans. The city is located in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the judiciary, the method is more common among Vietnamese in Berlin. In Bremen there are a few hundred cases involving black African women, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine” reported last year.

False fatherhood in the Bundestag – short flashback

We switch to the Bundestag session on January 26, 2005, where the Berlin CDU deputy Roland Violence wants to know: “What information has the federal government received since January 2001 from the interior ministers of the federal states about paternity acknowledgments in which – firstly – the child is not the German had nationality and the mother was obliged to leave the country and, secondly, there are indications that the recognition was only apparent, i.e. not on the basis of actual biological descent or at least a social and family relationship, but for irrelevant reasons, in particular to obtain legal entitlements to social benefits or residence permit?»

The Social Democratic then Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of the Interior, Fritz Rudolf Körper, replied to him as follows:

“The federal government had received suspicions from the federal states that German men – mostly those who received social assistance – would deliberately and untruthfully acknowledge the paternity of children of foreign women who were obliged to leave the country in order to help the mothers of the German children get a residence permit. The conference of interior ministers discussed this problem on December 6, 2002 and decided to collect empirical data on the number of suspected cases of improper paternity acknowledgments by collecting data from the immigration authorities nationwide.

First collect data in peace

Data was collected for a year and the following figures were found: There were 2,338 residence permits granted to foreign mothers of German children. Almost 1,700 of these mothers were required to leave the country. In 1,449 cases, German men recognized paternity, and the wife and child were allowed to stay. In November 2004, the conference of interior ministers decided that “in the case of acknowledgment of paternity, a limited right of challenge should be created for a representative of public interests in the Civil Code”.

That’s exactly the mistake, Tobias M. moans – challenge means yes, the undesirable situation has already occurred, paternity has been recognized. Prevention is much more effective. Abusive registrations of paternity should be prevented from the outset, because they would draw a whole rat’s tail. For example, a large number of additional residence permits for the other children and often even for the biological fathers of these children. Huge families are the ones who exploit the German system without ever offering the prospect of contributing to the success of German society, or at least to its tax revenue.

This situation has lasted for twenty years without the German legislature taking any effective action to counteract it. It can also be read from the parliamentary minutes from that time that the state has no ambition at all to do so. “I believe that we have to deal very carefully with the question of how alleged abuse is presented,” said Parliamentary State Secretary Fritz Rudolf Körper in his answer.

There is a lack of will to stop the abuse

The CDU MP Ole Schröder asks what information there is that gangs of people smugglers organized the fake fathers for the foreign mothers. The state secretary body again assures that one is in the process of “clarifying the facts” and “bringing light to the cases”. His counterpart from the Federal Ministry of Justice confirmed at the meeting that the matter was being taken “seriously”. In fact, although the cases have been known for four years at this point, nothing has happened to this day.

who that Parliament Minutes reads, can read the lack of will to stop the abuse, even then, and that has not changed to this day. Current inquiries from the NZZ to the parliamentary groups all petered out, despite further inquiries.

In 2008 the authority introduced the possibility for the authority to challenge paternity, but the consequence of this challenge would have been that the child concerned loses German citizenship and thus becomes stateless. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that this was illegal in 2013 – and again there was no regulation.

The current regulation is ineffective

According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the number of suspected paternities had already risen to 5,000 in 2017. In 2017, the legislature established preventive abuse control in the Civil Code – finally, one could say. But the scheme is empty. Paragraph 1597a BGB reads quite well at first glance – the abusive acknowledgment of paternity is prohibited, and the procedure for acknowledging paternity should be suspended if there are concrete indications that this is the case, for example if the mother is is required to leave the country. The catalog in the law lists the most important constellations.

But the catch is hidden in paragraph 5 of the quoted paragraph: “A recognition of paternity cannot be abusive if the person recognizing it is the biological father of the child to be recognized,” it says. So what should the notary or registrar do if the homeless person standing in front of him simply claims to be the biological father? A DNA test must not be requested – although this would be the simplest method to rule out abuse. The whole catalog of indications of abuse is therefore worthless.

The ministries are currently collecting data again

The law is also a blunt sword for another reason: there are no information obligations between the authorities. So if someone blabs and thus raises doubts about the biological paternity, the notary or notarizing officials then fall back on the catalog of suspicions as provided for by law and inform the immigration authorities, the applicants can back down and simply go – to find their luck somewhere else try without anyone noticing. Since there are many places that recognize paternity, this is easy.

“The state’s hands are tied here,” it is often said, but it would be more precise to state: “The state ties its own hands.” By refraining from doing so, he enables the exploitation of his social system. What can be heard when asked by Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann sounds familiar and is reminiscent of the parliamentary debate of 2005: “The Federal Ministry of Justice and the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland are currently conducting a survey to determine the effectiveness of the applicable, 2017 regulations to prevent abusive acknowledgments of paternity. The aim is to determine whether there is a need for legislative action in this respect.” The “effectiveness” of the regulation enacted in 2017 has long been known.

This is precisely why the most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, introduced a bill to the Bundesrat in September 2020 that would reform the ban on abusive acknowledgments of paternity, but the bill was taken off the agenda.

As recently as September 2022, Bavaria’s interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, as chairman of the conference of interior ministers, said the situation was “highly unsatisfactory” and suggested “implementing a reform of paternity acknowledgments as soon as possible”. You’ve heard that a lot now. Nothing has happened.