In Germany, as in Britain, one can find literature on second generation migrants, in particular focusing on the largest group, the Turks. Like the British these studies used to centre around the notion of culture conflict, but increasingly legal aspects are taken into account as well. Already Auernheimer (1988, 127-128) emphasises the effects the insecure foreigner status has on the identity formation of members of the second generation. Bielefeld (1988, 200-205) argues, similarly to the British researchers, that the young Turks shape their life around their bi-culturality on their own terms, having thus implicitly two citizenships, the official one of the country of origin of their parents and the social one of their specific situation. Providing them with an equal legal status as other German residents would, in Bielefeld's view, be a necessary but not sufficient condition for integration. The ambivalence in status, i.e. belonging officially to another country while actually living in and feeling part of Germany, is also taken up by a report of the federal commissioner for the matters of foreigners, which argues that this collision of self and external perception can impair the self-confidence and that the best solution would be to provide second generation migrants with German citizenship. Gaitanides (1996, 39) highlights that one cannot expect an identification with the German state and society by the second generation migrants if one does not endow them with legal and political rights.
Some authors also study the willingness to naturalise among second generation migrants in Germany. The extensive empirical study of Mehrländer et al. (1996, 412-424) shows that the young foreigners, especially those from outside the European Union, are increasingly willing to take the German citizenship and that the parents largely accept it, nonetheless many are still insecure about whether they should actually take the step. The main reasons for applying, are among those who have been long in Germany, the wish for equal legal status and political rights as well as the fact that they perceive themselves to have roots in Germany. Furthermore also the freedom of travel is an incentive. The majority does not consider naturalisation to be a distancing from the country of origin, but most of those who do not want to have the German citizenship argue that they want to keep their national identity. Other motives for staying a foreigner carry much less weight in the responses. In fact changes in Turkish laws which removed legal disadvantages for naturalised Turks in Germany did not result in a significantly higher willingness to naturalise. Practical reasons thus do not seem to be the major reasons for clinging to the original citizenship.
Popp (1996, 59-63) takes a more analytical approach and finds a slightly different interpretation of the willingness to naturalise. She argues that while taking the German citizenship shows the wish to stay forever in Germany, it does not mean that one acquires the German identity and loses the other. The incentives for the application are much more practical and depend very much on the general satisfaction of the second generation migrants. The latter, however, is impaired by experiencing xenophobia, by being socialised by the state to grow up as a foreigner. The insecurity of the status together with the implicit othering results in an alienation from Germany and makes it difficult to renounce the original citizenship for the German, thus the wish for a dual nationality is a logical consequence of the circumstances. Finally, Ehringfeld (1997, 79-83) takes the view that naturalisation stands normally at the end of a process of analysing one's own identity and signifies a detachment from the country of origin. Thus most second generation migrants will keep their original citizenship because they do not want to lose their national identity.