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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael When I visited Germany a few years ago and wanted to jet back to the USA after a week of vacation, the German border officer asked me if I lived in San Francisco. This was quite logical, as Angelika had just passed through the border exit control, and her German passport listed San Francisco as her place of residence.
I, on the other hand, had not applied for a new German passport at that time yet, because my old one was still valid, and accordingly, it listed 'Munich' as my place of residence. 'Yes,' I said, 'I live in San Francisco.' Suddenly, the customs officer became agitated and exclaimed, 'That's not allowed!' and 'No one knows where you live!'
These two sentences are the hits at every American party where I tell this story. Americans often can't stop laughing! In any case, I solemnly promised the officer to apply for a new passport with the correct entry at the next opportunity.
And that's what I did. If you live outside of Germany, the German consulate in the country where you reside is responsible for issuing new passports. Conveniently, San Francisco has a consulate (incidentally, along with Los Angeles, the only one on the entire West Coast of the USA) in the beautiful villa district of "Russian Hill." I went there, paid 50 dollars in cash (checks or credit cards were not accepted), presented my deregistration certificate from the Munich registration office (required if you leave Germany), as well as a birth certificate, a marriage certificate, and my green card, filled out a form, and was assured by the German-speaking employee that I would be called at home when the passport was ready in about four weeks. I didn't even get a receipt, but you can rely on German authorities, and indeed, I was called after the waiting period had passed and was able to pick up my new passport. And it correctly stated "San Francisco CA/USA" as my place of residence. By the way, this entry is important if you want to shop tax-free in Germany, as we have mentioned before (Rundbrief 03/2001).
A few years ago, I used to play Schafkopf with an employee of the consulate in San Francisco, and that's why I know that there is an answering machine on the premises that the officials have to check every few hours, even on weekends. If a German is in trouble in America, the consulate must help immediately. The German consulate in San Francisco deserves five stars, I can only recommend it.
Angelika Recently, German passports started carrying biometric features, which makes the document now cost 88 dollars, as I found out when I applied for my new passport at the consulate. Of course, Americans are to blame for the fuss with the biometric data, because German passports issued after October 25, 2006, must have biometric data if one wants to continue entering the USA as a German without a tourist visa.
For Germans who possess the American Green Card, this rule does not apply, but for new passport applications, biometric features are already generally stored in chip form. Since these features mainly involve facial recognition, passport photos are now subject to very strict guidelines. The consulate provides an information sheet with examples of how the photo should look. For example, the face in the passport photo must not be smaller than 32 mm, but also not larger than 36 mm. Ah!!! The photo looks so ridiculous now because nothing but the head is in it. The friendly consulate employee was a bit concerned because both my eyes are not exactly on the same level, but she said that the Federal Printing Office in Berlin would accept it. By the way, I read that facial recognition has a fairly high error rate. Well, cheers to that.
By the way, you don't necessarily need to apply for a new passport if your place of residence in the passport is no longer correct due to a move. The consulate will update the place of residence in the passport for free if you provide the previously mentioned deregistration confirmation from the German registration office, as well as a phone or electricity bill showing your current US address, and the Green Card or American residence permit. Naturally, a small "Change of Residence" form also needs to be filled out.
Your old passport is then simply clamped into an old-fashioned typewriter, and the place of residence is corrected. My passport has had San Francisco listed as my place of residence for quite some time now. Since I often travel to Germany and take advantage of tax-free shopping, I eventually got tired of arguing with the customs officers in Germany. Despite my Green Card and my California driver's license with an American address, they would get upset about the still-German place of residence in my passport. An officer at the airport in Bremen was particularly stubborn once and said that anyone could make up a story.
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