Under Germany’s “Foreign Pensions Law” (FPL), members of German ethnic minorities outside Germany who were forced to flee their homelands may receive credits under the German social security system for periods during which they were covered under the social security system in their country of origin.  These “areas of expulsion” according to the German Federal Law on Displaced Persons include territories that now comprise Albania, Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Republics of the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia.

To qualify for FPL credits, the persons involved must generally prove that they had acknowledged themselves as ethnic Germans while in their former homelands.  However, many ethnic German Jews who lived in areas that came under the influence of the German Nazi regime before and during the Second World War avoided acknowledging themselves as German due to anti-Semitism prevailing at the time and the fear of losing their Jewish identity.  Section 17a of the Foreign Pensions Law, which was added by a 1989 amendment effective July 1, 1990, permits these ethnic German Jews to receive FPL credits as well.

While persons who reside in the United States may qualify for FPL credits based on §17a of the Foreign Pensions Law, many who do have been unable to receive benefits based on the newly awarded credits because of benefit portability restrictions in German law.  These restrictions generally prevent a person who is outside of Germany from receiving a pension based on FPL credits unless the person has paid contributions to the German pensions insurance system.  The more German contributions a person has paid, the greater the amount of pension based on FPL credits the person can receive while outside Germany.  (See the annotations to Paragraph 8(b).)  Because many U.S. residents who first became eligible for FPL credits as a result of  §17a of the Foreign Pensions Law never lived in Germany and were never covered under the German social security system, they have been unable to receive any German benefits based on the FPL credits.  By allowing these persons to pay German contributions retroactively, paragraph 8 made it possible for them to receive German benefits based on their FPL credits while living in the United States.

To be eligible to pay voluntary contributions under paragraph 8(a), a person must be either a U.S. or German national, a refugee or a stateless person.  In conformity with the requirements that were included in § 17a of the Foreign Pensions Law at the time of its enactment, contributions will be permitted only by persons who had attained age 16 prior to the date that Nazi influence extended to their homelands.  These dates, which are specified for each territory in German regulations, range from January 30, 1933, in the case of Danzig (present-day Gdansk, Poland), to September 1, 1941, in the case of the Baltic States, the Ukraine and certain other territories.  Moreover, voluntary contributions will not be permitted under this provision for periods prior to these dates or after the date a person attained age 65, except as provided in Paragraph 8(c).

Following the general provisions of German law, paragraph 8(a) does not allow voluntary contributions to be paid for any month that has already been credited as a period of coverage under the German pensions insurance system, including a month that is credited under the Foreign Pensions Law.  Contributions will be permitted, however, for periods credited under U.S. law.

German law generally prohibits the payment of voluntary contributions for periods after the occurrence of an event that gives rise to benefit eligibility, such as death or disability onset.  Under paragraph 8(a) however, voluntary contributions were permitted after such an event, as long as it occurred within 2 years following the date the Second Supplementary Agreement entered into force (May 1, 1996).