Am I German?

Lately I have been obsessed with pursuing a claim of German nationality through descent. You see, my paternal² great-grandfather was German, so as long as everyone was married and nobody did anything to lose their German nationality, it should percolate its way down to me. Whether I can convince the German consulate of this hinges on some hard-to-get documents from a long time ago, and at least one technicality.

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Brazilian certificate of "no naturalization"

There are two main ways that an individual would lose German citizenship during the 20th century: To voluntarily apply for and receive the nationality of another country (naturalization); or to serve voluntarily in the armed services of another country. My German great-grandfather emigrated from German to Brazil with his family in 1913, and remained there for the rest of his life. To support my claim of an unbroken chain of German nationality from him to me, I will have to show that he did not naturalize as a Brazilian citizen; or, if he did, it was after my grandfather was born. I'll also have to show that my grandpa only served the compulsory service in the Brazilian army and not a day more. The former is called a "certificate of no naturalization" (or similar words to that effect). The latter, would be proved by, what I think is in Portuguese called a "Certidão de Tempo de Serviço Militar." I haven't had much luck Googling these topics; while there is ...
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