German wants to be 1,000 kids' father

56-year-old Jurgen Hass has already legally recognised 300 children in India and other Western countries.

A 56-year-old German, who has already legally recognised 300 children, including from India, is seeking to become the legal father of 1,000 foreign children so they can have German nationality, education and social benefits, Der Speigel reported in its edition to appear on Monday.

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Jurgen Hass, a former local leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) party, told the weekly magazine he intended to exploit grey areas in Germany's paternity law to do so.

He said he had already legally recognised 300 children in India, Paraguay, Romania, Hungary, Moldavia, Russia and Ukraine.

Hass told Der Spiegel he was "playing" with Germany's 1998 paternity law, which allows men to legally recognise a child when the mother agrees and no other man claims to be the father.