Why Do They Want To Know The City I Was Born In?
In and amongst all of the paperwork that you've had to fill out for your visa, residence permit, matriculation paperwork, you've likely noticed that you've had to repeatedly fill in the city you were born in. What's the deal with that though? Are they actually keeping track of this? Do German government agencies have some sort of register of everywhere people were born that they check in on? Why do they ask for this even from foreigners?
In order to the previous rhetorical question: yes, and kind of. In Germany, it's a common question on paperwork to ask for the city you were born in, as a method of differentiating between people who have the same name. Even when you are also asked to provide your date of birth, the city you were born in is one of the differentiators that is used to make sure that two people with the same name aren't confused in government or university databases.
If you were curious, yes, Germany does keep registers of all of the people born in Germany. Previously kept in literal books, the Geburtenregister (birth register) is a Personenstandregister, one of the various lists including birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage certificates. But no, they're not going to try to track you down in them.