It's not just foreign nationals that would be barred from issuing requests but non-profit organizations as well. Also, the cap on fees would be eliminated, further increasing the barriers for people wanting to issue requests.

The problem is not to restrict it to German citizens, but removing it for everything which is not a citizen, like civil rights organizations, environment organizations, and everyone else who has a legit interest to check on the governments work.

What is the rationale to restrict it to citizens? Do you prefer a more open or more closed society?

How about the us citizen who is a permanent resident in Germany? German family? Business partners?

This is a minor point. It gives the government broad power to reject any request, associations and media outlets are excluded, it costs more and the mandatory REDACTION OF NAMES is undercutting accountability completely.

Yea, I don't give a shit wether only citizen should be able to request data.

It excludes organisations and increases fees. So, if say Amnesty or Greenpeace (two NGOs opposing this act) want to FoI something, they have to get a German citizen to do it for them, possibly at considerable expense - and you bet if they try to compensate them, it'll be "foreign interference" and an excuse for suppression.

Like GDPR, the existence of FoI laws give government agencies a reason to develop systems to quickly and effortlessly give people the access they're entitled to. Given the existence of such systems (analogous to the "data takeout" systems businesses must have for PII), giving access to foreigners as well should be unproblematic. It's supposed to be public information in the first place, roadblocks have no place.