Mysterious Grandfather

Hello, can anyone please tell me if there was such a thing as a register of people who emigrated from Germany in the 1930’s?

The reason I ask is that my mother who was born in Bückeburg near Hanover never knew her father because he fled Germany in 1936.

The story begins with my grandmother, Karoline Christine Johanne Brandt, born in Ahnsen on February 17th 1892.

On January 29th 1915 she married Carl Wilhelm Hartmann in Ahnsen. They went to live in Bückeburg where they had 3 sons, Wilhelm (Willi), Fritz and Hans.

Carl Hartmann died some time in the 1920’s, Willi survived WW2 having served in the Navy, Fritz and Hans both died in Russia serving with the Army.

My grandmother now widowed had a relationship in the mid 1930’s with a musician and became pregnant with my mother.

My late mother’s name was Helga Hartmann, although sometimes she used her mother’s maiden name of Brandt, she was born in Bückeburg on the 28th June 1936, her father, the musician, left Germany before she was born.

The only thing that my mother knew about her father was that he was a musician and that his surname was Mönchhaus. She believed that he was Jewish, his name and the fact that he fled Germany for the U.S.A. so suddenly in those troubled times would seem to support that assertion.

My mother grew up in Schwenstrasse 6 in Bückeburg, then after leaving school worked as a hairdresser in the town. She met my father in 1953 who was a British serviceman from Scotland. I too was born in Bückeburg on 27th June 1955, we lived with my grandmother in Schwenstrasse for about 2 years before my father was posted back to the U.K. My mother then took British citizenship and lived in England for the rest of her life.

I would very much like to find out more about my grandfather and any other family that my mother had in Bückeburg but there is so little information available, so I thought that the best place to start would be with some kind of register that the authorities may have kept of people who were encouraged to emigrate, also if I can find archives of the local newspapers of the time there may have been an article about his band or orchestra and perhaps dates and venues they were playing in the area.

I would appreciate any advice or help with any possible information sources , and although it’s a long shot maybe someone on the forum may recognise some of the names and places in my story.

Thanks,
Ronnie.
Edinburgh, Scotland.

Thank you Svenja and zimba 123 for your replies, I shall certainly take your advice and look into these sources. Regarding newspaper articles, do you know where I can find the name of local newspapers for a given town e.g Bückeburg at that time?

Thanks for that Henriette52, I've had quite a lot of contact with NLA in the past couple of years trying to locate my grandmother's birth certificate and other details, however I didn't think of them for newspaper archives, so I'll contact them again.

Hello Giacomo and Thomas thank you for your interest and help in my enquiries.

Firstly to Giacomo, it is good to hear that there is an actual genealogical record with the name Münchhausen, it is certainly something that I can follow up on, although I still don't know for sure what my grandfather's name really was, all that my late mother could tell me was that it was the German equivalent of the British name Monkhouse. A direct translation would, I presume be Mönchshaus or a variation of it. Regarding the reasons why he left Germany, it could possibly be that it was for political reasons but my mother strongly felt that her father was Jewish.

To Thomas, again the name is crucial so not knowing exactly what it was makes the search so difficult and you are correct that there is no entry for a father on my mother's birth certificate. I have a photocopy from the NLA Staatsarchiv Bückeburg of the church register entry for my mother's birth but there are some problems with it, it is handwritten so not very easy to decipher the names, which to me don't look like my grandmother's and mother's, the date of birth is correct and there is no entry for her father.
Regarding Bob Monkhouse, I remember him well, he was a very famous and funny comedian here in Britain and was well known to be Jewish. As Monkhouse is a typically Jewish name here in Britain, I would presume that it's German version would also be a Jewish name.

The key to my search is to discover exactly what my grandfather's name was which is why, after the holidays I will contact the NLA to search the newspaper archives for that period looking for articles and adverts for musical events etc. I also want to look at the archives to find any brothers, sisters or cousins of my grandmother in hope of finding some living relatives who may have family information, documents etc.

Ronnie.