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.