The GRC Tracing Service Hamburg Office has extensive holdings and - under specific conditions - also provides information from the available data and information.
Archive holdings at the Hamburg Office
Overview of the holdings
Databases / indexes on:
- Emigration applicants from the year 1947 onwards, as far as known to the GRC and official bodies
- Persons who have entered the country and are permanently resident in Germany
- Inquiries and requests for help made to the GRC Tracing Service Hamburg Office
Correspondence, e.g. in connection with:
- GRC Tracing Service Hamburg Office: Documents
- Emigration endeavours, including the questionnaires from the German Embassy in Moscow (1955 - 1957)
- Emigration of persons in need of assistance
- Fate and deportation routes
- Post-war fate, in particular discrimination as a German
- Occupational activities
- Living situation in the country of origin
- Information on ancestry, family ties
- Past and present places of residence
- Detentions*)
- Forced adoptions*)
- SED injustice*)
- Escape attempts*)
Certificates, documents, attestations, identity cards
- Rejection notifications in response to applications for departure
- Birth, marriage and death certificates, announcements
- Citizenship cards, certificates of nationality, national list cards
- Reports of the Document Center from approx. 1956 - 1974
- Identity cards, pay books, workbooks, photos
- Certificates of release from prison*)
Proof of emigration attempts
- Wysow (request)
- Applications for departure, refusals
Notifications
Notifications from the Federal Office for Administrative Affairs of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (predecessor of the Federal Office of Administration), from district and city administrations and from the Federal Office of Administration:
- Acceptance permits (from 1951)
- Notifications of admission (from 1990)
- Entry and residence permits
- Registration documents and notifications, transport lists
- Revocations, suspensions and refusals
Financing of return costs
- Air travel, rail travel
- Patient transportation
- Costs for passport and exit permit
Provision of information
Providing information, expert opinions and determining whereabouts are carried out - in compliance with the applicable data protection regulations - in particular for the following procedures:
- Admission procedure according to the Federal Expellees Act (BVFG)
- Displaced persons' identity card - procedure, certificates according to § 15 BVFG
- Citizenship determination procedure
- Residence law procedure
- Benefit and account clarification proceedings under foreign pension legislation
- Pension and retirement issues
- Reparation of SED injustice*)
- Search for persons (displaced persons, ethnic German repatriates or their relatives)
- Assistance in entry and exit procedures
- Witness statements
- Procurement of certificates
- Family contacts
- Information on the situation of Germans in Eastern and Southeastern Europe
