I must say I agree with Christine and Sabina. As you have a county in VA ,I would first try to gather all the information I could locate about him in the US before attempting to hunt for him in Germany. As you would need his full name, his age at time of immigration.I'd began with your mother's birth certificate, census reports, death records, his sister Johanna , marriage certificates and go on from there.
good luck , we all need some of that in our searching. Owning and reading a good book on genealogy is a start in searching.
Jane
Hello Peggy, What good fortune chancing upon the town, Church records are always on the list of any genealogist.
Yes, Jane and Christine,
I forgot to mention also: what I had to do is to widen the circle. Not just search in one particular town or village, but to widen the circle, until you might find something.
I myself have been stuck because I was informed that all the churchbooks had been destroyed in that particular town, only to find out that the birth of my ancestor was in a totally different town. And you might also include a signature like I did to the bottom of your email when you are sending one around our list. I have had more email since then than ever before and I am still busy sorting through the data......
Search, search and invent. It's like being a detective. I love and have spent thousands of hours searching and still do.