Timber over Tinder: Bridegroom's Oak in a German forest has connected
lovers for over a century
[March 04, 2025]
By MICHAEL PROBST and STEFANIE DAZIO
EUTIN,
Germany (AP) — It's timber over Tinder in a forest in northern Germany
where the Bridegroom's Oak has connected lovers for more than a century. |
A passer by climbs up a ladder of the Bridegroom's Oak which has a
famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau
forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP
Photo/Michael Probst) |
|
Known as “Bräutigamseiche” in German, the Bridegroom’s Oak has a
famous knothole that's been used as a mailbox since 1892. It
even has its own postal code in the Dodau Forest some 250
kilometers (155 miles) north of Berlin.
Mail carriers from the German postal service act as Cupid,
delivering 50 to 60 letters to the knothole each month. They
must climb a ladder to reach the arboreal mailbox about 3 meters
(10 feet) up the 25-meter (82-foot) -tall tree that's more than
500 years old.
Visitors to the tree can leaf through the missives, some of
which are mailed from other continents, and choose whether to
become postal paramours with any of the letter-writers.
“The resulting pen pal relationships have even led to a few
marriages,” the postal service says.
The oak was first used as a waystation between a forester's
daughter and a chocolate manufacturer from Leipzig, according to
the postal service. The forester initially opposed the
courtship, so the couple left love letters for each other in the
knothole.
They ultimately married, with the forester's permission, under
the oak's leaves in 1892.
Send your own love letter to: Bräutigamseiche, Dodauer Forst,
23701 Eutin, Germany.
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Dazio reported from Berlin.
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