A 500-year-old oak tree outside the town of Eutin, Germany, has been matching singles for more than a century and is reportedly responsible for 100-plus marriages | Blog | Life

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A 500-year-old oak tree outside the town of Eutin, Germany, has been matching singles for more than a century and is reportedly responsible for 100-plus marriages.

On a chilly afternoon deep in northern Germany’s Dodauer Forest, 100km north-east of Hamburg, a postman wearing a bright yellow uniform was walking alone through the woods. When he reached a clearing, he rummaged through his bag and then slowly climbed a 3m-tall wooden ladder to deliver a purple envelope to a 500-year-old oak tree.

“Just one today,” he told me, before crunching back through the forest and disappearing towards the next letterbox on his route.

The purple envelope was from Denies in Bavaria. She’s 55, isn’t afraid to laugh at herself and loves nature. She knows what she wants, doesn’t mind being alone but wonders if there’s a man out there who can surprise her. If so, she hopes that he, too, is looking for love inside the tiny knothole in this oak tree.

A 3m-tall ladder leads to a tiny knothole where people send love letters in the 500-year-old tree (Credit: Eliot Stein)

Known as Der Bräutigamseiche (the Bridegroom’s Oak), this ancient timber outside the town of Eutin has been matching singles long before Tinder, and is reportedly responsible for more than 100 marriages. Today, people from all over the planet write letters addressed to the tree, hoping that for the price of a postage stamp, they may find a partner.

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There’s Marie from Brandenburg, who’d like to find a man who can dance; Heinrich from Saxony, who’s searching for a travel partner; and Liu from Shijiazhuang, China, who just wants to know if there’s a German woman who’d like a Chinese friend.

“There’s something so magical and romantic about it,” said 72-year-old Karl-Heinz Martens, who delivered letters to the tree as its postman for 20 years, starting in 1984. “On the internet, facts and questions match people, but at the tree, it’s a beautiful coincidence – like fate.”

During his time as postman, Martens delivered letters from six continents to the oak tree (Credit: Eliot Stein)

Though retired now, Martens still keeps a scrapbook filled with photographs, letters and newspaper clippings from his time as love’s official messenger – which he happily showed me over coffee in downtown Eutin. In his two decades of service to the oak, Martens delivered letters from six continents, often in languages he didn’t understand. He explained that while today many people know about the tree, 128 years ago it was a secret shared by two lovers.

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