지구상에서 가장 오래된 사랑의편지 Knothole 우편함이 독일에 있다는것 아시나요?

사랑에는 여러종류가 있는것 같다. 젊은이들에게는 물불을 가리지 않은 젊음을 불사르는 사랑이 있는가 하면, 황혼의 인생을 살아가는 연인들에게는 육체적 접촉보다는 정을 주고받는, 상대방을 존경하고 생각해 주는 애틋한 사랑이 있다.

이러한 사랑들을 연결해주는데 가장 큰 공신은 바로 사랑을 담은 편지를 전달해 주는 우체부 아저씨의 고마움도 있지만, 그사연들을 비가오나 눈이오나 꼭 간직하고 있다가 당사자들이 오면 꺼내가도록 자기몸을 열어주는 우체통이 있다.

그런데 그러한 우체통을 연상할때는 꼭 쇠붙이로 만든 4각형의 상자, 또는 나무조각으로 부쳐만든 역시 4각형의 형상을 생각하게 되는데, 여기서는 그러한 인위적인 상자들이 아니고, 500년이 넘은 상수리나무의 사람키 높이에 자연적으로 발생한 구멍이 바로 우체통역활을 하면서, 지금까지의 누계를 보면 약 100쌍이 넘는 연인들이 결혼으로 꼴인하는 최고의 Match maker노릇을 하고 있다는데, 그곳이 바로 독일의 조그만 도시,  Eutin 시골동네라고 한다.

독일의 Dodauer 숲속 깊은곳의 차거운 오후에 노란제복을 입은 우체부아저씨가 이숲속을 향하여 터벅터벅 걷어오고 있었다. 이곳은 독일 동부에 있는 Hamburg로 부터 약 100킬로 북쪽에 위치한 시골 마을이다.  그숲속에 도착하자, 그는 우편백을 열고 우편물을 뒤적여서 한통의 보라색 편지를, 3미터 높이의 나무사다리를 타고 올라가, 500년 수령의 참나무에 있는 옹이구멍 우체통에 넣었다.

"오늘은 오직 한통의 편지뿐이네"라고 말하면서, 다음 우편배달지역으로 가기위해 터벅터벅 그의 배달 Route를 따라 숲속을 빠져나가면서, 나에게 던진 말이다.

그보라색 편지는 Bavaria의 Denies씨로 부터 보내온 편지였다. 그녀는 55세로 그자신이 전연 우습게 생각지도 않으며 이러한 사랑을 좋아한다. 그녀는 그녀가 원하는것을 잘 알고 있으며, 혼자 외롭게 있는것에 구애받지않고, 그녀를 깜짝 놀라게할 한 남자가 만약에 그곳에 있다고 해서 하나도 이상하게 생각할 이유가 없다고 설명한다. 만약에 그렇타면, 그남자도 그녀처럼 이참나무의 조그만 옹이구멍(Knothole)에서 그러한 사랑을 찾고 있을 것으로 희망하고 있었다.

미국인 Hitch hiker가 스위스에서 그녀가 살고있는 마을에서 히치하이크를 했는데, 인연이 맺어져 3일간 같이 지내다가 결국 평생 같이 살게되는 결혼식까지 했다는 Love Story도 이색적이다.

Brandenburg출신의 Marie는 춤을 잘추는 남자를 만나기를 고대하고 있다.
Saxony출신 Heinrich씨는 같이 여행할 동반자를 찾고 있고, 중국의 Shinjiazhuang 출신 Liu씨는
중국인 친구를 찾고있는 독일 여성이 있는지를 무척 알고 싶어하는 친구다.

"사랑에는 마술같고, 로맨틱한 여러일들이 있다는것을 나는 잘알고 있다. 인터넷상에서는 현실과 의문점들을 통해서 사람들을 연결시켜주지만, 이곳 나무 우체통에서는 아름다운 일들이 운명처럼 동시에 일어나고 있다는것을 나는 알고 있다."라고 지난 1984년부터 20년간 우편배달부로 근무해온, 72세의 Karl Heinz Martens씨는 설명한다.

이나무 우체통은 일년에 약 1,000통이 넘는 사랑의 편지를 배달 받는다.  또한 1930년대에 한여인이 나무우체통에 있는 사랑의 편지들을 읽기위해 사다리를 타고 오르고 있는 사진도 매우 노스탈직(Nostalgic)이다.

이러한 사랑의 편지들이 그나무 우체통에 배달될수 있도록 독일 우정성은 공식적으로 그곳에 편지를 배달하도록 우편배달부를 배당해서 운영해오고 있다는 것이다.  이얼마나 각박한 오늘을 살아가는 현실에서 마음의 여유를 느낄수 있는 가슴 흐믓한 인정미를 느낄수 있게한다.

이러한 화려하지도않으면서, 마음의 여유를 느낄수 있는 이러한 우체통의 운영을 고국 대한민국에서도 볼수 있다면? 하는, 괜히 부질없는 생각을 해본다. 팍팍한 사회생활에 윤활유 역활을 할수 있을것 같아서 넉두리 해본 소리다. 조국이 잘돼야 하니까 말이다.

     Denies씨가 보낸 편지가 상수리 나무의 조그만 옹이구멍 우체통에 배달되여 있다.  이러한         사랑을 Platonic Love라고 말할수 있지 않을까?  황혼의 인생들에게는 바로 이러한 진실이         담긴 사랑이 보약이라고 할수 있을것 같다.

    아래의 사랑의 우체통에 대한 얘기를 읽어보면, 읽을수록 고개를 끄덕이게 된다.

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.

• By Eliot Stein

14 February 2018

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.

You may also be interested in: • Where one kiss brings 15 years of luck
• Is this the most perfect love story?
• The couple that defied the stars

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.

In 1890, a local girl named Minna fell in love with a young chocolate maker named Wilhelm. Minna’s father forbade her from seeing Wilhelm, so the two started secretly exchanging handwritten letters by leaving them in a knothole in the oak’s trunk. A year later, Minna’s father finally granted her permission to marry Wilhelm, and the two were wed on 2 June 1891 under the oak tree’s branches.

The story of the couple’s fairy-tale courtship spread, and soon, hopeful romantics throughout Germany who had no luck finding partners in biergartens or ballrooms began writing love letters to the Bridegroom’s Oak. The tree received so much mail that, in 1927, the German postal service, Deutsche Post, assigned the oak its own postcode and postman. It also placed a ladder up to the fist-sized postbox, so that anyone who wanted to open, read and respond to the letters could.

The only rule, Martens explained, is that if you open a letter you don’t want to answer, you should place it back in the tree for someone else to find.

A woman stops to read the mail sent to the oak tree, while her two dogs wait (Credit: Eliot Stein)

“The tree receives about 1,000 letters a year,” said Martin Grundler, spokesman for Deutsche Post. “Most come in the summertime. I suppose that’s when everyone wants to fall in love.”

For those sweet on someone specific, there’s a legend that says if a woman walks around the oak’s trunk three times under a full moon while thinking of her beloved, without speaking or laughing, she’ll marry within the year.

Today the Bridegroom’s Oak remains the only tree in the world with its own mailing address. Six days a week for the past 91 years, a postman has walked through the forest – rain, snow or shine – and climbed the ladder to stuff letters from starry-eyed singles into the tree. And no-one has ever delivered mail to the oak tree longer than Martens.

The tree receives about 1,000 letters a year 

“It was my favourite part of the day,” Martens said, handing me a black-and-white photo of him wearing a brimmed cap and bifocals, smiling as he dropped letters into the oak. “People used to memorise my route and wait for me to arrive because they couldn’t believe that a postman would deliver letters to a tree.”

In 20 years, Martens said there were only 10 days when no-one wrote to the oak, and while he’d occasionally deliver as many as 50 envelopes a day, not all of them were love letters.

“Before unification [in 1990], people from East Germany who had no contacts in the West used to write to the tree and ask what kind of cars and music we had available,” Martens remembered. “I wanted to write back, but my boss recommended me not to.”

According to Martens, other messages that arrived over the years started as sweet nothings and blossomed into beautiful somethings.

The Deutsche Post has assigned a mail carrier to deliver letters to the tree (Credit: Archiv TI Eutin)

In 1958, a young German soldier named Peter Pump reached into the oak, felt several letters and pulled out a piece of paper that had just a name and address on it. On a whim, he decided to respond to the ‘Honoured Miss Marita’, who hadn’t written to the tree in the first place – her friends had, knowing she was too timid. Peter and Marita corresponded for a full year before he built up the courage to meet her. They were married in 1961 and are celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary this year.

Looking for love?

You can send the oak tree a letter at:

Bräutigamseiche
Dodauer Forst
23701 Eutin, Germany

To visit it in person, take the B76 road from Eutin towards Plön, turn right at the Alex Münster distillery and you’ll see a wooden sign pointing towards the tree on the left.

Then there’s the story of the Christiansens. In 1988, Martens delivered a letter to the oak from a 19-year-old East German girl named Claudia, who was looking for a pen pal. A West German farmer named Friedrich Christiansen found it and wrote back to her. One letter turned into 40, and the couple fell in love. Unable to meet, Friedrich and Claudia exchanged letters for nearly two years across the border. When the Wall fell, the two met for the first time and were married in May 1990.

“I know of at least 10 marriages brought together by the tree,” Martens said. “One, in particular, sticks out.”

I know of at least 10 marriages brought together by the tree 

In 1989, a German TV station was doing a special feature on the oak, and asked Martens if he himself had ever found love under its branches. He said he hadn’t. A few days later, while Martens was climbing up the ladder to deliver the mail to the Bridegroom, he spotted a handwritten note from a woman named Renate addressed to the oak’s postman.

“I would like to meet you,” it read. “You are my type. At the moment, I am also alone.”

“So I called her – rather clumsily – and soon I met her,” Martens said, handing me a picture of he and Renate kissing on their wedding day. “We were married in 1994 and had our reception under the oak tree.”

The local newspaper printed a photo of Martens on the ladder in his suit and one of the newlyweds kissing under the tree alongside the headline, ‘Wedding of the year’. Twenty-four years later, Martens and Renate remain happily married, and the former postman still keeps her letter.

As the sun began to fade in downtown Eutin, Martens suddenly closed his scrapbook and reached for his coat. “Let’s go before it gets dark,” he said, grabbing his car keys. “Follow me.”

Women climb the ladder to read love letters in the 1930s (Credit: Karl-Heinz-Martens)

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the Dodauer Forest, this time following Martens’ heavy footsteps towards the old oak. At the circular fence around the tree, he pointed towards two signs: one describing the tree’s history, which he wrote; and another reading, ‘May this marriage last a long time!’.

In 2009, after more than 100 years of bringing people together, the Bridegroom’s Oak was symbolically married to a 200-year-old chestnut tree near Düsseldorf. Though 503km apart, the trees remained together for six years until the chestnut started suffering from old age and had to be cut down, leaving the Bridegroom a widow.

“When I started coming here, the tree was stronger and healthier,” Martens said, pointing up to a series of cables securing the oak’s branches. “But I’m not so healthy either, so I suppose we have a special connection.”

Several years ago, arborists detected a fungal infection inside the oak, leading them to lop off a number of its limbs to prevent it from spreading. Around the same time, Martens was diagnosed with leukaemia. Like the tree’s branches, he explained that his bones aren’t so stable anymore.

Though retired, Martens still likes to come back to visit the tree (Credit: Eliot Stein)

“But I can still climb the ladder,” he said, slowly raising himself up its rungs.

After peering through the oak’s tiny post box, Martens politely excused himself. It was getting late, and he needed to go back and see his wife.

As he left, a slight man with neatly combed hair carrying a small piece of paper came plodding through the forest. When he approached the oak, I cautiously asked if he wouldn’t mind answering a few questions for a story I was working on.

He said he sometimes comes to the tree by himself after work, and handed me his handwritten note. It read: “I am a widower, 53 years old, 1.75m tall, living in Ostholstein. I’m searching for a slim-medium built loving and loyal partner. Maybe talk soon, Jens.”

Denies' mailed letter sits inside the oak tree's small knothole (Credit: Eliot Stein)

“You never know,” he smiled.

I waved goodbye and started walking out of the woods. At the edge of the clearing, I turned to see Jens atop the ladder, sliding something purple into his jacket pocket.

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