Groom's oak: the only tree in the world with its own postal code, connecting destinies (12 photos + 1 video)

His address is known on every continent. Letters have been arriving here in batches for almost a hundred years. And one day, the postman delivering them found a message in a hollow tree from the woman who would become his wife. Meet the main connector of German hearts.





If you write a letter to: Groom's Oak, Dodauer Forest, 23701 Eitin, Germany, it won't disappear along the way, but will end up in the hollow of an old oak tree, three meters above the ground.



There are no couriers here. No matching algorithms. There's a wooden ladder, a stack of letters, and a rule: anyone can come, open an envelope, read someone's confession, and reply. The oak tree has been serving as a postman for almost a hundred years, and, according to legend, it has been uniting lonely souls for much longer.

The oak tree is said to be over 500 years old. Legend has it that it was planted by the son of a Celtic chieftain in gratitude to a Christian girl who freed and saved him by cutting his ropes.





Historians just shrug. Most likely, this story was invented by monks. They needed to somehow explain to the locals why they prayed at the oak tree. It was easier to rewrite the pagan ritual as a Christian parable. Whether to believe it or not is up to each person to decide. But every spring, a service is still held at the tree.



Another tradition for the most patient. If a girl walks around an oak tree three times during a full moon, without laughing or saying a word, and thinks about her beloved, she will marry within a year. Does it work? If anyone has tried it, they prefer to keep quiet about it.

It was the end of the 19th century. At that time, there lived a forester named Orth. He had a daughter, Minna, who was in love with a young man from Leipzig—the son of a chocolate manufacturer named Wilhelm. Her father was categorically against their relationship. Absolutely.



Then the lovers came up with a plan: they left letters for each other in the hollow of an old oak tree. The hiding place worked flawlessly. And when the father finally gave in, the couple married right under the branches of that very tree. This happened on June 2, 1891 (some sources say 1892, but most agree on the first).



Word spread quickly. Soon, complete strangers began leaving letters in the hollow, hoping to find love. And the oak never failed. The tradition took hold so strongly that in 1927, the German postal service assigned the tree an official postal code and erected a ladder nearby.



How many couples have married thanks to the oak? Estimates vary: some say 5, others say over a hundred, and some sources even claim 200 marriages. It's impossible to verify everything. But one story has been documented with absolute certainty.



Karl-Heinz Martens was a postman who delivered letters to an oak tree for 20 years. In the late 1980s, he was featured in a TV report about an unusual tree. A few days later, a letter addressed to him from a woman named Renate was discovered in the tree's hollow. She wrote: "I like you. I'm single now, too."



Postman Martens

Karl-Heinz and Renate met. They got married. And the wedding reception was held under the branches of the Groom's Oak Tree. This can't be a coincidence. The oak tree clearly blessed its postman. This touching story would make a great movie script.



The oak tree is old, but alive. It's sick, but it holds on. In 2014, a fungal infection was discovered. Some of the branches had to be cut down, and the crown was reinforced with cables. But the tree continues to grow. And, most importantly, it continues to receive letters.



Today, the hollow tree receives about 50-60 letters a month, or approximately 600-1000 a year. Most of them come in the summer. Apparently, everyone wants to fall in love at that time of year. It's unknown whether Martens is still alive (he was about 72 years old at the time of his last interview in 2018), but his work lives on.



And the oak tree stands. And the postmen still climb the ladder twice a day to drop another envelope containing someone's hope into the hollow. If you suddenly decide to write a letter to the oak tree, the address is still working. And the tradition lives on. Perhaps because true love doesn't care how it's conveyed—through a daisy, a text message, or a centuries-old hollow.