People
102-year-old and 98-year-old celebrate 80th wedding anniversary
Ursula and Gottfried Schmelzer look back on an eventful life. photo
© Andreas Arnold/dpa
The Schmelzer couple have lived together for 200 years – and are celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary. According to the State Chancellery of Rhineland-Palatinate, this makes them the longest-married couple in Germany.
For Gottfried Schmelzer it was love at first sight. “We got along well from the first moment,” says the 102-year-old in his apartment in Bad Sobernheim, southwest of Mainz. He met his wife Ursula while working in an administrative office in Berlin.
They married soon afterwards – exactly 80 years ago in 1944. According to research by the State Chancellery, the Schmelzers are Rhineland-Palatinate is currently the longest married couple in Germany. And Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD) personally congratulated them.
“I was almost 19 and my husband was 22,” the 98-year-old remembers of her wedding. He had come to Berlin from Romania a year earlier. “Love at first sight? No,” she says. But: “He was stubborn. He wanted me. And then I didn’t have anything against it anymore.”
Gottfried Schmelzer says: “I accompanied her to the train, and when she said goodbye, I came with her, and from then on I always came with her.” The couple looks back on an eventful life with many stops and journeys that they still remember fondly today. “We take a lot of trips into the past,” she says of conversations with her husband.
It was a long way
“Our wedding had a few stumbling blocks,” remembers the 102-year-old. The necessary papers could not be found because the responsible Berlin registry office had been bombed out. “Then the phone calls started.” The papers had been stored in the Harz Mountains. Schmelzer immediately set off. “We were able to get married the next day.”
The couple initially lived in Frankfurt an der Oder, Ursula’s hometown. He was then drafted in February 1945, and on Christmas Eve – back from captivity – he knocked on the door of his home again.
“We had a long journey,” says the celebratory woman. At the end of 1952, the couple fled to the West via Berlin with their three small children, without any belongings, the youngest daughter still in a stroller. From there we went to Gottfried’s brother on the Lower Rhine, says Wolfgang (77), son of Gottfried and Ursula. The family of five lived there in the living room for almost a year before getting their own apartment.
At night, metalworker Schmelzer worked underground on the machines in the mining industry, and in the morning he assembled bicycles. His wife earned extra money while the children were at school and kindergarten. “We always had the feeling that our parents were there for us,” remembers Wolfgang. From the Lower Rhine we continued near Siegburg, where Ursula Schmelzer worked as a school secretary and her husband built submersible pumps.
“I still love him today and he loves me too”
The secret of their long marriage? “I still love him today and he loves me too,” she says. “We just fit together,” he said. And: “Love your wife.” In addition, the couple is always in conversation with each other. There is also a large, intact family: three children, seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
The Schmelzers moved their daughter Ute’s (72) leather workshop in an old mill to Bad Sobernheim in the Bad Kreuznach district around 17 years ago. Gottfried Schmelzer continued to help there after his retirement, and now a granddaughter runs the business.
How does the sociable and friendly couple stay so fit? “Crossword puzzles are my passion,” says the 102-year-old, who is saddened by the fact that he now needs household help after a fall. He also used to do a lot of sports. And: “My watchword has always been: follow the upright path and always be fair to others.” The 98-year-old says: “It also runs a bit in the family.” And: “Above all, we have been lucky in life so far.”