Tatiana and Steffen Missbach, who have been together for forty years, continue to express their love through handwritten letters. Tatiana, 66, a retired personnel manager, emphasizes the importance of specificity in their correspondence, saying, “A good love letter goes beyond just expressing feelings; it includes personal touches like wishing him luck at music practice or letting him know I’ll be thinking of him.” She cherishes the moments when she finds a letter waiting for her at the breakfast table when Steffen departs for work trips.
Steffen, 68, who works as a car appraiser, views these letters as a tangible connection for Tatiana during his absences, providing her with something to hold onto when he cannot be there to voice his sentiments.
The Missbachs are participating in an innovative initiative at the University of Koblenz, located in western Germany, which combines citizen science with one of Europe’s largest repositories of love letters, some of which date back to the 1700s.
Established by Swiss linguist Eva Wyss, the archive has accumulated over 60,000 letters, with contributions arriving daily, mostly from private collections. Each letter not only reveals the intimate details of personal relationships but also offers insights into historical contexts and the evolution of language.
Within this extensive collection, many letters exhibit signs of age, adorned with drawings of loved ones, pressed flowers, and wax or lipstick seals, all adding to their charm and history.
To ensure the preservation and accessibility of these letters in a searchable database, Wyss and her team are undertaking an ambitious digitization project in collaboration with the Technical University in Darmstadt. Facing the challenges of limited academic resources, they have inspired numerous volunteers, including the Missbachs, to assist with sorting and transcribing the handwritten letters, a task that remains challenging for AI technology.
The volunteers are treated to a monthly stammtisch, a casual gathering where they discuss selected letters from specific periods. Recently, they focused on correspondence between lovers in communist East Germany. During this warm spring evening, the Missbachs, who have their roots in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) but now reside in the west, engaged in a vibrant discussion about six anonymized letters alongside participants from both sides of the former iron curtain.
As they read the letters aloud, the group, along with researchers Carla Seibert and Dominik Taubert, analyzed the dynamics of the relationships depicted, considering social pressures, potential self-censorship to avoid government scrutiny, and the possibility that some authors may have been reporting to the Stasi secret police based on the cautious tone of their writing.
Steffen remarked on the relevance of the letters to their own experiences, noting, “It’s really fascinating, especially when you can see parallels to your own life and love stories. We start discussing the letters and end up reminiscing about our own pasts.”
Wyss’s journey began in Zurich in 1997 when she sought public contributions to build the archive and was met with an overwhelming response, receiving items from family attics, estate sales, and even secret collections from the letter writers themselves.
“In just two or three months, I had over 2,000 letters,” Wyss recalled. “I knew I had stumbled upon something significant.”
With a background in linguistics and inspired by British cultural studies, Wyss aimed to challenge the narrow perspective on what constitutes academically significant writing. She pointed out the bias in German studies that idealized love letters, primarily focusing on passionate writings from men in the 18th and early 19th centuries, while neglecting the more mundane yet equally affectionate exchanges often written by women.
Wyss emphasized the wealth of linguistic creativity found within her growing archive, citing a memorable line from a 1930 letter: “Du Sapperlotslausbübischtolltrolliges Wesen Du!” (“You darndest cheeky elfin creature you!”), penned by a “Spitz” to his beloved Lisel. Another example from the 1990s showcased a young man’s imaginative metaphors reflecting the era’s spirit: “We’ll never part; you’re always by my side, sitting in my head, striking poses and changing, and every now and then tapping the top of my skull with a broomstick.”
Among the treasures of the archive, Taubert unveiled a box containing a remarkable collection of nearly 3,000 letters exchanged over three decades between a Berlin inmate and his parole officer, who shared a clandestine romance. “He frequently faced jail time for drug offenses, and she ultimately lost her job because of their relationship,” Taubert explained. “These letters provide a rare glimpse into life behind bars and how love and intimacy were navigated during that time, particularly amidst the spread of AIDS in the prison.” The couple eventually married once he was released for good.
Wyss expressed her appreciation for the beauty found in simple expressions of love, recalling another cherished letter: “S., you’re my everything, and I want it to stay that way for quite some time to come.” Over the years, she and her fellow researchers have published numerous studies examining the myriad ways people convey affection, longing, jealousy, betrayal, and loss through written words.
According to Wyss, the emergence of the bourgeoisie in the 18th century significantly influenced the development of emotional vocabulary, highlighting that love and affection are not solely represented in the grand gestures of aristocrats but can also be found in the everyday exchanges of ordinary people.
