Barbara Geier: Love, archived

TEXT & PHOTOS: BARBARA GEIER

Which country do you think is most likely to host an archive of close to 65,000 love letters spanning four centuries? Correct, it’s Germany. And who would initiate such a heartfelt project? Right again, a Swiss linguist.

Eva Wyss founded the archive in the late 1990s while working at the University of Zurich. Her motivation was linguistic research mainly focused on love letters written by famous people; time to shine a spotlight on private love letters by ordinary people from all walks of society. Her first appeal for donations from the public placed in a newsletter resulted in 2,500 love letters sent in within six months. This led to the launch of a love letter archive research project and the then Zurich Love Letter Archive. In 2013, the collection had grown to around 6,000 letters and moved with its founder to the University of Koblenz. Since 2015, the continually growing letter mountain is in the process of digitisation.

Quite a labour of love given that as of March 2026, the archive comprised 64,893 letters from 67 countries, with the most recent one dating from 2025. All those sweet words live on anything from conventional paper to calendar pages or even an embroidered handkerchief with the handwritten message: “Geliebter Monsieur, dieses Taschentuch gebe ich zu einem Abschied, wie wohl noch keiner in meinem Leben trauriger war.“ – “Beloved Monsieur, I give you this handkerchief on the occasion of our parting, perhaps the saddest farewell I have ever known.” This is dated May 1959, clearly a time of a more flowery writing style. Fittingly, this love letter writer ended her note with lyrics from Franz Lehár’s operetta The Land of Smiles: “Aus dem Paradies flog ein Traum uns zu: eine Harmonie, ich und du!” – “From paradise a dream flew down to us: a harmony, you and I!”

While many of the love letters in the collection go back to the late 19th and the 20th century, expressing your feelings in writing is by no means a thing of the past. It’s just the medium that has changed. Hence, the archive also collects digital love letters, including emails, text messages and WhatsApp chats. Contemporary expressions of love are not only shifting to visuals (hello, emoji) but, so linguist Eva Wyss, also to public platforms such as Instagram that are increasingly seen to be part of the modern-day love letter.

One thing that might get lost with the move to platforms that favour shorter ways of communicating or talking without words altogether, are instances of linguistic creativity featuring very long made-up terms of endearment. One archive example is “Du Sapperlotslausbübischtolltrolliges Wesen Du!” written by someone who called himself Spitz to a lady by the name of Lisel in 1930. In case you want to use that for your next love letter, it would be something along the lines of “You wonderfully ridiculous little rascal of a creature, you.” Which certainly beats a simple “darling” or “sweetheart”…

Barbara Geier is a London-based freelance writer, translator and communications consultant. She is also the face behind www.germanyiswunderbar.com, a German travel and tourism guide and blog that was set up together with UK travel writer Andrew Eames in 2010.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Discover Germany, Switzerland & Austria.

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