The final part of historian Alan Roberts’ look into love letters sent from Skipton PoW Otto Goerg to his girlfriend. Did they ever reunite after his release?

Times were changing. Skipton prisoner of war and businessman Otto Goerg has been corresponding for almost two years with his young sweetheart Lizzie. She lives in fashionable Charlottenburg, soon to become part of Berlin, while Otto lives in a small village called Tiefenstein in a part of Germany which is definitely off the beaten track.

Things have not always run smoothly, but they will soon be reunited. Gone were the censorship and the flimsy paper letters forms, Otto can now write at length on proper notepaper. These letters are so important. A few small items have been recovered from the site of the camp and are on display in Craven Museum. The German officers did publish their ‘official’ memoir ‘Kriegsgefangen in Skipton’, but these letters contain the innermost thoughts of just one officer.

Three letters survive from the last month before Otto’s release.

26 September: To my great joy I received a loving letter from you yesterday and another one today. Many thanks and kisses in return. What horrible accident has befallen my clumsy little one? You almost chopped you thumb off!

Four weeks have gone by since the Versailles Peace agreement was signed… In the last few days we have been told that we must wait for German ships. But when will these arrive?

6 October: Last year things were bleak on the letter writing front. I have written to you more often than you wrote to me – three times each week! You saw what happened last month when you received an avalanche of six letters at once. You tried to answer them all in one go. Unfortunately neither of us has the slightest influence on the postal service. If we could it would be a lot better.

So you have given up on learning languages. You want me to act as your teacher. I am not at all suited to teaching. I don’t think two people as much in love as we are can successfully engage in this kind of dull study. Seriously Treasure you should go back to your studies. You could still use your languages every now and then even in a place in the back of beyond like Tiefenstein. Foreign buyers will arrive just like they did before the war, and some old customers will expect more hospitality.

Here at Skipton we are only getting half of our normal supplies of certain foods because of the [rail] strike and we are getting no coal for heating. Your second parcel has not arrived.

19 October 1919: Otto will be released from Skipton in about a week’s time. This is his last surviving letter.

Your letters arrived yesterday and today, he writes. I am also delighted that my small gift pleased you so much.

Otto is plagued by self doubt. You write that you have become quite a lady. Your photographs have been telling me that for some time. Do you know Treasure that you are too sophisticated for me and for Tiefenstein. I am half peasant, or else a young man from the country, or as Berliners [like yourself] would say a country bumpkin. Will I like your cheerful demeanour? Listen Dummy, that’s part and parcel of the little Lizzie who captured my heart. You will be shocked to see what a cantankerous and socially inept bachelor I have become…

And finally the plans: we could meet up in Düsseldorf and we would not need a travel permit. We could spend two days together. It’s not a particularly beautiful city. In [British] occupied Cologne I would not be able to move about freely in my [German] uniform.

Otto and Lizzie were married in Berlin in December 1920. Otto’s father Carl had passed the family jewellery business to his two sons Otto and Walter. Meanwhile Carl (known as Jörg the Dog) concentrated on his passion for breeding hounds.

An advertisement from the 1920s shows the firm of ‘Carl Goerg’ dealing in precious and semi-precious stones. A further advert also offers earrings, and bracelets produced in the firm’s own workshops. A receipt lists silver rings set with topazes, amethysts, synthetic rubies, lapis lazuli, agate and amber. A poster displaying some elegant designs was produced for the Hannover Trade Fair in the early 1950s.

Lizzie and Otto were married for 45 years. Their only child Marleen-Dagmar was born in 1932 and later emigrated to the USA.

Otto’s letters reflect events in both Britain and in Germany. Several effects of captivity on the young men held at Skipton become evident. Otto suffers from mood swings, becomes bored, experiences periods of depression, and is intolerant. Otto is revealed as a flawed, but earnest individual. Unlike diary entries these letters are designed to be read, but only by Lizzie. We are given a special insight into one Skipton prisoner’s private life. There is a strange mix of the confessional and the mundane. Otto must keep the relationship alive despite the vagaries of the postal system. The lack of information about Otto and Lizzie before and after the war makes the letters and their story of Otto’s captivity and romance even more compelling.