Timber over Tinder: Bridegroom's Oak in a German forest has connected lovers for over a century

EUTIN, Germany (AP) — It's timber over Tinder in a forest in northern Germany where the Bridegroom's Oak has connected lovers for more than a century.

Known as “Bräutigamseiche” in German, the Bridegroom’s Oak has a famous knothole that's been used as a mailbox since 1892. It even has its own postal code in the Dodau Forest some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Berlin.

Mail carriers from the German postal service act as Cupid, delivering 50 to 60 letters to the knothole each month. They must climb a ladder to reach the arboreal mailbox about 3 meters (10 feet) up the 25-meter (82-foot) -tall tree that's more than 500 years old.

Visitors to the tree can leaf through the missives, some of which are mailed from other continents, and choose whether to become postal paramours with any of the letter-writers.

“The resulting pen pal relationships have even led to a few marriages,” the postal service says.

The oak was first used as a waystation between a forester's daughter and a chocolate manufacturer from Leipzig, according to the postal service. The forester initially opposed the courtship, so the couple left love letters for each other in the knothole.

They ultimately married, with the forester's permission, under the oak's leaves in 1892.

Send your own love letter to: Bräutigamseiche, Dodauer Forst, 23701 Eutin, Germany.

__

Dazio reported from Berlin.

A passer by climbs up a ladder of the Bridegroom's Oak which has a famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Passers by look at the Bridegroom's Oak which has a famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A letter posted in a hole in the Bridegroom's Oak which has a famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A passer by climbs up a ladder of the Bridegroom's Oak which has a famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A letter posted in a hole in the Bridegroom's Oak which has a famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A passer by climbs up a ladder of the Bridegroom's Oak which has a famous knothole that has been used as a mailbox since 1892, in Dodau forest, near Eutin, northern Germany, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A former Polish justice minister who faces prosecution in his homeland over alleged abuse of power said Monday that he has been granted asylum in Hungary.

Zbigniew Ziobro was a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023. That administration established political control over key judicial institutions by stacking higher courts with friendly judges and punishing its critics with disciplinary action or assignments to far-away locations.

Current Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government came to power more than two years ago with ambitions to roll back the changes, but efforts to undo them have been blocked by two successive presidents aligned with the national right.

In October, prosecutors requested the lifting of Ziobro's parliamentary immunity to press charges against him. They allege among other things that Ziobro misused a fund for victims of violence, including for the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.

Tusk’s party says Law and Justice used Pegasus to spy illegally on political opponents while in power. Ziobro says he acted lawfully.

Hungary, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has hosted several politicians close to Law and Justice while Polish authorities were seeking them.

In a lengthy post on X Monday, Ziobro wrote that he had “decided to accept the asylum granted to me by the government of Hungary due to the political persecution in Poland.”

“I have decided to remain abroad until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored in Poland,” he said. “I believe that instead of acquiescing to being silenced and subjected to a torrent of lies — which I would have no opportunity to refute — I can do more by fighting the mounting lawlessness in Poland.”

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Monday that Hungarian authorities have granted asylum to “several” individuals who would face political persecution in Poland, according to his ministry. He declined to specify their names.

In an English-language post on X, Tusk wrote that “the former Minister of Justice(!), Mr. Ziobro, who was the mastermind of the political corruption system, has asked the government of Victor Orbán for political asylum.”

“A logical choice,” he added.

FILE - The leader of the Polish junior coalition partners Zbigniew Ziobro, speaks to reporters alongside in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)