15. April 1944
Wedding
15 Apr 44 Our Wedding day! A sunny, crisp morning peeps through the window. I get up and begin to carefully do my toilet[1]. In the meantime, Achim has come in from the next room. He helps me strap on my sword and once again checks the fit of my uniform. Then we go over to Carola’s house, which is on the edge of the spa gardens, where I greet my fiancée. Rudi has arrived on the early train. He is to act as best man together with my father.
We leave the house at 9am to go to the town hall. I’m going without a stick and can therefore only walk slowly. Carola, this whirlwind, almost runs away from me and I have to keep slowing her down. Children come towards us. The girls look at us with wide eyes, the boys quickly count my awards. “Three medals, two ribbons, EK II,” I hear them say.
As it is still a little too early, we continue across the market square down to the jetties, then turn round and climb the town hall steps to the registry office. As Carola is one of the city’s prominent personalities, the mayor is not going to miss the opportunity to perform the wedding ceremony in person. Leaning over a thick book, he first enters the personal details of the official participants. The witnesses are 1. Dipl.Ing. Rudolf Rommeler, Director. 2. Georg Schrödter, Deputy Director[2] He then addresses the decisive questions to Carola and me, which we both answer with “Yes”. Later, some listeners claim that I said “yes” quite lowly. Then the mayor puts down his pen and begins a solemn speech in which he praises Carola in particular for the burdens and duties she has bravely carried.
From the town hall we make our way to the church[3]. It is situated on a small wooded hill. The wedding guests are already gathered here, and I walk slowly with Carola between the rows of pews to the chairs in front of the altar, where we take our seats. The solemn wedding ceremony begins.
Our wedding day was, as far as I was concerned, a day with a lot of tension and a few suppressed outbursts of anger. It started at the lunch table when Carola declared categorically: “You’ll never have fried herring from me!”. I feel like a henpecked husband, but I swallow my anger. The next difference was the obligatory wedding photo. Carola absolutely refused to be photographed, so the traditional and memorable act was cancelled. I was about to go to the photographer on my own, but didn’t do it after all. After all, I already sat down at the coffee table in an irritated mood. When Carola went on a long tirade about her first husband’s medical history, I left the room annoyed. With so much fuel for the fire, I couldn’t resist bringing these things up in the wedding night. Carola is deeply shocked and tearfully utters the words: “I shouldn’t have done it after all!”, by which she meant our marriage.
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