Figure 1.--This youthful Wehrmacht soldier married in 1944. The marriage took place in a small toiwn not affected by the Allied bombing. One wonders what must have been on the minds of these young people. We suspect that like many Germany they were not aware of what was about to occur. Click on the imge for another view of the wedding.

The War affected weddings like every other aspect of German home life. We are not entirely sure how the War affected weddings. They certainly became much more spartan affairs. With so many young men at the front, it must have reduced the number of weddings. At the front, young men could not meet and develop relationships. And the same was true of the young women at home. Many young Germansput put off marriage because of the uncertainty. Others, presumably in well established relationships, seem to have decided to marry not knowing what the future mifgt hold. Here different individuals drew very different conclusions from the same situation. We note how young the soldiers are in some wedding photographs (figure 1). They apparently decided to have at least a fleeting piece of happiness as the bride groom had such a high liklihood of being killed. German armies had suffered relatively light losses in the first years of the War, but by 1943 German losses had mounted to unsustainable levels and in 1944 the Allied bombing was destroying German cities. On the battlefield the allied coalition that Hitler's policies essentially forged were reaching the borders of the Reich and the home front was becoming the front line. In such circumstances, weddings surely much have plummeted.

Created: 5:18 AM 8/14/2007
Last updated: 5:18 AM 8/14/2007