20 April 2020
Since my first post on the subject of marriages with ‘ex-enemy nationals’ on 2 May 2009, I have been trying to discover who was the first British soldier or civilian member of the Control Commission to marry a German woman after the Second World War, and when the first wedding took place.
As previous posts on the subject have shown, it is not an easy question to answer. It depends, among other things, on whether the wedding took place in Britain or in Germany, whether the couple had received permission to marry from the British authorities in Germany, and what actually constituted a legally valid marriage, according to British and German law.
Marriages with so-called ‘ex-enemy nationals’ were officially prohibited during and after the war, before the government in London announced on 31 July 1946, that the ban would be relaxed and British men would be allowed to marry German women, subject to certain conditions. Even after the ban was relaxed, marriages were strongly discouraged and numerous conditions had to be met before a couple was granted official permission to marry.
Andrew Gardiner and his wife, Sabine Quast, were married by a British Army Padre on 6 October 1945, which is earlier than any of the couples I have written about previously, but they kept their marriage secret from the army authorities, (though not from his family). As there were no witnesses present, apart from the Padre, I’m not sure if the wedding was strictly valid according to either British or German law. They held a second ceremony in July 1947, conducted by another British Army Padre, and a third ceremony soon afterwards at a German registry office (Standesamt), to ensure that the marriage was legally fully valid.
This post is based on an unpublished memoir that Mr Gardiner wrote for his children, now held as part of the documents collection of the Imperial War Museum.
Andrew Stevenson Gardiner was born to a relatively affluent, middle class, Scottish Lowlands family. He attended a prestigious private school, the Edinburgh Academy, and joined the Officer Training Corps (OTC) when he was ten years old. He was called up to the army in late 1941, identified as a potential officer, but rejected for officer training on the grounds that, according to his memoir, he was considered to be ‘too individualistic and immature, needs broader experience’.
He was posted in 1943 to the Lothians and Borders (L&B) Horse, a Scottish Yeomanry regiment, took part in the Normandy Landings as gunner on a flail tank, and then fought in France and Holland. At the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, he was in Holland near the border with Germany. He wrote in his memoir that some of the British troops crossed the border: ‘to pick up, or put more bluntly, to loot; watches and cameras being the prime targets’.
After advancing across the British Zone of occupation to Blankenburg, on the border with the Soviet Zone, he volunteered for the Regimental Police, and was transferred to the district of Isenhagen-Hankensbüttel, in Lower Saxony, which he described as ‘a most attractive region of open birch and pine woodland dotted with villages and small towns’. Their duties were to ‘keep the peace’ and guard the regimental HQ.
Their ‘main headache’, he wrote, was the large number of Displaced Persons (DPs), in the area, mostly Polish. ‘Some of the more active … understandably of course, carried out raids on their former conquerors’ properties such as farms and grocery stores for such items as potatoes and sugar in order to brew schnapps.’
Despite claiming that: ‘Most often these were armed raids and we were forced to act accordingly’, he wrote that there were only two serious raids by DPs in his area, one on an isolated farmhouse and one on a grocery store. They successfully caught both groups of raiders, and neither made any attempt to use firearms.
On the day they first moved into their new HQ in Hankensbüttel, a German family was also moving in to the house immediately opposite. The activities of their new neighbours, the British soldiers, ‘caught the amused attention of two attractive young ladies in this family. Within a few days, this attention grew into exchanges of friendly waves from both sides and eventually into closer contact.’
He discovered that one of the ‘attractive young ladies’, Sabine, ‘spoke perfect English’ and the British troops were able to employ her as an interpreter. ‘Her parents, anxious no doubt, that nothing irregular should occur between us, very sensibly began to invite me (and a colleague) into their home … to meet the family on a more formal basis.’
Sabine’s family were refugees who had fled from Schneidemühl in the East of Germany (now Piła in Poland) towards the end of 1944. Her father was a civil engineer who had owned two firms engaged on railway work. Without warning, he was suddenly arrested in Hankensbüttel by two RAF sergeants from the British Field Security Police. It later emerged, Andrew wrote in his memoir, that her father had been denounced as an ardent Nazi, but he was released many months later on the testimony of two Polish drivers who still worked for the family.
After her father was arrested, Andrew’s contacts with the family ‘strengthened’ and ‘A close mutual trust grew between Sabine’s mother and myself; she often claimed afterward that, my cheerful presence helped keep her going in this dark period.’
‘It also began to dawn on her … that, Sabine, by now “Bibi”, and I had fallen deeply in love.’
Andrew returned home for a period of leave, during which his friends and their parents ‘would place various temptresses in my way if we were going out to the cinema or to a social function…. But to no avail. My heart was in Hankensbüttel.’
Soon after his return to Germany, the German Bürgermeister (mayor) of Hankensbüttel, who was a regular visitor to the British Police headquarters, remarked that he was delighted to see how well Andrew was getting on with Sabine’s family, adding that if he ‘ever wished to marry Sabine, he would be honoured to conduct the ceremony.’
‘My inner reaction was that of a blind man, who is suddenly given the blessing of sight. Until that moment, this idea had not entered my head, but once implanted it quickly took a firm hold of my imagination. Nevertheless, with the ban still operative, some weeks were to pass before this idea was translated into any form of action.’
The ‘catalyst’ was an article on the front page of the Daily Express which stated that despite the ban, ‘a number of soldiers were persuading Roman Catholic priests to conduct the ceremonies in secret.’ If the Bürgermeister’s offer had‘sown the seed’, the article in the Daily Express ‘provided the germinative medium’.
‘Almost from the moment the paper was put down, I was committed … It may be an exaggeration to suggest a personality change, but from then on and in the months that followed, I was able to tap depths of energy and may it be said “courage” of which, until then, I was unaware.’
They wanted to ‘tie the knot’ before his unit was moved elsewhere in Germany. ‘We wished more than anything to feel that we were man and wife no matter where I was posted in the future … In a physical sense, also, marriage would prevent any improprieties.’ But he was also concerned about breaking a family tradition of marrying within the Scottish Lowlands; ‘something taken for granted as the natural order of things; an almost sacrosanct concept … which I had begun to question soon after entering the Army.’
His first attempt to marry Bibi ‘followed the path’ outlined in the Daily Express article. The two of them set off in a pony and trap with a driver, all of which had been hired from a local farmer. They found the Priest, who turned out to also have come from Schneidemühl, but he told them he ‘dare not comply with our request’.
The next day Andrew spoke to the Bürgermeister, who was equally sorry. The Army, perhaps prompted by the Daily Express article, had issued instructions that all German officials were now strictly forbidden to conduct civil marriages between British service personnel and German nationals.
He called on the regimental padre, David Orr, who ‘listened carefully, pointed out the problems we would have to face, but was gradually won round, perhaps by my earnestness, and agreed to conduct a simple ceremony on our behalf. There would be no witnesses and no immediate advantage could be taken of the situation.’ The marriage had to remain secret. ‘I gave him my word’. But Andrew did tell two of his colleagues and friends.
On Saturday 6 October, 1945, at 7.30 in the evening, Andrew and Bibi ‘walked to the Padre’s quarters, aptly labeled with twin sign boards “Church House” and there he tied the knot for us in a short ceremony.’ Afterwards they held a ‘modest celebration’ with a few friends.
The ‘personal storm’ was not long in breaking. ‘On sending the news home to Edinburgh, I received no reply; only a summons from the new Commanding Officer who had received a solicitor’s letter, on behalf of my father, demanding an explanation.’
Fortunately, his Commanding Officer did not take the matter further, apart from telling him that if anything alleged in the letter was true, he would be posted overseas. Andrew did not ‘give anything away directly’ and the matter was apparently forgotten, though his relations with his family at home remained ‘very strained’.
His unit was posted away from Hankensbüttel. He was transferred to another regiment, the Royal Scots Greys, again joining the Regimental Police. Bibi visited him occasionally and he ‘was able to slip off at various times for short visits to Hankensbüttel, before our marriage was recognized as legal in July 1947.’
‘I use the word legal reservedly, because it was necessary to go through a second ceremony, but the garrison Padre very kindly modified the text to take account of the first. Also, to make completely certain that our marriage was recognized by the German authorities, we went through a third ceremony in the local Registry Office. Thus we were well and truly tied.’
Andrew and Bibi moved to Lüneburg. Perhaps because he was reluctant to return home, he put off his demobilisation by 18 months and signed on as a regular soldier in the army. He was offered a commission, but declined. They travelled to Scotland and eventually made peace with his parents. He purchased his discharge at a cost of £100 and left the army in August 1948.
References:
Private papers of Andrew S. Gardiner, typewritten manuscript, A Romantic with the Yeomanry: being an account of my Army Service, 1941 to 1948. Imperial War Museum documents, reference 402.
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