27 April 2020
Previous posts on this subject have told the stories of British soldiers and civilian members of the Control Commission who met and married their future wives in occupied Germany soon after the end of the Second World War.
Not all stories ended happily. In some cases the marriage was called off at the last minute. Very few records have survived when this happened - it was not something most people wanted to remember or talk about - but there is one interesting case in the documents collection of the Imperial War Museum.
This post is based on the private papers of Henry Galley, donated to the Museum by his son. The papers comprise seventeen letters written by his intended bride, Therese Siemensen, together with a few official documents including British Army form 120, requesting permission to marry; and a few postcards and photographs, including two passport-sized photos of Therese (‘Terry’), on the back of one of which she wrote ‘All meine Liebe für dich mein Harry’ [All my love for you, my Harry] and on the other ‘Deine Terry’ [your Terry].
According to the official documents, Henry Galley was a corporal in the Royal Engineers, born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in March 1921. Therese was slightly older, born in May 1920 in Mantau, in the Czech Sudetenland [in Czech, Mantov, a small village near Plzen]. Certificates of good character from the Police and the local Catholic parish office confirmed that she was now living in Neumünster, a small town in Schleswig Holstein, in the north of Germany, a long way from Mantau, and was working as a seamstress. She was a widow, her maiden name was Blahout, and she had lived in Neumünster since February 1945, a few months before the end of the war.
We don’t know when she first married, what had happened to her husband (though we can guess that he may have been killed in the war), or why she had moved to Neumünster. The parish office added a somewhat ambiguous note to the certificate, stating that they could not provide any further details (so presumably she was not a regular attendee at the church) but they were not aware of anything unfavourable (‘Nachteiliges ist uns nicht bekannt’).
The form requesting permission to marry was dated 3 November 1946, and gave the expected date of marriage as 1 July 1947.
The first letter in the file from Therese is dated 8 September 1946, written from Dornstadt near Ulm in the south of Germany, where she was staying with her sister and then with her mother. On 26 November she was back in Neumünster, writing that she had learnt from the British barracks that Henry was now in Hamburg. The letters were handwritten in German all in capitals. She clearly spoke very little English and he understood very little German. She wrote the following day that a letter she had received from him (presumably in English) had been translated for her. In her letters she wrote that she loved and missed him, that he need not worry about her remaining true to him, and she asked him what she should do about the papers needed to obtain permission to marry. She also gave her best wishes to his parents.
Her next letter, dated 11 December 1946, was not written in German, but translated into English and typed. She wrote that she had received his letter the previous day. She was glad that he was now home (in Britain) and would ‘put all matters regarding our wedding through the right channels’. She had been to the health office for an examination; she was surprised that his parents were not opposed to their marriage; and she was going to take English lessons after Christmas.
They continued to write to each other, and on 3 February 1947, she sent another typed and translated letter, thanking him for his two letters. We now learn that she had a child from her first marriage, as she wrote that ‘my only worries are about Edda, although I know that she is in good hands no matter how long I should be unable to take her to me. But I do wish to be able in 1-2 years’ time to take the child again, lest it becomes totally estranged. Harry, please, do write to me on this matter, so I may be able to inform my sister about this.’
It seems that her daughter Edda was staying with her sister, as following further letters telling him that she was concerned that she had not heard from him, and that she expected to receive her visa to permit her to travel to England within the next six weeks, she wrote to him on 20 April from Dornstadt, where she was staying with her sister. She told him that she was going with her daughter, Edda, to stay with her mother for three weeks, and her sister had said that Edda could then stay with her, until Therese had her own home and could come and fetch her.
A few weeks later, on 3 June 1947, Therese sent Henry another typed and translated letter. She told him that she now had her passport and could come to England any time, adding ‘you will be advised by the British Red Cross organisation about the exact date of my arrival’. She asked him if she could come in July, and the letter ended: ‘I am so happy that the time has arrived for you and me to be together again. This time of waiting was very hard for me, but it has been overcome now.’
He must have called it off, as there is only one more letter in the file, dated 24 April 1948, ten months later, written in German, and sent from Uffenheim, also in the south of Germany, but quite a long way, around 150km, from Dornstadt. She wrote that he was perhaps surprised that she should write again after such a long time. Her thoughts were still with him. She had a hard life in the past few months but now ‘Gott sei Dank habe ich diesen Kampf überstanden’ [Thank God, I have survived this fight]. She was living in a small village with her mother and ‘es geht mir gut’ [things were OK]. She was working again as a seamstress. She hoped all was well with him and she wished him well. Finally, she wrote that, if he had not forgotten her, perhaps he could write to her again. ‘So will ich für Heute meinen Brief beenden mit den besten Grüssen und immer an dich denkend, deine Therry Siemensen.’ [I will end my letter for today with my best wishes and always thinking of you, your Therry Siemensen].
There is nothing in the file to explain why he called it off, except a receipt dated 19 May 1947 from the Quaker ‘Friends Committee for Refugees and Aliens’, confirming that they had received a sum of money, eight pounds, two shillings and sixpence (£8.2.6), from Mr Henry Galley, as a ‘deposit for Miss Therese Siemensen’. This was quite a large sum at the time, more than a week’s wages. Presumably the money was so that the Friends Committee could help her travel to Britain.
This must have been when he finally decided not to go ahead with the marriage. Soon after sending the money, most probably before, but just possibly on the day he received Therese’s letter of 3 June telling him that she had her passport and could travel any time, (her letter would have taken a day or two to arrive), he wrote to the Friends Committee asking for his deposit back. He received a reply, dated 5 June 1947, acknowledging receipt of his letter and, as requested, returning his deposit of £8.2.6 (less 2/6 for office expenses).
This is all we know of the story, based on her letters and the documents in the file. We don’t know if he wrote to tell her not to come, but it is not surprising that he called it off: a widowed German woman, slightly older than he was, with a young child, who hardly spoke any English. They would not have had an easy life together. What I find intriguing is that he kept her letters, wondering perhaps ‘what might have been’, until he died.
References
Therese Siemensen letters to Henry Galley, 1946-1948, Imperial War Museum documents, reference 26278
Comments