German couple, aged 102 and 98, celebrate 80th wedding anniversary

For Gottfried Schmelzer, it was love at first sight.

"We hit it off from the very first moment," says the 102-year-old in his flat in Bad Sobernheim, south-west of the German city of Mainz.

He met his wife Ursula while working for an administrative authority in Berlin. They married soon afterwards - exactly 80 years ago - in 1944.

This makes the Schmelzers the longest married couple in Germany, according to research by the State Chancellery of Rhineland-Palatinate. State Premier Malu Dreyer congratulated them personally.

"I was just 19 and my husband 22," 98-year-old Ursula said, remembering their wedding. He had come to Berlin from Romania a year earlier. "Love at first sight? No," she says. But: "He was persistent. He wanted me. And then I had nothing against it."

Gottfried Schmelzer explains: "I accompanied her to the train, and when she said goodbye, I went with her, and from then on I always went with her."

The couple can look back on an eventful life with many stops and journeys that they still remember fondly today. "We take a lot of trips down memory lane," she says about the conversations with her husband.

"Our wedding had a few stumbling blocks," recalls the 102-year-old. The necessary papers could not be found because the Berlin registry office responsible had been bombed out.

"Then the phone calls started." The papers had been stored in the Harz Mountains. Schmelzer set off immediately. "We were able to get married the next day."

The couple initially lived in the Polish border city of Frankfurt an der Oder, Ursula's home town. He was then drafted in February 1945, and on Christmas Eve - back from captivity - he knocked at home again.

"We had a long journey," says Ursula. At the end of 1952, the couple fled then East Germany with their three small children via Berlin to the West, without any belongings, their youngest daughter still in a pram.

From there, they travelled to Gottfried's brother in the Lower Rhine region, says their 77-year-old son Wolfgang. The family of five lived there in the living room for almost a year before they got their own flat.

Locksmith Schmelzer worked underground in the mine at night on the machines, and in the mornings he assembled bicycles. His wife earned extra money while the children were at school and nursery. "But we always had the feeling that our parents were there for us," remembers Wolfgang.

From the Lower Rhine, they moved on to Siegburg in North Rhine Westphalia, where Ursula Schmelzer worked as a school secretary and her husband built submersible pumps.

The secret of their long marriage? "I still love him today and he loves me too," she says. "We're just right for each other," he says. And: "Loving his wife."

The couple also always talk with each other. They also have a large, intact family: three children, seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

The leather workshop of 72-year-old daughter Ute in an old mill moved the Schmelzers to the town of Bad Sobernheim in the district of Bad Kreuznach in yet another state, Rhineland-Palatinate, around 17 years ago.

Gottfried Schmelzer continued to help out there after his retirement and now a granddaughter runs the business.

How does the sociable and friendly couple keep fit? "Crossword puzzles are my passion," says the 102-year-old, who is sorry that he now needs a home help after a fall. He also used to do a lot of sport.

And he adds: "My motto has always been: walk the straight and narrow and always be fair to others."

The 98-year-old says: "It also runs in the family a bit." And she adds: "On the whole, we've been lucky in life so far."