Frau Bracht's Line

A lot of lines had been hard hit, but Frau Wilhelmine Bracht could not think when business had been better. On Berlin's fashionable Kurfuerstendamm, outside "Der Ring," the marriage bureau she had run these 14 years, Berliners crowded around such arresting announcements as:

"Turk, 47, widely traveled, worldlywise, seeks wife able to make representative impression in social life. Entry permit guaranteed."

Frau Bracht knew that "Turk, 47" would draw many eager applications from German women. There were calls for German men, too. "Brazilian girl, 27" and "Hungarian girl, 23, relatives in South America" were looking for husbands last week. The price: 500 marks down and 500 upon marriage. For an extra 100 marks, applicants could attend the "social evenings" to dance, sip red wine, cocktails and gaze at prospective partners.

Frau Bracht counted in thousands the "international marriages" she had arranged. Said she: "The cream of German life--writers, scientists, actors, professional people from every walk of life--want to marry foreign girls." Marriage was a way of escaping Germany's chilly ruins. One of Frau Bracht's crisp slogans put it simply: "Marry and Emigrate!"

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