London, Nov 24 Otto von Bismarck, the 'Iron Chancellor' who forged modern Germany, received thousands of fan mails including marriage proposals from women besotted with the dashing leader.

The Bismarck Foundation in Friedrichsruh has for the first time released over 6,000 personal letters for scholars, reports the Telegraph.

All these letters, professing love and devotion to the Prussian leader, were sent to Bismarck in office and retirement.

The letters addressed to the 19th century leader, who died in 1898, detail how many Germans saw Bismarck as a messiah figure long before the cult of Adolf Hitler.

"Bismarck, forever and forever and forever!" wrote one Prussian woman on a postcard showing a floral tea-cosy.

A married woman from the Saarland wrote to him saying: "I am unhappy in love but know that we could be wonderful together. I am a very good cook and stuffed pig's stomach is my speciality."

The old chancellor, whose idea of relaxation was to drink several barrels of fine Rhine wine over a period of days before fasting, usually replied to every letter he received. (ANI)