Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union has provoked months of bitter division, but on Friday there was a break in the routine: an outbreak of affection and good will.

In a tenderly written missive to Britons, more than two dozen leading figures in Germany — including Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the favorite to become the country’s next chancellor — described their admiration for many things British, including its tea and beer, and their sorrow over the impending divorce.

“After the horrors of the Second World War, Britain did not give up on us,” said the open letter published in The Times, the British newspaper favored by the establishment. It emphasized Germany’s appreciation that it had been welcomed back as a sovereign nation after the conflict and as a European power.

“This we, as Germans, have not forgotten and we are grateful,” the letter went on, concluding that “Britons should know: From the bottom of our hearts, we want them to stay.”