Christmas Eve, 1944

The Ardennes Forest is located in Belgium and Luxembourg and extends into France and Germany. It’s a sparsely populated region of rolling hills and thickly wooded forests, known for picturesque valleys and charming cities, whose shops and cafes and bike paths have slowly grown around ancient citadels and castles and 13th century churches.

In December of 1944, it was an area of intense fighting, as the Allies fought back against a German offensive – the Ardennes Offensive – that would come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. The German plan of desperation in the face of Western advances was to split the Allies where they were purportedly weak. As said by Adolf Hitler himself: “A blow here [at the Ardennes] would strike the seam between the British and Americans and lead to political as well as military disharmony between the Allies.”

The German assault began with guns and artillery and bombing on the early morning of December 16, sending projectiles from railway guns to V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets at the unsuspecting Allies. One witness described the eastern horizon “as though a volcano had suddenly erupted or someone had turned on a light switch.”¹ Another said there were “ear-slitting explosions” lit up the sky as if it were day.² What followed was a German attack across a 75-mile front that initially involved 200,000 men and over 600 tanks, only to grow in size from there.

The brutal fighting took place in the brutal cold. Some American positions were overrun. Early strategic mistakes left American regiments isolated and taking terribly heavy losses. In others areas, young German conscripts, many of whom were still boys, “openly cried with fear before this, their first and last battle” before being cut down.³ The fighting, combined from both sides, would come to easily exceed 1 million troops. And when it was all over, tens of thousands would be killed in action.  

As bodies fell and as the shells came down to earth, a small cabin stood alone in the snow. A few months prior to the Battle of the Bulge, the German father of 12 year-old Fritz Vincken moved his family into the cabin deep inside the safety of the Ardennes Forest to avoid the worst of the fighting and wait for the front to pass. It was believed the Allies would make quick work of the German forces and the war would be over that autumn. They were wrong. As the weeks dragged on, and as autumn turned to winter, Fritz and his mother became isolated in the deep snow of the forest, cut off from the outside world – and from help from Fritz’s father, who was stationed at a German bakery some 20 miles away. Fritz and his mother were alone and they were running out of supplies. And as the Battle of the Bulge started, they could hear the sound of artillery and fighting.

On the night of Christmas Eve 1944, eight days into the Battle of the Bulge, Fritz’s mother was preparing soup (the main ingredient being a rooster they had found in an abandoned farmhouse) under candlelight. They then heard voices outside the cabin. The candle was put out. There were a couple knocks at the door. Mother opened the door and saw two men standing there. Another man was injured and sitting nearby in the snow. According to Fritz, they spoke a strange language. They were Americans.

His mother invited them in, despite the risk of incurring the Nazi regime’s wrath by accepting American soldiers during wartime. Speaking broken French with the Americans, she learned of the German attack and “how they had lost their battalion and wandered for days through the snowy Ardennes Forest, carrying their buddy who was wounded in his thigh.”⁴  The Americans got comfortable as Fritz was ordered to get more potatoes for the soup. The table was set and they almost started with their meal before being interrupted by another knock at the door. Fritz opened the door, expecting more Americans.

This time it was four armed Germans. Young Fritz was paralyzed with fear. His mother rushed over and invited them in for soup – on certain conditions. As Fritz would later describe it:

“But,” my mother added with a calmness born of panic, “we also have three other half-frozen guests who came a little while ago, asking for shelter. For God’s sake, let there be peace tonight.”

“What is this?” the corporal protested gruffly, catching mother’s hint at once. “Who’s inside? Amerikaners?”

Disaster seemed just moments away. Mother looked at their faces and said, “Listen to me, boys, all of you could be my sons, and so could those three in there. One of them is badly wounded and they are just as cold and hungry as you are.”

The mother’s voice became very firm as she spoke directly to the corporal, “This is Christmas Eve and there will be no shooting around here!”

The corporal was speechless. Endless seconds of silence followed. No inkling of support came from his little group, who seemed more than ready to accept this unexpected invitation. Mother broke the stalemate. “Enough talking,” she commanded with convincing authority. “Place your weapons here in the woodshed and hurry up. Dinner is almost ready.”

Unarmed, the Germans entered the cabin – only to see the Americans reach for their own guns. The Germans couldn’t have helped but think they were set-up. Fritz’s mother defused the situation and placed her hands on the Americans’ guns. Tensions remained, however, with a young family caught in the middle of sworn enemies only feet from the other. Things calmed down after one of the German soldiers asked, in English, about the injuries to the American. It was a deep cut that caused severe loss of blood but he would recover.

Dinner was ready to be served. They all held hands – the Americans, the Germans, the German civilians – and Fritz’s mother offered a prayer, asking for “an end to this terrible war, so that we can all go home where we belong. Amen.”

They finished dinner and enjoyed dessert, consisting of the Americans’ instant coffee and canned pineapple pudding. Fritz’s mother would read from her Bible and declare that there would be at least one night of peace during the war. That night, the men all slept under the same roof. In the morning, Christmas Day 1944, the German corporal instructed the Americans the way back to their comrades. The Americans built a makeshift stretcher for their injured fellow soldier and made their way towards the American line. Before the Germans could leave, Fritz’s mother asked “please take us along.”

The German soldiers agreed, and they escorted Fritz and his mother through the snow to a small, bombed-out town. Fritz and his mother they hitched a ride to the city of Gotha, in the near-middle of Germany, where they were to be fed at a soup kitchen with other refugees. From there, they would meet hopefully meet Fritz’s father at the home of a relative. If he were still around.

And he was still around. In fact, they spotted him at the soup kitchen. Fritz’s father had his own epic tale of escape. He had been assigned to be a baker but after the fighting started, he started on the road to the same home of the relative his wife and son were headed to. That is, until he was detained by a local Nazi official as a possible deserter. Frtiz’s father faced potential death until an American plane bombed the town, allowing for him to escape on the bicycle of the same Nazi official who captured him.

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Being a natural skeptic, I had my doubts when I first read that story. There are plenty of civilians who embellished stories of their experiences during World War II, if only because those are the easiest to falsify and the hardest to corroborate.

How do you confirm a story like this years later? After the war, Fritz married and immigrated to the United States in 1959. He submitted his account of the Christmas of 1944 to Reader’s Digest a few years after that. They tracked down Fritz’s mother in Aachen, Germany who said yes, it happened as Fritz said.

And what of the Americans?

Fritz’s story would eventually be aired on Unsolved Mysteries, narrated by the unmistakable voice of Robert Stack, in 1995. Miraculously, it was viewed by a volunteer chaplain at a Maryland nursing home, who called Unsolved Mysteries and said a resident at his home had told that same story.

That resident’s name was Ralph Blank, and he served in the 121st Infantry during the Battle of the Bulge. On January 19, 1996 – over 50 years after that night in the Ardennes Forest – Fritz would reunite with Ralph, who was now 76 and in failing health. Watch the footage below. Ralph would recall that Fritz’s mother saved his life. He would go on to say, “I thought I’d never see Fritz again when I left Germany. Today is a special day for me.”

Merry Christmas,

Techno

1. Caddick-Adams, Peter. Snow and Steel, Oxford University Press.

2. Caddick-Adams, Peter. Snow and Steel, Oxford University Press.

3. Caddick-Adams, Peter. Snow and Steel, Oxford University Press.

4. Fritz Vincken, Boyhood Memories of Christmas 1944.