Winter 1944 in Germany.
Many on the Rhine thought the war was coming to an end.
That's why master baker Vincken brought his bombed-out family, his wife and their twelve-year-old son Fritz to
his neighborhood in the Hürtgenwald, where he was conscripted to bake bread for the Wehrmacht.
After hours of driving through the night, he brought the two of them in a bucket truck to an empty hut hidden in a clearing.
But the front stiffened. In December, there was even a counter-offensive.
Deeply snowed in, the two of them remained in the hut.
However, his father found it increasingly difficult to provide for his family.
This is how Christmas Eve 1944 came.
His son Fritz later wrote down everything that happened:
We heard the muffled roar of Allied fighter planes all day long.
It was bitterly cold. Mother was preparing chicken soup by the stove in the dim light of a candle.
Father was out organizing.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
Startled, I flinched and saw my mother hastily blow out the candles.
The knock came again. We took heart and opened the door.
Two men with steel helmets were standing outside.
One spoke in a foreign language and pointed to a third person lying in the snow.
We realized: These men are American soldiers.
Mother stood motionless next to me.
They were armed and could have forced their entry, but they stood there and asked with their eyes.
The man sitting in the snow seemed more dead than alive.
"Come in," Mother said with an inviting gesture.
One of them was able to communicate with my mother in French.
Mother took care of the wounded man.
Sitting by the stove, the cold receded from them.
The spirits returned.
The three were scattered, had lost their unit and had been wandering in the forest for days.
Mother told me: "Go, bring six more potatoes."
She lit a second candle and cut the washed, unpeeled potatoes into the soup.
Peeling them would have been a waste at the time.
The wounded man had bled a lot and lay motionless and still.
Mother's soup spread an inviting aroma.
I was just about to set the table when there was another knock at the door.
I expected more scattered Americans and opened without hesitation.
They were soldiers, four men, and all armed to the teeth.
The uniform was familiar to me. They were our Wehrmacht soldiers.
I was paralyzed with shock. Was this the end for us?
Mother stepped out. Her calm voice reassured me a little.
"You're bringing the freezing cold with you, do you want to eat with us?", she said.
She had found the right tone.
The soldiers greeted us in a friendly manner and were visibly happy to have found fellow countrymen on Christmas
Eve in the borderland of the Ardennes between the fronts.
"Can we warm up a bit?" asked the senior officer, a non-commissioned officer.
"Maybe we can stay until tomorrow?"
"Of course," Mother replied warmly and then added boldly:
"There are already three frozen people here to warm up.
Please don't make a ruckus on Christmas Eve!"
The sergeant had understood. He gruffly demanded to know: "Amis?"
Mother looked at each one and said slowly:
"You could be my sons and those in there too.
One is wounded, not well off at all.
The others are as hungry and tired as you are."
Then she said to the sergeant: "It's Christmas Eve, there's no shooting here!".
He stared at her. For two or three endless seconds; but Mother said resolutely:
"Put the gun on the wood and come in!"
"Do as she says," growled the sergeant.
Wordlessly, they put their weapons in the shed where we kept our wood:
three carbines, two pistols, a light machine gun and two bazookas.
The enemy had not remained hidden from the Americans.
With the courage of desperation, they were willing to fight back.
When everyone was in the small room, they seemed at a loss.
Mother, however, was in her element. Smiling, she looked for a seat for everyone.
We had three chairs, but mother's bed was big.
They remained silent - there was a tension in the air.
Mother went back to cooking.
The wounded man moaned loudly. One of the Germans bent over him.
"Are you a paramedic?" Mother asked.
He replied: "No, but I studied medicine in Heidelberg until a few months ago.
He then explained to the Americans in English: "The wound is not infected thanks to the cold.
But he has lost blood and needs rest and hearty food."
Now the tension was released.
The sergeant took a bottle of red wine from his haversack, another put a commissary loaf
(sturdy bread for feeding soldiers) on the table.
Mother cut the bread into slices. She poured some of the wine into the cup: "For the sick man!"
The rest was divided up.
Now everything was ready for the Christmas meal.
Two candles flickered on the table.
Mother sat at the head end on an improvised seat.
At home, it was not customary to pray out loud before meals.
But now everything was different. It was a festive atmosphere.
It would never have occurred to anyone to make light of the meal.
We held each other's hands, Mother spoke with poignant sincerity, as if she were announcing Christmas:
"Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest..."
She concluded with the words: ...and please, finally put an end to this war!"
As I looked around the group, I noticed tears in the eyes of the soldiers. And no one was ashamed.
Eventually we went to sleep. I found a place in my mother's bed.
After a meager breakfast, the sergeant showed the Americans the way to the American lines.
A German compass changed hands.
"Be careful where you walk. Many paths are mined.
When you hear your Jabos (fighter-bombers), wave at them like the devil."
The medic translated into English. Then they armed themselves again.
Everyone hugged each other happily; they promised to see each other again:
"As soon as this damn war is over!", which means: "As soon as this damn war is over!"
In January 1996, more than 50 years later, Fritz Vincken was actually reunited with the Americans.
One of them still had the German Wehrmacht compass, which he had never parted with.