The Christmas season of 1944 along the German-Belgian border seems an unlikely setting for an uplifting Christmas story, but that year nothing short of a small miracle happened there.
The Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s last effort offensive campaign was raging. It was to be the bloodiest battle for American forces during WWII with 19,000 Americans losing their lives and thousands more wounded.
Elisabeth Vincken and her 12-year-old son, Fritz who lived in the area had gone to their family’s hunting cabin in October to get away from the intense fighting. Their home in Aachen, Germany had been damaged earlier in the year by Allied bombing and Elisabeth’s husband, Hubert had sent them to the cabin to stay safe through the fighting. Hubert, a baker, was stationed not far away with the German army where he served as a civilian baker. According to Fritz, Hubert thought the fighting would be over by Christmas and they would all be back together, but as the holiday approached, Elisabeth and Fritz remained alone in the isolated, snowed-in cabin.
On Christmas Eve, Elisabeth and Fritz were getting ready to prepare a meal for the holiday when there was a knock on the door. It was three lost Americans, one of whom had been shot in the leg and was badly wounded, and all of them freezing to death. Sheltering the enemy was punishable by death, but Elisabeth took them in anyway.
One of the soldiers was able to converse with Elisabeth in French, and he told her that they had lost their unit and had been wondering in the forest for the past two days and nights trying to avoid the German army. They had just about given up hope when they saw the smoke from the cabin. Elisabeth tended to the wounded soldier and began to prepare a meal for them.
But then there was another knock on the door. This time it was four lost German soldiers asking if they could come in and warm up. Elisabeth was scared, but she took the German soldiers in also. She told everyone, “There will be no shooting here” and made them leave their weapons outside in the wood shed.
Elisabeth went back to preparing a meal for everyone which included a rooster named Hermann- so named after Hitler’s right hand man Hermann Goering “for whom Mother had little affection” as Fritz told it.
They all sat down to a Christmas Eve dinner together. Then Elisabeth said a prayer that according to Fritz brought tears to everyone’s eyes.
“Let’s all be thankful to the Lord for being together tonight, being peaceful in this terrible war. Let’s enjoy dinner, the little things that we have. And let’s promise to be friendly to each other forever, if possible. Let’s also pray for an end to this terrible war, so that we all can go home very soon.”
One of the German soldiers who had medical training treated the wounded American soldier. They all spent the night at the cabin, then went their separate ways in the morning. But not before the Germans gave the American soldiers a spare compass and pointed them back in the direction of the Allied lines. The Americans had been considering going back to Monshau, but the Germans let them know that they had re-taken it- a piece of information that may have just saved their lives.
As an adult, Fritz told the story to Reader’s Digest in January 1973 for a piece entitled “Truce in the Forest”. Reader’s Digest extensively researched the pretty unbelievable story. They visited the cabin site and spoke with local residents. They also found Elisabeth Vincken in Aachen, Germany and she gave them the same story without having read Fritz’s account and without his knowledge of the publication reaching out to his mother.
During a visit to Germany in 1985, President Reagan recounted the story and said it, “needs to be told and retold because none of us can ever hear too much about building peace and reconciliation.”
Fritz made efforts to find the seven soldiers after the war. The story was aired on a 1995 episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” and afterwards, a volunteer chaplain at Northampton Manor Nursing Home in Frederick, Maryland reached out to the show. He told them the story matched one that a resident at the nursing facility frequently told.
They were able to connect Fritz with Ralph Blank, a veteran who had served with the 121st Infantry, 8th Division of the U.S Army in Belgium during WWII. At the time, he was 76 years old and had moved into the nursing home the year before due to heart issues. Fritz went to Maryland in January 1996 to meet with Ralph. Ralph still had the map and compass that one of the German soldiers had given to him and he told Fritz that his mother had saved his life. Fritz later said, “Now I can die in peace. My mother’s courage won’t be forgotten and it shows what good will will do.”
“My mother’s courage won’t be forgotten and it shows what good will will do.”- Fritz Vincken
Ralph’s daughter-in-law prepared a meal of chicken soup for Ralph and Fritz to share together- the same meal they’d eaten fifty-two years before on that cold Christmas Eve.
This Christmas marks the 80th anniversary of this remarkable Christmas dinner. In a world as divisive as this one, it’s pretty unbelievable that American soldiers once sat down to a Christmas meal with Nazis, but it happened, and it was because of the kind determination of Elisabeth Vincken who refused to let anyone, regardless of the uniform they wore, wonder lost, cold, and wounded in the woods that Christmas. She refused to allow violence in her home and demonstrated pure hospitality to all the men gathered in her home.
After all the soldiers had departed the next morning, Fritz recalls in his Reader’s Digest story that his mother pulled out the old family Bible. When he looked over her shoulder, she had it opened to the account of Jesus’s birth in Matthew.
“Her finger was tracing the last line from Matthew 2:21, ‘…they departed into their own country another way.’”- from Truce in the Forest by Fritz Vincken
Rachel F. Jean 
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