Even in the middle of a bloody war, the miracle of Christmas can take place. After the Normandy landings, Operation Overlord , the Allied offensive suffered a major setback when British airborne forces attempted to seize the Arnhem bridge. (Netherlands) one month later. Hitler decided to launch an offensive on the Western Front to stabilize it and be able to focus on the Eastern Front, where the Red Army was pushing hard.
In December 1944, the Germans launch the Ardennes offensive. (Belgium). The panzers sowed chaos in the allied ranks leaving many units isolated in the middle of the forests and capturing thousands of prisoners. Three American soldiers, one of them wounded, found themselves lost in the middle of a forest they did not know, with snow up to their knees and with hardly any visibility due to the fog. They wandered for hours looking for their Unit but all they found was a fairytale house with a smoking chimney... it was Christmas Eve . In the house was a 12-year-old boy, Fritz Vincken , and his mother preparing dinner. They asked for help and the mother let them pass, offering them food and a fire to keep warm, knowing that giving shelter to the allies was punishable by execution. When her mother was treating the American soldier's wounds, four German soldiers stormed the house. Everyone grabbed their weapons and began to shout, for a few moments it seemed that this would be a point-blank massacre... until the mother stepped between the two groups and asked them to lower their weapons. There were a few moments of silence and indecision but in the end everyone agreed. The Germans were not much better off than the Americans and were looking for shelter to spend the freezing night. In the end, they all shared dinner and the warmth of home. The next morning, when the wounded man was much better, the German soldiers took them to the Allied lines and said their goodbyes.
After the publication of the Fritz Vincken story in an American magazine and a television documentary, the family of an American soldier who had fought in the Ardennes contacted the TV channel… his father had been telling that story for years . In January 1996, Fritz moved to Maryland to meet Ralph Blank. . The meeting was very emotional…
Your mother saved my life - said Ralph
Ralph Blank and Fritz Vincken