Fritz vincken author biography for book

Posted on: Friday, January 11, 2002

Fritz Vincken, bakery owner, dead at 69

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Former Honolulu baker Fritz Vincken died Dec.

8 in Oregon, 16 days before the 57th anniversary of well-publicized Christmas story of "the night God came to dinner."

Fritz Vincken's family took in GIs, German soldiers on Christmas Eve 1944. Advertiser library photo

Vincken was 12 years old when three American and four German soldiers converged on his house in the Ardennes Forest near the German-Belgium border on a harsh winter night in 1944.

It was Christmas Eve and Vincken's mother, Elisabeth, offered food and shelter to the soldiers after they agreed to put their weapons down to share an evening of good will and peace.

After a restful night, the soldiers went their separate ways but not before the Germans gave the Americans a compass and directions back to their front lines.

In recalling the story in his 1985 visit to Germany, President Reaga