I finally saw this movie yesterday (12-08-2007) and found out outstanding. My wife and I had other things to do, but couldn't get away from the TV.
This is a true story, but I'm curious: Why haven't we heard more about this? We've heard the story of World War I when enemy soldiers temporarily ended hostilities through Christmas carols and then getting together. But I hadn't heard this story before, and I'm a big history buff. I wonder why this is.
I don't know the true story this was supposedly based on--you always have to be careful of the taking of literary license--but I'd approach this movie as a very good, very suspenseful, but ultimately Hallmark Hall of Fame sort of history. I'd stick with Band of Brothers.
Oh, by the way, my wife and I watched the movie on Hallmark a few nights ago and we both agreed that the American GIs put one in the SS Captain's ear before they found an American patrol.
I would have.
"You eat guts."--Nick Devlin
Ever since I learned that 'the true story' the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on was Ed Gein, the ghoul who murdered at best two strong-willed business women and would dig up graves of other women trying to connect with his mother, which this was also the loose inspiration for the Robert Bloch novel that would inspire Psycho, I have been wary of movies with the label 'true story'.
The only similarity TCM had to Ed Gein was the bizarre setup in the house, with the oddities all over the room the one girl was looking at. There was no chainsaw, no kids, no kid in a wheelchair. Oh, I guess Leatherface could be derived from Gein's wearing the lady's faces like a mask.
The only story even similar to this is the one about the German and Allied soldiers who had a brief truce on Christmas day and wished each other Merry Christmas, then sang Silent Night, I think they even exchanged some goodies, can't recall (a program about it will be airing on The History Channel Tuesday morning, the 18th, should be about 6 am EST).
I wonder if this was the movie's 'true story' and not surprisingly, there wasn't a woman who brought them together in such an unlikely manner.
Would be nice if it were overall true, but the incident from WWI is the only one I have heard of even coming close to this one.
Posted too soon, as I see there are other threads purporting interviews with the real Fritz.
But as the movie said at the end, he lost all contact with the German soldiers and maintained contact with only one American, so that may be what denied credibility to the story.
[deleted]
Yea, ten times out of ten, I tend to avoid when someone can respond with nothing else other than an address I'm supposed to click. I never go to see what it is they want me to see. Maybe someone else will oblige them.
shareI obliged him and here's the story's headline:
Fritz Vincken, bakery owner, dead at 69
Seems the story is true, except it was 3 Americans and 4 Germans.
In the book, "Time for Trumpets" by historian and former U.S. Army Captain Charles MacDonald, there is a brief mention of an incident where German and American GIs spent the night in the home of a German woman. He doesn't go into any detail, only to say that they rejoined the war the next day. It was kinda from the "Absolutly astounding things that can only happen in war" department. He cites other incidents of kindness amongst enemies and Steven Ambrose also tells of acts of humanity in the horror of war. Both are quick to point out that these acts are isolated and that the horrors certainly out number the humanity. I doubt very seriously if any act like this could have taken place in the Pacific, though there are a very few reports of Japanese taking mercy on Allied captives.
But local truces do happen in war, one of the more noteworthy was during the Huertgen forest debacle, when a momentary "understood" truce was declared due to the horrific conditions. Many truces are declared to let one or the other side evacuate wounded, but just as soon, the shooting starts again.
For another great "truce" movie, check out "None But the Brave", with Frank Sinatra and Clint Walker. Great flick and it's in the Pacific.
Dear WingHaz,
I am one of the producers of "Silent Night," and I wanted to thank you for your comments. I discovered this story back in 1999, in perhaps an odd way. A young filmmaker came into my office at Showtime and pitched a fictional version of the story that he heard was based on truth, but he didn't have all the facts. I was developing movies for Showtime at that time, but they had an edict that true stories had to be backed up with research and we just couldn't put a movie into development on a writer's belief that a story was true. The filmmaker had one clue. He had heard about the story on an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries." I contacted the producers of that show and they sent me the episode which detailed a reunion between Fritz Vincken (who was the son in the story) and one of the American soldiers (who was in hospital and would later pass away). I then got the address of Fritz, who was living in Hawaii, having retired from his profession as a baker. In 2000, I journeyed to Hawaii with the filmmaker and we acquired motion picture rights to the story which he related to us. I also discovered that President Reagan, during his controversial trip to the Bitberg cemetary in Germany, had related the story to the American public for the first time. Showtime passed on the project, but Hallmark Channel was looking for another Christmas Movie for 2002 to fill out their schedule and they jumped on it - thanks to my friend and former Showtime boss, Steve Hewitt who brought Muse Entertainments delightful producers Michael Prupas and Irene Litinski into the nix. My producing partner, Rory Aylward brought in his brother Roger to write what I thought was an excellent adaptation of Fritz's story and Rodney Gibbons, a top director filled out our card and did a great job. I was very pleased with the way the film turned out. We were lucky to get Linda Hamilton for the role of Frau Vincken and we had a terrific production team in Montreal during the summer of 2002. We actually filmed the snow storm during a heatwave thanks to bio-degradable "snow biz" flakes and a snow making machine which took giant blocks of ice, crushed them and then sprayed them onto the ground via hoses.
It's become an evergreen for Hallmark during Christmas and rightfully so.
As a Hawaii resident, Mr. Vincken was well known for his excellent baking talent and he and his bakery was well liked. I still see his legacy carried on by the folks who took over his bakery. See: http://www.fritzbakery.net/
His story is wonderful and hopefully will become a Christmas tradition just like "Its a Wonderful Life". I only hope that the entire movie is shown, because Hallmark edited out the last scene with Fritz and the soldier's grandson.
Thank you for making the effort to tell this universal story for rest of mankind to benefit from.
RHY - Honolulu
Steven-----
As a history teacher and historian, I have many questions, both about the movie and about the story.
There was a comment on another thread about Linda Hamilton's accent that she could have used a few more weeks of training, I disagree. I'm sure English was not the first language of Frau Vincken, so her somewhat stilted speech was realistic when you consider the immense strain she was under. But Linda seemed to speak German very well. How long did she take to learn German and the actors portraying the Germans, did they have to learn the language or did they already speak it?
Linda is from my home state of Maryland(we crossed paths some years ago in high school) and I had read in the Baltimore Sun some years ago that she spoke German to some degree but I don't know if that's true.
Regarding the dialogue and events inside the house, obviously in a situation like this, we will never know exactly what was said and if those things actually happened. Or do we? Did you get information about the dinner, the care of the wounded soldier and especially my favorite part, the medal scene? How did you find out about these events and were they true? Or just conjecture? To often in "based on a true story" stories, there is much liberty taken with the facts, but the things in this movie seemed feasable enough.
How did you land Linda? And was she your first choice for the part of the frau?
About Blank's statement that they went from North Africa to Italy to "here", how did they get "here"? The 8th infantry was never in North Africa or Italy and I speculated in another post that they might have transferred into the division before D-Day, as often happened. Any idea if that might be true? Blank comments about Rossi having the wine since D-Day, so they would have had to work that in their resume somewhere.
Also, the Sarge is just a three-striper, seems he would have higher rating with all of his experience. I didnt see an indication of rank on the fake MP, did I just miss it?
About the location of the house, I apologize, I've only seen the movie twice and both times I missed the very beginning(The Hallmark version does not have the final scene where Fritz gives to Rossi's grandson Rossi's dogtags, I saw that scene on the TBN braodcast, without commercials, too.) So if they said at the beginning where this took place, I missed it. The 8th spent much time in the Huertgen, on the Northern frontier of the Ardennes which was in reality the jumping off point for Watch on the Rhine. Was this where the good frau's house was?
By the time this movie took place, the Germans would have been slowed in most places and stopped and forced into retreat in some. In your interviews, did any of the participants say under what circumstances the troops met, in terms of who was retreating and who was on the move forward? By this time, wholescale American retreats and surrenders would have ended and they would be consalidating their lines and getting ready to push back, as evidenced by Fritz's narration at the end about the American patrol reaching the house. In the Honolulu Ad piece about Frit'z passing, it mentions there were four Germans, were you able to verify that?
And finally, and I apologize again, I can talk history all night, especially military history(which explains why I'm writing this at four AM Christmas Eve), do you have any idea what happened to the soldiers? Has there ever been an inquiry for records? The Germans had detailed files on casulties and I know the Allies did, too. Has any possible member of any of the German's families ever tried to contact the production team? If the Germans survived the war, you would think somewhere down the line, one of them might have spoken about it and someone must have seen the movie in Germany and been curious about the fate of the Lieutenant and his men.
I have many more questions and I thank you for your time in explaining some of the points of the movie and for making such a powerful film in the first place. I know it is hard for people of today's generation to beleive that the Germans in WWII didn't all act like Nazis, in most cases they were just soldiers doing their jobs for their country, same as ours. I know of many instances were humanity trumped the evil of war but this just might be one of the most unique and heart wrenching stories of them all.
Dear KWB400,
Let me see if I can answer your questions. As I remember, Linda did not speak German and had to learn the dialogue and accent from a German coach who turned out to be a friend of my producing partner, Steve Hewitt. And, yes, I thought she did a terrific job.
As far as the story goes, you're right, we didn't have much. Our only source was Fritz himself who was there and, believe me, we really grilled him for details. Frankly, at the end of the day, the only things he remembered were:
1) his mother's forceful personality kept the peace
2) The Americans indeed had a wounded man.
3) There were four Germans and they were very young. I believe the highest rank amongst them was a corporal.
4) It was a blizzard outside and everyone was interested in getting something to eat and staying warm.
5) They did share food and sang Silent Night together.
6) In the morning, the Germans gave the Americans a compass and departed as friends.
To up the dramatic equation, we did add the Nazi fanatic in the American uniform. It was a cheat but it helped give the German Lieutenant an arc to his character and it worked within the context of the story. I was on the set when the Germans and Americans were preparing to depart and we didn't have the hand shake in the story at the time. I took one look at that scene and turned to director Rodney Gibbons and producer Steve Hewitt and I suggested that they shake hands (and that the American Sergeant should initiate it). It worked wonderfully. And Rodney framed the shot so nicely under the guise of Linda.
Linda was one of our first choices for Frau Vincken. I think we offered the part to Kate Capshaw (Spielberg's wife), but she was busy. Linda was wonderful and we became very friendly. She invited me to her Christmas party that year and I had a chance to spend some time chatting with her ex-husband, the director of "Titanic."
My impression was that this was, indeed, the northern section of the Bulge. The Vinckens were living in Aachen and were evacuated out of there after heavy bombing. My impression was that the cabin was not far from Aachen. By the way, speaking of the opening of the film. There were two versions. I believe the Hallmark version has opening narration only, but we also shot a wrap around where the son of one of the Americans goes to visit old Fritz who still lives in German (in the story we created). However, we ended up taking the wraparound out of the release version (although I think it's on the video, but I'm not sure). In reality, as I mentioned, Fritz became an American citizen and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii to start his bakery.
As far as the soldiers go, the last American survivor died shortly after he appeared on that episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which featured his reunion with Fritz. As I recall that was the Sergeant. We never did track down the other two men and there's never been any contact with the Germans.
I hope this helps. I seem to be rather obsessed with telling unusual World War II stories. For the last eight years, I have been seeking financing for another Battle of the Bulge story which introduces real life American war correspondent, Bill Davidson of Yank Magazine. Davidson was 23 and had a pretty relaxed tour of duty. He wrote his own orders, covered the stories he wanted to cover, lived in an apartment in Brussels and had a girlfriend. And then, just prior to the Bulge, he was summoned to his forward hq in Spa and found himself in a ransacked town, abandoned by the Americans and soon to be overrun by the Germans. A woman came out of a house and suddenly produced two small Jewish children, ages 6 and 8 and handed them over to Bill, explaining that if they stayed behind, the Nazis would kill them. So 23 year old Bill Davidson, alone and unarmed, in a jeep, in the snowy blizzard of the Bulge, surrounded by half the German army, has to figure out a way to get out of the Ardennes with two children in tow. It's really an amazing story filled with interesting characters and vignettes. During the course of 72 hours, he meets Ernest Hemingway and his coterie of sycophants, black marketeers, German hookers, OSS agents, German prisoners, Belgium resistance and others who are trying to make it out of the Bulge. Roger Aylward, who wrote "Silent Night" has also written this script which is called "Cut Off," based on Davidson's autobiography.
Merry Christmas
Best,
Steve
Thank you for taking the time and effort to provide so much information!
Merry Christmas!
Many thanks for your answers.
I had hoped that in the five years since your movie came out, someone would have come forward with more information about the soldiers, on either side. I guess they are lost to history.
I'm also a writer and a historian and "odd but true" military tales are also a hobby of mine. I used to teach a HS course on WWII and I found that I would tell things in the beginning of the semester and in the normal course of research I would find something more about a topic I covered in class months ago, so of course I had to bring the kids up to date. I am always amazed about the amount of information still being uncovered about those years.
I look forward to seeing your story in print or on film, seems a four part mini-series would be in order, with Johnny Depp in the lead(I know he's older than 23, but he's a guy that I think could really pull it off). Should you need help with research or anything, let me know. I would love to be involved with something like that or any project dealing with military history. History in general, but especially WWII, has always been a passion of mine.
Thanks again,
Ken
Ditto and what a great read. Happy holidays to all!
shareWHAT A WONDERFUL THREAD! tHANKS FOR POSTING!
shareI can't belive I just heard of this movie for the first time today.
It was great.
Living in the Netherlands I would love to see this movie but cant find it anywhere :(
shareThis and "A Christmas Story" are the two movies I watch every Christmas. It's such a wonderful story and done very well by all the actors involved!
shareAs for the Sgt's unit. Chances are he was transfered. I had relatives who fought in WWII and they were in one unit and transfered to another where the battles in the war was actually worse.
shareI know it has been a long time since you posted to this thread, but I just discovered this wonderful movie myself. I found it on YouTube-I hope it will play for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMl7c0CypC0