Here is a story I heard from my father. He told me he heard it from a friend who read it in some magazine (Reader's digest, i think). I dunno the names of the characters involved but it is a touching story all the same. I will narrate the story in my own words.
In 1944, soon after the landings in Normandy, the Allies are pushing the Germans further back. An American sniper dropped behind enemy lines is on the hunt for Nazi soldiers. Camouflaged in the undergrowth, he has his sights on a German bunker.
After some time, he sees a young German soldier emerge from the bunker. The American immediately takes aim to down the German. Then he notices that the German is singing happily, oblivious to danger, and looking at a photograph of his family. The American decides to spare the German. He continues to observe the young German, and notice a hand come out of the bunker doorway and pull the German inside.
Several decades later, the retired American sniper decides to write about this incident in a magazine. A few days after the article is published, he gets a letter. The author asks if they could meet. The American agrees.
The author of the letter turns out to be the German he spared all those years ago. Apparently, the German realised it was him the American was talking about, since he recalled being at that bunker on that specific day, and remembered how his senior officer pulled him inside, reprimanding him for walking outside when snipers could be around.
That German soldier apparently survived the war, and went on to raise a family. All those years, he had been unaware that his life itself was the courtesy of an American soldier.
At the end the German simply says, "Thank you, for sparing my life.
