Günter Haab – September 2023
Since 2016, Günter Haab has been “showing what a good master baker can accomplish” for both the German SIG and the writing SIG.
He’s been making desserts to share at meetings, along with the real life knowledge of the language and geography of Germany.
Günter has plenty to share. Born in Prussia in 1935, he survived World War II to begin an apprenticeship as a baker. He worked in bakeries near Hamburg and then decided to expand his horizons by becoming a cook’s mate on board a freight ship going to Argentina in 1957. Graduating from cook’s mate to head cook on board various ships, Günter decided, in 1963, to visit his maternal uncles in the United States.
He loved both Chicago and Lincoln, Nebraska, so much that he officially emigrated in 1964, settling in Chicago and, six years later, bought his bakery in Racine, Wisconsin. By 1974 he was moving on to Reno, Nevada, and Lake Tahoe and, finally, craving more sun, moved to Scottsdale in 1981. Three months later he bought the Sun Bowl Restaurant in Sun City and settled in.
It was 2016 before he had enough time to join WVGS and start his genealogy journey with classes and SIGs – and desserts! Del Kunz, the German SIG facilitator, doesn’t think he has ever repeated a dessert and believes Günter has been one of the “secret ingredients” to the success of the German SIG.