Erwin Kreuz (1927 – 2010) was a West German tourist to the United States who achieved international celebrity status in the late 1970s for mistaking the city of Bangor, Maine for San Francisco.

While he was half asleep, a flight attendant stopped by his seat and wished him a pleasant visit to San Francisco; she had finished her shift and was leaving the plane.

The only sight which resonated with his prior image of the California city were the two local Chinese restaurants;[4] he dined at one, knowing the fame of San Francisco's Chinatown.

[2] He concluded he was in a suburb of the metropolis, and began to realize his mistake after he was forced to leave his room after the hotel was completely booked for parents' weekend at the University of Maine.

The Romines took Kreuz to the Black Rose German-American restaurant in nearby Old Town, Maine, which they owned and was managed by their son Ralph Coffman.

He was the guest of honor at an Oktoberfest event sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, was made an honorary member of the Penobscot tribe and Old Town Rotary Club,[10] received the keys to the city,[11] met fellow local celebrity Andre the Seal,[12] and flew to the state capital in Augusta on October 25 to meet Governor James B. Longley and Secretary of State Markham Gartley.

[28] His flight arrived in Logan International Airport on September 25, where he was met by the Romines and took a tour of Boston,[15][29] and he was scheduled to depart on October 20 after driving west to the Grand Canyon with them.

The West German brewery that employed him attempted to use his news-worthiness for its own purposes, but bristled when Kreuz asked for compensation beyond his laborer's salary.

In an interview with the West German press, he made the spontaneous but naive admission that he drank a competitor's brand of beer, due to regional distribution arrangements.

His month-long absence to promote an American shopping mall (and during the Oktoberfest season) was likely the final straw, as he was fired from his job of 91⁄2 years in November 1978, shortly after he returned.

Hoping to trade on his celebrity to find a job and emigrate, he was disappointed when his only forthcoming offer was a minimum wage janitorial position at the Bangor Mall.

His nurse mentioned that he regularly viewed a photo album from his time in Bangor, which kept him awake and joyful despite his dementia, which resulted from his excessive alcohol consumption.

The Kreuz story has been related in Bill Harris' Landscapes of America, vol.2 (1987)[34] and An American Moment (1990),[35] and it helped Gail Fine illustrate a problem in philosophy in her 1999 Oxford University Press book Plato Two: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul.