Rainer Broekel, 83, Candy Writer
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Rainer Broekel, the German-born author of a book on candy bars who became known as “the Candy Man” in appearances on American radio and television, has died. He was 83.
Broekel died yesterday in Beverly Hospital in Massachusetts of heart failure, according to family members.
A science teacher and a children’s author, it was Broekel’s sweet tooth that made him famous.
“The Great American Candy Bar Book earned Dad the reputation as the number one authority on American candy bar history,” his daughter Peggy said. He followed up the 1982 volume with “The Chocolate Chronicles” in 1985.
Broekel was inducted into the Chocolate Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C., in 1990,and he was for many years a historian for the National Confectioner’s Association and the Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association.
Born in Dresden, Germany, Broekel immigrated with his family to Evanston, Ill., in 1927. He married his wife, Margaret, in 1944, and taught school in Illinois before moving his family east to Massachusetts in 1967.
