Hogan's Heroes

Hogan's Heroes was a television sitcom that ran on the CBS television network from 1965 to 1971. Starring Bob Crane as Colonel Robert Hogan, the show was set at Stalag 13, a German prisoner of war camp for Western Allied prisoners during World War II. In the plot, Stalag 13 was a "Luft Stalag", located near the village of Hammelburg, run by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) for Allied Air Force personnel. The producers of the show greatly stretched reality, as in allowing a black prisoner to be barracked with Whites, something that the Nazis would never have allowed in real life.

Criticisms

While Hogan's Heroes was, and remains, a popular show, it has had many critics. Beyond the usual criticism of the show's quality, there were many who were disturbed by the portrayals of the Germans as funny and incompetent. Many felt this trivialized the evil of the Nazis and the war. But Klink was a career soldier, and many real-life members of the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht, even among the officer corps, were historically not Nazis, and Klemperer certainly believed that the show portrayed Nazis badly enough; otherwise he would have pulled out. Leon Askin's parents died in a Nazi concentration camp, and as Robert Clary and John Banner were in concentration camps as well, it is unlikely they would have trivialized the Holocaust. Besides, historically the Luftwaffe stalags provided the best treatment of Allied prisoners of war, which put them at the other end of the spectrum from the death camps.

Related Topics:
Wehrmacht - The Holocaust

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Beyond any 'political incorrectness' in the setting of the series, there are many admirable qualities about the show. The most important is alluded to in the early paragraphs – in the series, Sergeant James Kinchloe, a black American (played by Ivan Dixon), not only lived in the same barracks with the other prisoners but was an integral part of the team, serving as an apparent, if not actual second in command. If one watches the program carefully, it can be noted that Colonel Hogan almost always relied on Kinch's (as the character was known as) opinions and his character usually provided relevant facts in helping resolve their situation. And in many other subtle ways, the show was ahead of its time (to the point of serious anachronism) – people would pour coffee FOR Kinch and the other characters would even physically lean or drape their arm around him. In a time in America where civil rights issues (trivial and major) were still being resolved and fought over, Kinch was actually quite a groundbreaking character as Hogan's Heroes was in the AC Nielsen Top 10 for the first two seasons. This is in contrast this with other popular TV sitcoms such as The Andy Griffith Show where no black character/actor ever even appeared to exist in the town of Mayberry. What's more is that as with most sitcoms, Kinch actually got to "star" in his own episodes and even more daring, he got to kiss a girl. While today, it seems laughable to most modern Westerners that scenario would even merit mention, at the time the few other regular black actors on American TV (Bill Cosby in I Spy and, Greg Morris of ', for example) were much more chaste. While the young lady in question was an African-American actress (American TV's first interracial kiss would have to wait for the science fiction series ', later in the decade) the show served to illustrate how Kinch was written as a well-rounded "normal" character.

Related Topics:
Ivan Dixon - Anachronism - America - Civil rights - AC Nielsen - The Andy Griffith Show - Mayberry - Westerners - Bill Cosby - I Spy - Science fiction

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Another appealing aspect of the series is the talent of the regulars - with the ironic exception of Bob Crane, every other actor usually got to summon up a different persona every episode ... Carter would go from the meek and mild Carter character to imitating the lunatic rant of Hitler; or lovable Sgt. Schultz would bark in a gruff and authoritative manner - but then they would immediately switch back to his old self. It was a series filled with great "hams", but all talented in many ways.

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The series is also interesting in that the characters regularly killed people – even if they were 'enemies' and even for a worthy cause, not a lot of series – even dramas – manage to pull off this feat and still leave the characters as sympathetic.

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