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.

Plot

The show's improbable premise was that the Allied prisoners of war at Stalag 13 were using the camp as a base of operations for sabotaging the German war effort and assisting the Allies. The prisoners operated a secret network of tunnels that led outside the camp, located near the town of Hammelburg, Germany, and had radio contact with Allied command. They were aided by the fact that the camp commandant was the bumbling Colonel Klink (played by Werner Klemperer), who proudly proclaimed that "no one has ever escaped from Stalag 13", not knowing (or probably not concerned) that his prisoners routinely came and went as they pleased via a secret tunnel (perhaps inspired by that depicted in The Great Escape). Hogan also easily manipulated Klink and Sergeant Schultz (played by the portly John Banner) into creating ideal situations for the secret operations conducted by the men at Stalag 13.

Related Topics:
Hammelburg - Werner Klemperer - The Great Escape - John Banner

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Possible inspiration for series

Many have also seen the interaction between the prisoners as being at least somewhat inspired by the black comedy motion picture about a World War II German POW camp, Stalag 17. This movie even had a Sergeant Johann Sebastian Schultz, who appeared genial but was actually in league with the traitor among the prisoners. There was so much of a similarity, that the producers of Stalag 17 sued the producers of Hogan's Heroes for infringement; and won.

Related Topics:
Black comedy - Motion picture - Stalag 17 - Sergeant

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Also, there was a real life Stalag 13, and an Offlag 13 (which contained officers), located near a real German village of Hammelburg. The senior American prisoner here was Lt. Colonel Waters, who was the son-in-law of General George S. Patton. In April, 1945, General Patton sent a task force on a raid to rescue the prisoners of Stalag 13. The task force got in, but all of the vehicles were destroyed getting out. Few of the soldiers managed to make it back to American lines. The Stalag was liberated about a month later. Books written about this effort include "The Raid" and "48 Hours to Hammelburg".

Related Topics:
Hammelburg - George S. Patton - 1945

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The German Officers

Klink was a patriotic German and old-line German Air Force officer as well as a social climber. Klink was not a Nazi Party member or malicious or evil although he was somewhat self-centered, and was in fact likeable in his own way. Because he was so easily manipulated by Hogan and his fellow prisoners, the worst thing that could have happened for the prisoners was for Klink to be transferred away; this in fact was the source of an occasional plot line. Over the course of the series a mutual respect and even pseudo-friendship developed between Hogan and Klink.

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Hogan was also aided by Klink's bumbling and highly incompetent guard Schultz, a basically good-hearted man who, when confronted with possible shenanigans by the prisoners that he would rather not believe or avoid the complications of having to report it, would simply repeat, "I know nothing! Nothing!" and "I see nothing! Nothing!" One rule in the show Klemperer insisted upon was that Hogan would always win (Klemperer was of Jewish extraction). In one episode, Schultz confided in Hogan that he was a Social Democrat. The left-of-center SPD (Social Democratic Party) was the only one among pre-1933 parties that refused to go along with Hitler's "legal" coup in early 1933. It never ceased opposing the Nazis and choose exile rather than Gleichschaltung or "coordination" with the Nazi line. Perhaps this secret of Schultz's would explain his turning a blind eye to the obvious Allied activities.

Related Topics:
Jewish - Social Democrat - SPD - 1933 - Gleichschaltung - Turning a blind eye

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Although this was never explicitly referred to in the series, both Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz wore uniforms that implied they both had illustrious World War I careers; Schultz wore the Iron Cross, Germany's highest decoration, for bravery in the trenches, and Klink wore the Pour le Merite ("Blue Max"), awarded to aces. In one episode, they were discussing what they would do after the war. Schultz said he would go back to the Schotzy Toy Company. Klink was impressed since it was the largest toy company in Germany, so he asked, "Do you think your boss will give you your old job back?" and was flabbergasted when Schultz said, "Why not? I am the boss!"

Related Topics:
World War I - Iron Cross - Trenches - Pour le Merite - Aces

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Other members of the German military were more threatening. General Burkhalter (Leon Askin) frequently tired of Klink's incompetence and often threatened to send Klink to the Russian Front, mentioned repeatedly throughout the show as the worst thing that could happen to a German soldier. "Klink," he once told the bumbling commandant, "you will be Court-martialed, shot, and sent to the Russian front!"

Related Topics:
General - Leon Askin - Russian Front - Court-martial

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Complicating Burkhalter's life—Klink and Burkhalter apparently had known each other for years—was that his sister Gertrude thought Klink would make a good husband. Klink, however, did not like her.

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Perhaps even more menacing was evil Major Hochstetter (Howard Caine) of the Gestapo, who was an ardent Nazi and never understood why Hogan would simply barge into Klink's office and hang out there as if he had a privileged role rather than simply being a prisoner of war. "Who is this man?" or "What is this man doing here?!" Hochstetter would demand. Klink was justifiably afraid of him, but Burkhalter, who was not easily intimidated, was not. Once Klink told Burkhalter, "I despise that man!" about Hochstetter. Burkhalter replied, "So do I". On another occasion when Hochstetter, lacking social skills, took dancing lessons from Lebeau, Burkhalter told a guard, "Arrest that man!'. Hochstetter: "On vat charge?" Burkhalter: "Dancing with a prisoner."

Related Topics:
Howard Caine - Gestapo

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Klink the Bureaucrat?

Noteworthy on a sitcom, a subtle subplot of the show often displayed Col. Klink as a hapless bureaucrat, constantly slaving on meaningless paperwork. During an age when most white-collar sitcom characters were never shown actually "working for a living", Klink's attention to his endless paperwork served to both display Klink as a "mere cog in the machine" and to illustrate the rote rule-following familiar to the bureaucrat. Klink seemed in tune with his role in the world, apparently understanding the fundamental mindlessness of his work tasks. One exchange between Klink and Hogan shows Klink fretting about the amount of paperwork that he has to complete. Hogan offers a solution: label each document 'Attention Col. Johan Schmidt', a common name, and ship it off to Berlin. Once Hogan departs, Klink uses the tactic and clears his desk.

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Plot holes?

The plots of most episodes of Hogan's Heroes were wildly implausible in nearly every respect, but this is arguably par for the course for a sitcom. However, some unrealistic aspects in particular have struck some viewers as bearing comment.

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The show made no attempt to resolve the language problem of the Germans and the Allies. All the German characters in the show simply spoke English with a German accent, although they used certain stock German phrases like Heil Hitler and Jawohl, Herr Kommandant. Because many of the plots involved prisoners impersonating German military, it appears that all of the prisoners spoke perfect unaccented German, and that none of the guards found this to be remarkable. Also, Corporals LeBeau (Robert Clary) and Newkirk (Richard Dawson) were often disrespectful of Sergeant Carter (Larry Hovis), addressing him by his surname and generally abusing him, while real-world army discipline would be unlikely to tolerate this level of disrespect for a superior non-commissioned officer. It could also be suggested Major Hochstetter's abuse of the higher-ranking Colonel Klink was likewise impermissible; however Gestapo personnel often had a nerve-wrecking effect on personnel of the regular German Armed Forces, due in large measure to their generally-stronger links to power centres of the Nazi Party; this was sometimes used to great effect by the Gestapo, so this relationship could be considered somewhat unremarkable. Some have stated that true enjoyment of this program, in any event, requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief.

Related Topics:
English - German - Robert Clary - Richard Dawson - Larry Hovis - Non-commissioned officer - Suspension of disbelief

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There's also the matter, rarely addressed in more than a cursory fashion as an occasional episode, of why, as the series progressed, the German government never investigated more vigorously the unusually high number for sabotage incidents and military setbacks that occur in or in close proximity to Stalag 13. While there are individual episodes of Hogan's team diverting small scale investigations, the sheer number of incidents should have sparked a major search that the saboteurs would have had considerable difficulty countering.

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Jewish actors played most of the German parts

Some of the actors, including Werner Klemperer, John Banner and Leon Askin (né Leo Ashkenazy) were Jews who had fled the Nazis during World War II. Robert Clary, who played the Frenchman LeBeau, and John Banner, who played Hans Schultz, had actually spent time in a Nazi concentration camp. Howard Caine, who portrayed the malevolent SS Major Hochstetter, was also Jewish. The show also starred Richard Dawson, who later became famous as the host of Family Feud.

Related Topics:
Concentration camp - Family Feud

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Askin had a particularly illustrous career. Before emigrating to the United States in 1940, he had already spent nearly two decades starring on the Viennese stage, where he became known as "the man of a thousand faces." When he and Banner left Austria, they spoke little or no English, and until they mastered it, they had their scripts spelled out for them phonetically.

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