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.

Series Pilot

The series pilot was produced in black-and-white. According to TVGuide, it was broadcast as the first episode of the series but never repeated on the network. It differed from the regular series in several ways, the most obvious being that Klink was not a buffoon. He is stern and describes himself as being of Prussian stock and "different from the new order."

Related Topics:
Pilot - Black-and-white

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Also, Burkhalter was only a colonel, not the general he was in the series.

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Larry Hovis is a guest star. He is credited as "Lieutenant Carter" rather than "Sergeant Carter." He plays a POW who had recently escaped from another camp. He escapes with the help of Hogan and his men, presumably on his way to England.

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The pilot also features Vladimir Minsk (played by Leonid Kinskey), a Soviet POW who specializes in tailoring costumes. When the pilot sold, Kinskey was offered a regular part in the series, but turned it down because he felt that the program portrayed the Nazis too lightly. So, obviously, the regular series did not feature the Soviet ally in the camp at all, let alone among Hogan's core crew. However, a Soviet pilot shot down over Germany was brought in by the Underground, and aided in returning east with a clever ruse.

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The pilot's other background POW's seem to be from many different (allied) armies - while in the regular series, most of the uniforms and background prisoners all appeared to be Americans.

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In the pilot, Klink's secretary was actually part of Hogan's team and had access to the tunnels. In the series, she was merely willing to look the other way in exchange for some nylons or a kiss from Robert Hogan.

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The year is also noted as 1942 — in the regular series, the year is never mentioned (as every series wants to run at least 7 years — longer than Americans' involvement in WWII).

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(The only dateable episodes contain clues: one episode is set at D-Day, the operation actually known as Operation Overlord, with Hogan undertaking a crucial task to retard the German response. Another episode involves Hogan providing a German with an explosive intended to kill Hitler. One could assume that the six seasons covered events over a two-and-a-half year period from spring 1942 until very early 1945, at which point the Germans were clearly losing.)

Related Topics:
D-Day - Operation Overlord

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Noam Pitlik is in another guest role. He plays a German spy pretending to be a new American POW. He learns the truth about Hogan's operations but Hogan feeds him false information, and tricks him into making a fool of himself. He is thus discredited, and dismissed. Pitlik makes several appearances on the series over the years, each time as a different character.

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