Posted on 07/12/2006 10:08:10 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
COLONELS Klink and Hogan and Sgt Schultz of the sitcom Hogan's Heroes have done real PoWs of the Nazis no favours, a federal minister says.
(Australian) Veterans' Affairs Minister Bruce Billson said that thanks to Hollywood, those in German and Italian prison camps in World War II were wrongly perceived by many as having had a fairly easy time.
Mr Billson, 40, said after launching this year's Weary Dunlop Medical Research appeal that he watched repeats of Hogan's Heroes as a child.
But he had a totally different view as he now considered whether European PoWs should be given a one-off $25,000 compensation payment.
Survivors of Japanese captivity, who were often subjected to barbaric cruelty and slave labour, won the payment in 2001 after a long campaign.
It was extended to 14 Korean War prisoners or spouses last year.
But the Federal Government has so far refused to include World War II European PoWs, who were mainly RAAF and RAF airmen and Diggers captured in Crete, Greece and North Africa.
"I think it's likely Hogan's Heroes has done a bit of a disservice," Mr Billson said.
"Col. Klink and Sgt Schultz haven't done much good, really."
"It has added to a false impression that the only ones who really suffered were the prisoners of the Japanese.
"Images of jolly good old chaps, the PoW camp band, men getting Red Cross parcels, creates a different impression than the reality in Europe."
Mr Billson said many Australians suffered "hardship, horror and brutality".
"Conditions varied. It depended on the location, the time, and Red Cross were involved only when it suited the captors," he said.
"This interests me and I've asked for people to come to me with more specific information."
PoWs were sent on long, hazardous marches in the frozen 1944-45 winter as the Germans fled the Russians.
Others were forced to perform gruesome tasks cleaning up bomb-ravaged cities.
Some British PoWs were held at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp.
And four Australians were among 50 PoWs murdered by the Gestapo after they escaped from Stalag Luft III.
Their story was told in Paul Brickhill's book The Great Escape, which became a hit movie of the same name in 1963.
It is believed Mr Billson will also consider a Canadian report on European PoWs.
The RSL and Ex-PoW Association said the $25,000 payment was one of their six budget priorities this year.
Ex-PoW Association national secretary Cyril Gilbert said he liked watching Hogan's Heroes.
But Mr Gilbert said it was no joke that 862 surviving European PoWs and their 1278 widows had not been compensated. More were dying every month.
Past Veterans' Affairs ministers had used the lower death rate of men in Europe compared with that of prisoners of the Japanese as a reason to stall on compensation.
"They've been like Sgt Schultz: 'I know nothing, I know nothing'," Mr Gilbert said.
"The European PoWs have been discriminated against plainly, and that has split the veterans' community.
"In my opinion, the majority of European PoWs suffered more than those who were in Singapore for the war.
"Germans abided by the Geneva Convention only when they wanted to -- not too often."
Mr Gilbert and RSL national president Maj-Gen Bill Crews welcomed the fresh approach by Mr Billson.
"Hogan's Heroes created a very wrong impression of imprisonment under the Germans, like it was some holiday camp," Maj-Gen Crews said.
"We believe all those men suffered significantly at different times."
Mr Gilbert said it would be as foolish to judge German stalags by Hogan's Heroes as it would be to judge Japanese slave labour by the Bridge on the River Kwai.
But, compared to the Japanese camps, those in German camps DID have a fairly easy time.
Speaking strictly of POW camps, of course.
Man, talk about beating a dead horse; they're all hung up on a show from the 60s, mannnnnnnnnn!!!!!
Is this a joke?
No he couldn't. I was a big fan of HH as a kid and even then I knew that how things were depicted in a farsicle sit-com had no bearing on reality, for one thing it was obvious that if the German army were really that stupid the war would have been over in a month.
I think the films "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape" had more to do with it. I mean, did anybody really take "Hogan's Heroes" seriously as an example of how the Germans ran the POW camps?
Hogan's Heroes was a classic comedy, and it cheered up many during some troubled times. Even the Germans loved it . . . so sorry to all those real POWs out there, but no regrets.
My first reaction, "Who would be that stupid?"
But then again, just looking at DU or the people out in the streets, I can only conclude that maybe it isn't such a bad idea.
Same with renaming Auschwitz.
Absolutely. All you need to do is compare survival rates.
The Germans usually treated Allied prisoners more or less properly.
Russian, Polish and other subhuman POWs were a different story entirely.
Don't forget the pinpoint accuracy of a stick of dynamite taped to an arrow.
In related news:
- The lives of lawyers in the real JAG corps aren't generally hair-raising
- Real cats don't talk
- Horses cannot run for hundreds of miles, 24 hours a day
- Real American women don't generally have a pool boy, let alone have sex with him on the deck.
Only weak-minded fools would believe such dribble...
Nothing to see here, move along...
Kill this thread now.
Klink, Berkhalder (sp), and Schultz were all played by Jews. And it was very difficult and heart-wrenching for them to play those parts.
I have spent alot of time researching this.
Give these brave, noble men some honor. Please stop this thread now.
One wonders on this: the attitude towards the Slavs was little better than that to Jews, etc. But the Germans actually considered themselves relatives of the Brits/French/US, could this be a leftover from when Kaiser Bill was King George's cousin?
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