Hogan's Heroes hurt PoWs

Herald Sun ^ | 13 July 2006 | Neil Wilson

[skeeter]

Russian, Polish and other subhuman POWs were a different story entirely.

I guess being a slav in a German camp would be about on par with being a allied guest of the emporer. Maybe worse.

[Aussie Dasher]

I don't think the Minister was referring to FReepers.

Tell me again, how close did Gore come in 2000?

[Lockbar]

Bob Crain got alot out of the show. Gave him the opportunity to "pick-up" women all over the place, make home made porn, and get his brains bashed in.

[mtbopfuyn]

What part of FICTION do folks not seem to understand?

[llevrok]

Right. We took this seriously...

Bob Crane did. He married her in real life.

[BelegStrongbow]

He just gets to it, oh I don't know, say 40 years too late?

I can't see HH driving much opinion or public attitude, given it had little such effect when it was famously running on CBS (I know I never missed an episode). I do remember TV Guide actually running cautionary articles just before the series premiered, raising exactly the point this article does.

But when the series came out, and it was clearly meant as social satire masked as a war comedy, all that went by the board. And nobody took it seriously, everyone kicked back and laughed their tucheses off.

[kinghorse]

I understand Bob took that seriously.

[CFC__VRWC]

Oh please. In the TV show, Hogan and his men had a fully equipped war room under their barracks, complete with state of the art (for the time) radios and other electronics. They had nicely finished escape tunnels that could take them to any point in Germany, that would have taken hundreds of man-years to construct. And that's just scratching the surface.

I don't take anything away from ther men who spent time in the German POW camps, but Hogan's Heroes was so far removed from reality that you would have to be pretty stupid to believe this was how life really was for them, and to say that the show does POWs a disservice is just insulting. It's like saying that science is harmed when the Professor on Gilligan's Island builds a nuclear reactor out of the guts of the transistor radio and couple of coconut shells.

[llevrok]

Klink, Berkhalder (sp), and Schultz were all played by Jews

Frank De Kova played Wild Eagle on F Troop. Hardly an indian.

When acters need work, they work.

[true_blue_texican]

- Real American women don't generally have a pool boy, let alone have sex with him on the deck.

Wellll, damn!! So much for the career change I was planning!!

[Skooz]

Conditions at Luftwaffe camps, especially for Allied air crews, was light years better than those at camps run by the SS.

[dfwgator]

The funniest thing about Hogan's Heroes is that in a few episodes they had Kinchloe disguised in a German Uniform, as if that wouldn't create any suspicion.

[E Rocc]

"Knight Rider" taught me that one can carry on an intelligent conversation with a Trans Am.

-Eric

[BelegStrongbow]

Actually, Werner Klemperer insisted that Klink never get the last word, come up with a successful plot or harm anyone. He wouldn't play the part otherwise.

A truly good man, Werner, with an utterly brilliant father (Otto), who conducted orchestras to performances that are still standard for a number of great classical works.

[groover]

LOL. Beat me to it!

[Brad from Tennessee]

I don't know about Hogan's Heroes but one TV series purporting to be about Vietnam--China Beach--was a total farce. It depicted beautiful nurses and soldiers living in plush barracks in DaNang. It wasn't supposed to be a comedy but it definitely was a farce.

[dfwgator]

And German POWs who were in this country had it pretty darned good as well.

[rlmorel]

"...when the Professor on Gilligan's Island builds a nuclear reactor out of the guts of the transistor radio and couple of coconut shells..."

Oh, Christ. Please don't tell me he really didn't do that.

I have spent the last 30 years of my life trying to replicate that feat, and now you tell me it is no more real science than cold fusion...

[dfwgator]

Russian, Polish and other subhuman POWs were a different story entirely.

Worst of all for Soviet POWs was that for the few that survived the war, their reward was to be sent to Siberia, if not killed, by Stalin, who considered Soviet POWs as traitors.

[Skooz]

And German POWs who were in this country had it pretty darned good as well.

Stepehn Ambrose said it best (paraphrase): "If you were a German male born between 1900 and 1925, the best place for you to spend 1942-1945 was in an American prison camp."