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.
I've always thought the show had a revolting premise.
Married her, cheated on her, filmed porn with her and without her, and then died alone, naked in a hotel room. Sounds like he would have been better off in a POW camp.
This is stupid. No one believes Hogan's Heros reflects reality any more than one believes what happens in road runner cartoons. They are both good for laughs and there is nothing wrong with laughing.
I want to see McQeen jump that last fence on the bike.
The Nazis actually liked the British, who they never really wanted to fight at all. They wanted the Brits to be allies.
French Aryanity (?) had been corrupted by mixing with inferior races, and America had blacks and Jews all over the place. So they despised both groups.
Leon Askin who played Burkhalter passed away just last year, at the age of 97!!!
Poetic justice
Saw Werner interviewed once. What ain interesting career and life he had with his father and of his own!
Iron Eyes Cody, the so called Indian was actually born in Louisiana of Sicilian born parents. Jay Silverheels hated him because he knew he was a fake.
Hey who could forget Don Rickles as "Bald Eagle". Edward Everett Horton as Hekawi medicine man Roaring Chicken. and Bob Diamond as Crazy Cat.
What do you mean "could have a fair point?" It was a TV show for heaven's sakes.
That would be like saying the Texas oil economy crashed due to Ewing Oil's foreign ventures.
I dunno. I think there's something to be said for being sensitive about such things. I always wondered how the people who died on the Titanic felt about that movie a couple years back.
Not to mention Mel Brooks as a Yiddish speaking indian in Blazing Saddles.
Oh, my God. So, are you saying none of these things are really true??
1. During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip joint at least once.
2. All beds have special L-shaped top sheets which reach up to armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
3. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
4. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
5. Large loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people - whether they are employed or not.
6. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
7. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
8. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
9. If you decide to start dancing in the street everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
10. Should you decide to defuse a bomb don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.
11. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
12. Extremely beautiful and intelligent women are likely to become prostitutes or welders.
13. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts - your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
14. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
15. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned to a partner who is their total opposite.
16. When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
17. Radiation causes interesting mutations - not to your future children but to you, right there and then.
18. If you're blonde and pretty, it is possible to become an expert on nuclear fission at the age of 23.
19. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
20. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers and man eating sharks which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
He was from Bridgeport CT so POW camp would have been an improvement, indeed.
""Knight Rider" taught me that one can carry on an intelligent conversation with a Trans Am.
-Eric"
Do you remember a short lived show called AutoMan? Came out after Knight Rider and supposedly the guy was electronic or something but he could make 90 degreee turns while travelling at 300mph... hehehehehe
He was also a very good violinist, not the bumbling musician that Klink was. Banner was also a Jew.
He wasn't alone when he died. His murderer was there as well.
It would be kind of hard to poll them.
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