Hogan's Heroes hurt PoWs

Herald Sun ^ | 13 July 2006 | Neil Wilson

[Wolfie]

I hear ya. Something that tragic must be difficult to talk about.

[r9etb]

I mean, did anybody really take "Hogan's Heroes" seriously as an example of how the Germans ran the POW camps?

Depends on what age group you're thinking about. I loved HH as a kid -- watched it every day, in syndication. And although I know better now, it did shade the way I looked at the Nazis. Not only were they loveable bumblers -- even the Gestapo-- but they had cool uniforms, cool cars, cool equipment, and a really snappy drum beat. What's not to like about that?

Folks who were adults when HH was originally aired might have known the difference, but I didn't. My impression of the Germans, and the truth about what they were really capable of doing, were miles apart -- and that despite the fact that I was raised in a community where the Germans were the default "bad guys."

My grandfather happened to be an IG in the European theatre, and he had a stack of ghastly photographs of what the Gestapo and SS really did. It took that to show me that my naive HH-derived ideas about the Nazis were horribly wrong. Not that these applied to the POW camps, per se, but German brutality was there for me to see.

So I'd say this guy actually has a point -- many, if not most, of the guys who'd vote on these things are far removed from the reality, and I'd wager that very few of them had the advantage of several nights of nightmares from that stack of pictures.

[wyattearp]

Let me guess - delivering pizzas is not a sure-fire way to meet dozens of bored, gorgeous women?

Well... There was this one gal who always showed up at the door in a see-through baby-doll negligee - she was hot, too.

And the gals in the strip joint down the street ordered a lot of pizza. It was always the same story: "oh, she's up on stage right now, why don't you sit here for a few minutes until she's finished"...

Strippers tipped really well. Not that it really mattered, of course... ;-)

(the manager had to assign the strip club runs - we might have fought over them if she didn't)

The funniest one was when all of the guys were out on deliveries, and Stacy had to do the stripper run. They tried really hard to hire her (beautiful, and built like a you-know-what).

[PeteB570]

I have always liked Stalag 17.

[Aussie Dasher]

THere are a lot of bloody dills about who are influenced by just about anything...

[Egon]

Let me guess - delivering pizzas is not a sure-fire way to meet dozens of bored, gorgeous women?

No, but it might land you in the 31st century with a robot and a cyclops.

[Salgak]

No, that's an entirely DIFFERENT kink, one of the few that the late Bob Crane apparently DIDN'T enjoy. . .

[mware]

My next door neighbor was shot down over Germany during WW2 and spent 2 years as a POW. When he jumped from his plane he was hit in both of his legs. He would take that shrapnel in his legs with him to his death in 1998.

When he spoke of Hogan's Hero's he would laugh and say, they don't have any idea.

[Hildy]

The movie made about him was SO ...uncomfortable. That's the only word that I can come up with when I think about it.

[r9etb]

I mean, can we reach back to a show discontinued 40 years ago, and maybe in syndication another 10 years after that? 30-40 years is too long to wait before criticizing a show.

The guy's got a valid point, though. The folks who are voting on this stuff now, were forming their views of the Nazis 30-40 years ago. And, like me, they probably watched Hogans Heroes every day after school. It shaded my perception of the Nazis, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

For legislation like this, I think a yes/no vote comes down mostly to a matter of personal perceptions and emotional responses -- and a childhood diet of Hogans Heroes might well affect one's view.

[American in Singapore]

I grew up on Hogan's Heroes, but it hit home more when my job took me to Germany twice or 3 times a year. Then I did research on the show itself. What they tried to do in Hogan's Heroes is what Roberto Benigni did in "Life is Beautiful".

By the way, the German version is completely sanitized and censored - nothing like the original.

[50sDad]

Wasn't Auto-Man's sidekick a "bit", like the one in the great movie "TRON"?

[mware]

When my uncle speaks of the Russian POW's it is always with a heavy heart.

They begged the Americans not to turn them over to their countrymen, because they knew what would happen if repatriated.

[Vision]

My parents wouldn't let me watch HH when I was growing up for this reason.

[GAB-1955]

I used to correspond with the late David Westheimer, the author of "Von Ryan's Express". He told me that the worst part of German POW camps was boredom.

[freedumb2003]

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.

Did Get Smart! hurt CIA agents? F Troop insensitive to soldiers? Jeeze! Anyone who thinks anyone thought HH was anything other than a complete farce is a few tacos short of a combo plate.

[xone]

bttt

[steveo]

That's pretty much the truth...

[gate2wire]

I have been enjoying this thread immensely. Thinking about the good ol' days, when Krauts were Krauts and Nips were Nips.
Now you bring up Get Smart. I suppose you're gonna tell me that secret agents didn't really have shoe phones or use the "cone of silence."

[mware]

Donald Pleasant. (The Great Escape) really was a R.A.F. pilot who was shot down, held prisoner and tortured by the Germans.