Ein Käfig voller Helden

What I liked about Hogan's Heroes is perhaps that it did show the Nazis as incompetent but it did so with tongue-in-cheek and also with an out and out finger poking. Werner Klemper was allowed to portray Col. Klink the way he wanted which was totally incompetent....he had stated he would portray him no other way. When you think about it that was a bold move for him back in 1965 as it could have backfired and ruined his career. My favorite character was Sgt. Schultz...I loved the fact that he was such a simple man who liked all people and didn't like being caught up in the situation he was in. The characters were in some ways very complex and they played off of each others strengths which helped the plots along and it also made viewers enjoy the fact that these men were very human and war was as hard for them as it was for those at home.

This is a hilarious, side splitting comedy that baby boomers such as myself grew up with. Although it has been criticized, personally, I don't think it trivializes the evils of the Nazis or the genuine suffering during the war. Most people can accept this wildly ridiculous program for the total nonsense it is. Frankly, I can hardly believe that anyone would actually get their views of prison camp life from this drivel, or genuinely consider the German military as real life incompetent idiots based upon this crazy show. In short, no one could possibly take this tomfoolery seriously.

The series revolves around the wacky goings on at Stalag 13, a German POW camp for Allied soldiers. The assorted prisoners, led by Colonel Hogan, are actually using the camp as a base for sabotaging the German war effort and assisting the Allies. They have a wealth of tunnels underneath the camp going virtually everywhere and are in constant contact with Allied command via radio communication. These POW's are unwittingly aided in their efforts by those in charge at Stalag 13, the incompetent Colonel Klink and his assistant, the even more bumbling Sargent Schultz.

Of course the entire premise is absurd, which is what makes the series so hugely entertaining. The whole point is that these soldiers aren't really prisoners at all. They can escape whenever they wish...and frequently do so whenever it suits their purpose. I seem to recall they've even made it to France and back.

The actors portraying the Allied POW's are all charmingly competent in their roles, including Bob Crane as the smug American Colonel Hogan, Richard Dawson as the British Newkirk, Robert Clary as the little French Le Beau, and Larry Hovis as the bumbling Carter.

However, the real stars are the German roles. Werner Klemperer is absolutely brilliant as the endearing fool Colonel Klink, scrutinizing his charges with his monocle. Klink simply wants to give the impression to his superior officers (especially General Burkhalter) that all is running smoothly and thus avoid being sent to the dreaded Russian Front. Even more lovable is the simple minded Sargent Schultz, played by John Banner. He is easily manipulated by Hogan and friends to unknowingly set up ideal conditions for various secret operations planned by the POW's. His stock phrase is 'I know nothing' whenever he witnesses the prisoners' shenanigans and finds them too unsettling or troublesome to report. The villain of the piece (though none of it's taken very seriously) is the evil, mustachioed Major Hochstetter, an ardent Nazi and Gestapo officer.

Nothing is the least plausible about this tale, which I believe is the reason it serves as no threat to the actual historical record. The series is quite simply a hoot. It's especially fun observing that Hogan and Company are actually good friends of a fashion with the bumbling Klink and Schultz, though of course they chuckle at them behind their backs. The POWs depend upon the ongoing incompetence of this pair for their own anti Nazi endeavours, and their greatest fear is that these two German officers will be replaced by others they can't so easily hoodwink. Wonderful fun series...turn off your brain and enjoy.

Most people don't realize that many of the actors who appeared on HH were persecuted by the Nazis in real life. I think that should help to counter the argument that the show trivialized the sufferings of many under the Nazis. Otherwise, why would John Banner, Werner Von Klemperer, Robert Clary, and Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) consent to do the show? I think they took the parts as a sort of revenge against the Nazis who oppressed them. John Banner and Robert Clary were actually inmates in concentration camps. Werner Von Klemperer had to flee Nazi persecution (because his father, the famous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Otto, was Jewish). Leon Askin's family were murdered in the Treblinka Death Camp.

The problem with Hogan's heroes is that it has lost its context. People criticize it as a comedy set in a German prisoner of War camp, saying that trivializes the real human tragedies created by the Nazi regime. The thing is, Hogan's Heroes is not a spoof of prison camps. It's a spoof of World War II movies and TV shows. It came out in the wake of films like `The Longest Day', `The Great Escape', etc. which produced shows like `Combat', `The Gallant Men', 12 O'Clock High', all of which were hyper serious because of the subject matter. Such a trend requires a leavening spoof. And `Hogan's Heroes' and `McHale's Navy' provided that comic relief. Nobody ever criticized McHale's Navy for trivializing the Pacific War, any more than they criticized `F Troop' for not being a documentary about the Old West or `Get Smart' for not being written by John LaCarre. Why do we indict Hogan's heroes for being insensitive to the deprivations of the Nazis?

This show is itself based on a hit Broadway play and movie from a decade before called `Stalag 17' which won William Holden an Oscar. If you've seen Stalag 17, the humor there is much cruder and more oblivious of the real threat of the Nazis than Hogan's Heroes. Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck, (later to show up in another Military spoof to which HH also obviously owes a lot), decide at one point they would like to see some female Russian POWS take showers. They grab a bucket of paint and begin painting a stripe down the middle of the road toward the building where the showers are. This fools the guards until the paint a stripe right over to the window of this building, (the showers have windows?), and peer in. There is nothing this crude or insensitive in any episode of Hogan's Heroes. Yet this is a highly regarded film.

But now, 30 years later, when there are fewer films about that era made, the old show is viewed not a spoof of a show business trend but as a parody of the real event, which it was never really intended to be. This has allowed the critics to `pile on' and rip the show for being insensitive to the victims of Nazi oppression. All I remember is a funny show and that's all it was ever intended to be.

I've just heard the British comedian Joe Pasquale being asked to define good comedy and his answer was, tragedy plus time. Hogan's heroes (he said) was one of his inspirations and it reminded me how much I loved this show myself, all those years ago. Who would've thought a Nazi prison camp could be the setting for a comedy series, but it was, and the results were often hilarious. The basic formula is the adversarial daily life between American POWs and their German guards, constantly trying to put one over on each other. The main character was the senior American officer (Colonel Hogan) played by the charismatic Bob Crane who strangely never found fame in any other role and was tragically murdered in Arizona. What gives this show such strength is that the 2 lead Nazis (the overweight Sergeant Schultz & his pompous CO, Colonel Klink) were both played by Jewish actors. John Banner (Schultz) was Austrian and Werner Klemperer (Klink) was German and they both came to America as refugees from the wicked regime in their home countries. How's that for putting a finger up at Hitler! I hope fans of the show will like my own personal "contribution". Hogan's Heroes was a massive success in Britain in 1973/74 and close to where I grew up was a Ministry of Agriculture office. One of the guys who worked there was - literally - the spitting image of John Banner. They could have been twins. This man used to walk to work each day as me and my friends walked to school. As you may know, Schultz' catch-phrase was "I know NOTHING", spoken in a strong German accent and every day this poor guy had to put up with obnoxious kids passing him and muttering " I know NUSSINK." You could tell he knew damn well what was going on, but he would never degrade himself by admitting it :) Sadly I don't think today's "politically correct" climate would smile on a show such as Hogan's heroes, but it IS funny and worth seeing if it's ever shown again.