Since many of my favorite shows are on hiatus, I have been enjoying watching classic TV shows on DVD. I am in the middle of watching the third season of Hogan's Heroes. I enjoy watching the show. One reason is that I am a big fan of WWII comedies. I collect movies like Operation Petticoat, Stalag 17, and Father Goose. I enjoy seeing Bugs Bunny, Popeye, and the Three Stooges fight the enemy. And I would like to add television shows like McHale's Navy and Operation Petticoat to my collection.
Hogan’s Heroes has suffered much more criticism than most sitcoms from that time period (i.e. Gilligan's Island or Get Smart). I would like to address this criticism with the help of Hogan's Heroes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and the article Hogan’s Heroes and the Holocaust: by Leslie Campbell Rampey, Ph.D.
Some people dismiss Hogan’s Heroes as stupid because the German characters spoke English to each other. (This was addressed in the Pilot on the Season One DVD). When Martians speak English to each other, the audience suspends their disbelief, so why not with Germans?
The bigger criticism was the depiction of the Germans as funny, incompetent or stupid, and trivializing the evil of the Nazis or the Holocaust. We can’t credibly judge a 40-year-old TV show by modern standards of good taste and political correctness. I also have never heard these critics mention the stars of the show or the characters they played.
Werner Klemperer (Colonel Wilhelm Klink) and his family fled Germany to Austria and then to the United States in order to escape the Nazi regime. He served during World War II in the U.S. Army. His TV character, Col. Klink was a Luftwaffe officer (historically they were not Nazis). Klink was never mentioned as a formal member of the Nazi Party, and was portrayed as a bumbling bureaucrat, not as a bad guy. It is important to note that historically the Luftwaffe stalags provided the best treatment of Allied prisoners of war.
Article comments
1 - Thomas M. Sipos
I remember seeing an issue of MAD magazine some 25 or 30 years ago, which ran a spoof of HOGAN'S HEROES called HOCHMAN'S HEROES. It was set in a concentration camp. I still remember some lines.
Col. Clink said, "If you don't obey, Hogan, it's the showers for you! Get it? Showers?"
Hogan replies, "You're a real gasser Colonel. Get it? Gasser?"
The point of the spoof, I guess, was to satirize how low sitcoms can stoop.
2 - Jet in Columbus
Two staff cars explode outside of camp, and Klink, Schultz, and Hogan dive for cover. When Klink can't get Shultz to explain what just happened, he looks at Hogan and moans angrily, "If Berlin only knew one tenth of what I have to put with-one TENTH!"
3 - beadtot
Were the protagonists from the Carolinas, too?
4 - Jet in Columbus
Kinch: Colonel, we're all gonna be out of camp all night, what if Klink makes a surprise bed check?
Hogan: Impossible, I locked the barracks door..
I miss the running gag from the first season where LeBeau had the guard dogs trained so they all understood him. Especially the one where he's trying to explain to them what a paratrooper is and one dog swiveled his head and looked funny at him.
5 - OscarNJ
Let's not forget what was going on in the world between 65 and 71 either. We were involved in a very unpopular war in Southeast Asia, and shows like HH and McHale's Navy (62-66) took a lighthearted approach to war. SHows like Rat Patrol were also on then, reminders of "better" times at war when we were "winning".