By 1967, CBS believed that enough years had passed to diminish the memory of many of the horrors of World War II, which had ended 22 years earlier. The network felt that a situation comedy set in a Prisoner of War (POW) camp during the war would, by that time, be acceptable to the viewing public.
They were right, and Hogan’s Heroes became a hit, airing for six seasons.
The inspiration was CBS’s sitcom Sergeant Bilko (1955-59), in which a con artist in the US Army continually outsmarted his commanding officer.
When Bilko ended, one of the cast, Bernard Fein, along with scriptwriter Albert S Ruddy, conceived a similar series set in a federal prison. But after spotting someone reading David Westheimer’s 1964 novel Von Ryan’s Express – in which a group of POWs being transported by train from Italy to Germany in 1943 divert the train to Switzerland – Fein decided to change its locale.
Fein and Ruddy set their revamped pitch in Stalag 13, a German Luftwaffe-run camp for Allied aircrew, in 1942, with the prisoners of war running an escape, espionage and sabotage organisation from their barracks.
The premise was that the prisoners would have no desire to escape from a German prison camp if they could use their superior intelligence to aid other allies in escaping while making their surroundings as comfortable as a luxury resort.
They sold the premise to Bing Crosby Productions and its affiliates, Desilu Studios and CBS Television, who appointed Edward H Feldman to produce.
The prisoners were led by the suave, coolly intelligent US Army Air Force Colonel Robert Hogan (Bob Crane), who led his multi-ethnic band of men on a never-ending series of comic capers, all of which had the purpose of defeating and humiliating the enemy in the most ingenious ways possible.
Peter Newkirk (Richard Dawson), the British RAF prisoner, was a master pickpocket and expert tailor with a talent for impersonation. Andrew Carter (Larry Hovis) was an explosives expert.
Louis LeBeau (Robert Clary), the French POW, was a jack-of-all-trades. James Kinchloe (Ivan Dixon) was a former Golden Gloves boxer. He and Richard Baker (Kenneth Washington) ran the underground communications centre
Naturally, the Germans running the camp, including the Kommandant, Luftwaffe Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer), and his main prison guard, Sergeant Schultz (John Banner) – who, in spite of their relentless bravado, were putty in Hogan’s hands – would have to be fairly incompetent, inept and somewhat stupid.
Since the depiction of these befuddled officers bore little resemblance to the way real-life Nazis behaved, this TV show has always been surrounded by controversy.
Ever since it first aired, many objections were raised over the fact that the German soldiers on this series acted like lovable buffoons – “I know nothing, I see nothing” – rather than barbaric, evil mass murderers and torturers of innocent people.
The real villains were stern Gestapo agent General Alfred Burkhalter (Leon Askin) and Major Wolfgang Hochstetter (Howard Caine) who was devoted to Hitler’s cause.
Helga (Cynthia Lynn) was Klink’s first secretary, eventually replaced by Hilda (Sigrid Valdis).
Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who played the chief Germans, were, in fact, both Jewish.
Klemperer – son of noted conductor Otto Klemperer, head of the Berlin State Opera – had to flee Nazi Germany, while Vienna-born John Banner was driven out of Europe when the Nazis took over Austria. His entire family was wiped out, and he went on to serve in the US military during the war.
Robert Clary (LeBeau) was imprisoned during WWII in the Ottmuth, Blechhammer (Auschwitz), Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald concentration camps as a child. His prison number, tattooed on his left forearm, was A-5714.
Despite those who found this sitcom offensive, Hogan’s Heroes enjoyed a lengthy network run in the late 1960s and is still rerun around the world.
A plagiarism lawsuit was brought against the show by the authors of the 1951 play Stalag 17, and by Paramount, which adapted the play into an Oscar-winning movie in 1953 and the 1963 blockbuster The Great Escape.
The jury found in their favour, jeopardising the series, but a federal judge ruled that there was a “striking difference in the dramatic mood of the two works” and dismissed the case.
John Banner died of an abdominal haemorrhage on 28 January 1973 in Vienna, Austria. He was 63.
Bob Crane, who allegedly had a predilection for “naughty” pictures, was found bludgeoned to death in a motel room in Scottsdale, Arizona, on 29 June 1978. He was appearing in an Arizona dinner theatre production of Beginner’s Luck at the time. Apparently, he had been murdered in his sleep.
In 1994, a jury acquitted Crane’s friend and former manager, John Carpenter, whom police had charged with the murder in 1992.
Werner Klemperer died of cancer on 6 December 2000, aged 80. Larry Hovis died of cancer in September 2003 in San Marcos, Texas, aged 67. Ivan Dixon died of kidney failure on 16 March 2008 at 76 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Richard Dawson died of oesophageal cancer on 2 June 2012, aged 79.
Colonel Robert Hogan
Bob Crane
Colonel Wilhelm Klink
Werner Klemperer
Sergeant Hans Schultz
John Banner
Corporal Louis Le Beau
Robert Clary
Corporal Peter Newkirk
Richard Dawson
Sergeant James Kinchloe
Ivan Dixon
Sergeant Andrew Carter
Larry Hovis
Sergeant Richard Baker
Kenneth Washington
General Alfred Burkhalter
Leon Askin Major Hockstetter
Howard Caine Colonel Crittendon
Bernard Fox
Helga
Cynthia Lynn
Hilda
Sigrid Valdis
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Since the depiction of these befuddled officers bore little resemblance to the way real-life Nazis behaved, this TV show has always been surrounded by controversy.
Robert Clary (LeBeau) was imprisoned during WWII in the Ottmuth, Blechhammer (Auschwitz), Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald concentration camps as a child. His prison number, tattooed on his left forearm, was A-5714.
