Hogan's Heroes

[sunsurf]

Okay, maybe this is too ridiculous. So I'm putting it here. But it's no more ridiculous than some of the other threads here. And I thought of a way it might work.
Anybody here not heard of this sitcom? The premise was Allied POWs being in control of a German POW camp during WW II.

With a minimum of ASB interference...

During the '30s, some Britishers think Neville Chamberlain is all wet, and think there's going to be a war, it's only a matter of time. And they want to not only defeat Nazi Germany, they want to discredit Naziism. They want to embarrass, humiliate, etc. Hitler.

So a construction company (secretly controlled by the British secret service) gets the contract to build a German site which is later used as a POW camp. This is in preparation for the inevitable war. British and other Allied undercover agents in the Nazi government make sure that certain persons are sent to this particular stalag, either as guards or as prisoners.

In one of the episodes, Col. Klink's secretary was in one of the underground tunnels doing secretarial work, so she MUST have been a collaborator.

Other interesting info:

Bob Crane, Hogan, married Sigrid Valdis, who played the secretary. He had an interesting sex life, which didn't bother Ms. Valdis. He was murdered, and somebody thought he'd solved the murder, but I'm not sure if it really was solved.

Robert Clary, LeBeau, was in a POW camp for a while in real life.

Richard Dawson became a game show host.

Ivan Dixon was one of the first blacks to have a good, non-stereotypical role in a show. He later became a director.

So I wonder what would happen to Hogan, et. al, and Klink, after the war is over. Would the camp be preserved? How much does it discredit Nazism? (Keep in mind, the British of the time don't have the advantage of our hindsight, so they might hope it discredits Nazisim.)

Here are two interesting sites...

The Internet Movie Database, of course...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058812/

And many interesting comments and plenty of background info here:

http://www.jumptheshark.com/h/hogansheroes.htm

[NHBL]

http://www.grooviespad.com/stalag13/library/index.htm

This site has some Hogan's Heroes fanfics on it, including an "end of the war" story.

[Count Dearborn]

Both of Klink's secretaries, were a spies for the Russians.

The way I see it, if it was made today, Schultz would actually be a contact for the Black Market, or a secret member of the German Underground.

The reason the show was cancelled was because the writers of the movie and play Stalag 17 sued the creators of Hogan's Heroes for copywrite infringement.

[edvader]

Count-that story is not true.There was a book-probably out of print-on the show.The suit was dropped.According to the book the producer took a name out of a hat for the Sergeant and picked Shultz-same as in film.Also the actor John Banner bore a likeness to Sig Rumann who played the sgt in the fim and was in a Marx Brothers film.In addition Werner Kemperer looked a lot like Otto Preminger who was the film commandant.Show went off due to low ratings.BTW it was VERY popular in West Germany though they had an opening note saying the show was a comedy!

[jolo]

Would be a pretty difficult, but surely very funny operation.

I'd see problems with all the generals and politicians wanting their draftee sons to be away from the front. Maybe there'd need to be a few uprisings every once in a while with dead (non-spy) Germans and dead (collaborator) prisoners to avoid all those people being sent there.

Would probably be a lot dirtier in reality than in the sitcom.

Lots of young German soldiers with influential parents could be used to spread false informations, useless tactics and strategies, and so on.

Also, a place were pow's from all over meet spies from all over without doing anything suspicious would be handy.

If it is uncovered, there'd be a pretty bad looking Britain, though. And Britain would probably loose nearly all her spies at once, as such an operation would probably demand the cooperation of nearly everyone available.