The popular CBS television comedy series about Americans in a German POW camp during WWII aired between September 1965 to March 1971.
The show was a Bing Crosby Production, although the crooner had little to do with it. The creators, Bernard Fein and Albert Ruddy, pitched the series to CBS after learning that NBC had a show in the works called Campo 44 set in an Italian POW camp (it never aired). CBS President William Paley was going to pass on Hogan’s Heroes until Ruddy and Fein acted out the characters and made people at the meeting laugh.
Albert Ruddy went on to win an Academy Award for producing The Godfather.
The show was set at Stalag 13, a POW camp in the German town of Hammelburg. That was an actual place. What remains of the real Stalag 13 still exists to this day.
All of the show’s actors who portrayed Germans were Jewish - Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink), John Banner (Sgt. Schultz), Leon Askin (Gen. Burkhalter), and John Caine (Major Hochstetter).
Only Caine was born in the US. The other three were German born and left their native country for America. Banner arrived in the US unable to speak English.
All four men also all served in the US military in World War II.
Robert Clary, who played the Frenchman Le Beau, had actually spent time at an internment camp during the war. He lived the longest of any of the original cast members, all of whom have passed away.
Despite portraying Klink as a lousy violinist, Werner Klemperer was actually quite accomplished at the instrument. His father was a famous orchestra conductor.
Bob Crane played drums, including on a few episodes and on the show’s theme song. He was a fan of Gene Krupa and befriended Buddy Rich.
In Season 1, Klink had a secretary named Helga as played by Cynthia Lynn. By Season 2, Sigrid Valdis (real name: Patricia Olson) replaced her as a character named Hilda. Why? Because Bob Crane was dating Olson and would later marry her. He left his first wife - his high school sweetheart - for her.
Crane had a secret wild sex life. The term sex addiction didn’t exist at that time, but if it had Crane would have been diagnosed with it.
To his family, he was the perfect father and husband who just also happened to be a TV celebrity. To friends and colleagues, he was charming and generous. In secret, he attended orgies and recorded himself having sex with countless women.
Authorities believed Crane’s X-rated photos and videotapes might have had something to do with his murder in 1978, which is a cold case to this day. His double life was depicted in the 2002 movie Auto Focus starring Greg Kinnear.
Hogan’s Heroes went off the air after 168 episodes and, like the TV show MASH, the series lasted longer than the United States’ involvement in the war it depicted. The show finally aired in Germany in 1992.
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