Crittendon's Commandos - S5-E25
Character mistake: To have an excuse not to start up the truck motor, Schultz claims his driver's license has expired. German driver's licenses don't expire.
Doc
16th Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
6th Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: Hogan mentions a store that offers "thirty percent off on T-shirts." T-shirts were mostly unknown in Germany during the 3rd Reich, and didn't see widespread use before the 1960s. Before that, the traditional Unterhemd, known in America as tank top or wife beater, was worn almost exclusively.
1st Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Revealing mistake: When Schultz checks the barbed wire to see if it is fixed now, he noticeably wiggles the vertical wire, but only barely touches the horizontal one - because it is rigged to come apart, and will again if he handles it too roughly.
30th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: In this episode, the Royal Navy submarine that acts as a radio relay for Hogan's men is hunted by a destroyer. Like in most such Hollywood scenes, depth charges are seen exploding right next to the submarine, which just shrugs the blasts off. In reality, any depth charge that went off closer than 100 meters was instantly deadly to a submerged sub.
30th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: In several episodes, Hogan's men communicate by radio with a British submarine, and the dialog hints that the sub is submerged at the time. During the WWII era, submarines could not communicate by radio without surfacing first. In most episodes one might argue that the sub could be running shallow with a mast up, which would perhaps be within the technical possibilities of the era, but in this episode, the sub is talking to Hogan's men while under attack by a destroyer. This pretty much rules out running at periscope depth, because ramming was regularly-used tactic for killing subs that were in the process of diving or surfacing. To avoid confusion: Nowadays, subs can communicate while running several hundred feet deep by using VLF and ELF. However, these are definitely not capable of transmitting voice, but are text-only.
18th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Guess Who Came to Dinner? - S4-E9
Factual error: Schultz says, Von Grubner has "a castle right next to the Führer's in Berchtesgaden." Hitler's famous real estate in Obersalzberg wasn't a castle but a mountain chalet based on a former farm estate called the "Steinhaus".
18th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Guess Who Came to Dinner? - S4-E9
Audio problem: When Hogan says "Why is it you can only trust short, dumpy spies?" the movement of his lips does not match the words.
18th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Hogan's Trucking Service... We Deliver the Factory to You - S4-E4
Deliberate mistake: When Schultz drives off with the motorcycle leaving the sidecar behind, you can see that the sidecar has been propped up. It has to be, or it would fall over. Sidecars, bringing only one wheel to the party themselves, can't stand up on their own.
14th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
16th Oct 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: Erica says she has a plane to take Klink and her to Argentina. The only transatlantic airplane in Germany at that time was the FW-200 Condor, whose military value would have made it hard to requisition even for an SS Gruppenführer (which would be the real rank a "General" would hold in the SS, different mistake), let alone for his wife. Plus, even the FW-200 could not have made it even to the Brazilian coast without a refueling stop somewhere along the African west coast, which would have been a problem, because Germany had no possessions there. Klink, being a Luftwaffe (Air Force) officer, should have at least been suspicious of that plan, even if he didn't know all the details off the top of his head.
16th Oct 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Request Permission to Escape - S1-E32
Character mistake: When ordering Schultz to finish cleaning his car, Klink salutes Schultz, his returning the salute with the garden hose in his hand leads to Klink being soaked. A salute is, except in rare circumstances, always initiated by the lower-ranking individual and returned by his superior, not the other way round. This rule is broken especially by Klink in several other places as well.
29th Sep 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Plot hole: Hogan has his men play romantic music over the radio. Earlier they were afraid of the radio in the observation post being detected. Elsewhere in the series, they try to avoid sending too long to avoid being homed in on - which is correct. Now, if they were to play a whole record at once, wouldn't the homing devices pick up on the transmitter at the camp?
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: It is shown several times in the series that the detectors are brought out at specific times / events. With how much control they have over the camp they would know when those times were / more than likely be able to tamper with them. The other times they were worried were simply because either A. They were close to the scanning times or B. New ones got shipped in that they didn't have time to tamper with yet.
28th Sep 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Happy Birthday, Dear Hogan - S4-E26
Plot hole: In the cinema, Hogan and his female underground contact avoid attention from a passing plain clothes policeman by kissing. This is wrong for three reasons. Firstly, 3rd Reich Germany wasn't so liberal that open kissing in the cinema would have passed as normal, it would probably rather have been viewed as libertine and offensive. Secondly, the scene takes place with a speech of Hitler as the background, which can hardly be viewed as romantic, and thirdly, this is even more true for the Gestapo, who was tasked with ratting out political dissent. To a Gestapo officer, ignoring the Führer's speech and kissing instead would make them stand out doubly.
28th Sep 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: During the whole show, the iconic Prussian helmet, the Pickelhaube, is present on Klink's desk. If Klink was a flier in WWI as he often hints, that is wrong. The German Reich's air corps didn't wear such helmets but had peaked caps instead.
9th Sep 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Six Lessons from Madame LaGrange - S5-E22
Character mistake: The SS guard salutes Major Hochstetter with his palm out, in the British fashion. Firstly, German soldiers salute palm-down, secondly, by the Wehrmacht (and SS) military protocol, he should just click his heels and not salute at all when receiving an order.
12th Feb 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Character mistake: As Stauffen parts company with Col. Hogan at the road checkpoint, he salutes Hogan. While that is understandable under the circumstances - after all Hogan just saved his life, it would also be highly suspicious. Both Schultz and Stauffen's adjutant were watching them, so it can't be said they did it surreptitiously either. After all, Stauffen is a German general whereas Hogan is an allied prisoner officer of inferior rank. For an officer of higher rank to initiate the salute is a demonstration of great respect and/or thanks, which, as far as anyone besides Stauffen and Hogan knew, was not warranted in this situation.
8th Feb 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Plot hole: Hogan's men steal the motor from the silent plane. When Klink and Burkhalter inspect the plane, Burkhalter doesn't notice the engine missing. Later Klink doesn't notice the fact that it has been put back. This is totally impossible for two reasons: Firstly, if a propeller airplane misses its motor, there is no place to mount the propeller. Secondly, when we get to see the whole plane, it becomes obvious that it has an open engine cowling which leaves the motor exposed to be cooled by the airstream. The propeller issue aside, if there is enough light to see the hand in front of your eyes, it is impossible to miss either the presence or the absence of an engine inside that kind of cowling. Add to this the fact that both Klink and Burkhalter are Luftwaffe (Air Force) officers and therefore by trade have some experience with airplanes, the whole thing becomes even more ridiculous.
2nd Jan 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
What Time Does the Balloon Go Up? - S3-E24
Plot hole: Hogan has the men fly kites to get wind data and build a hot air balloon for a man to escape in. In reality, kites and hot air balloons are pretty much mutually exclusive - if there's enough wind to fly kites, one can't launch a hot air balloon, and vice versa.
11th Nov 2015
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: Throughout the series, the SS and the Gestapo are often used interchangeably, as if the two organisations were basically the same. The most notorious example is "Major" Hochstetter, who sometimes claims to be Gestapo, sometimes SS, most of the time wearing an SS uniform. This is historically incorrect. The SS was a paramilitary and military organisation, while the Gestapo was a secret police force and since 1939 part of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. The Gestapo, being essentially a plain clothes police, never had any uniform of their own.
9th Nov 2015
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Other mistake: As Schultz tries to find Flensheim on the wall map, what he's checking isn't a road map, but a city plan with a harbor on it.
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