Hogan's Heroes

Hogan's Heroes (1965)

480 mistakes

(23 votes)

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.

Doc

Bombsight - S5-E7

Factual error: About 10 minutes into the show, Newkirk is using binoculars to watch Klink put the combination into his safe. He goes one direction for the first number, the opposite direction for the second number, then goes in the same direction for third number. Opposite for the fourth number. For the radial tumblers to set, it has to be alternating directions.

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.

Doc

The Klink Commandos - S5-E3

Revealing mistake: The first shot of the train the view is normal. Then after Lebeau starts in reverse you can see the smoke trail going in the wrong direction. The final shot shows the train moving in reverse, but notice the smoke trail is going to the rear of the train instead of the front as it should be, since it's moving in reverse. (00:15:05 - 00:22:25)

Coleman Mannheim

Show generally

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.

Doc

The Ultimate Weapon - S3-E28

Factual error: Towards the end of the episode, Burkhalter gets a call from a General Seidenbaum. Anybody with such a "Jewish" name would have been weeded out of the officer corps by the Nazis. In fact, anyone of that name would have had great trouble even getting his Ariernachweis (proof or aryan ancestry), and without carrying a copy with him he could not have opened a charge account at the local bakery. Most people with such names (those who managed to pass the Nazi board of racial review) had them changed to more "German" ones like Müller or Schmidt to escape the constant bullying. A little bit of background on "jewish" names: At some time during the medieval period, Jews in the German Reich who traditionally didn't use last names were forced to have them. Many selected names like Gruenbaum, Cornfield, etc. Which over time were perceived as "typical Jewish" names, even though many bearers weren't even of Jewish faith any more.

Doc

More quotes from Hogan's Heroes

Trivia: A sinister aspect of an otherwise lightheated comedy, but the fact is that Hogan and his men are war criminals. They engage in combat activities behind enemy lines when not in uniform, and worse, while wearing enemy uniforms. The Germans tried that during the Battle of the Bulge and those arrested were shot.

More trivia for Hogan's Heroes

Answer: Nimrod's actual identity was never revealed in the series. It was only known that he was a British intelligence agent. Nimrod was not Colonel Klink. Hogan had only implied it was him as a ruse to get Klink returned as camp commandant, not wanting him replaced by someone more competent who would impede the Heroes war activities. The term "nimrod" is also slang for a nerdy, doofus type of person, though it's unclear why that was his code name.

raywest

"Nimrod" is originally a king and hero mentioned in the Tanach and taken into the Bible and the Koran. His name is often used in the sense of "stalker," "hunter," and sometimes figuratively as "womanizer" as in "hunter of women." I've never seen it used to denote a nerdy person, and although I cannot disprove that connotation, I think given his role, the traditional meaning is more likely the intended one.

Doc

It's widespread enough that Wikipedia has an entire section on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod#In_popular_culture

More questions & answers from Hogan's Heroes

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