Cpl LeBeau (Robert Clary) has passed

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

96 years old. Didn’t know he was a Holocaust survivor. RIP. 
 

https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-europe-obituaries-sitcoms-d4d90b6a9548bc50f36354794ac7cdf4?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_10

[MizPete]

RIP and peace to all his family & friends.

[Blackwater 53393]

Excellent actor and a true hero.  That he was capable of doing a series that basically made fun of WWII says much about his character as a man.

[Cypress Sun]

Mr. Clary was just one of several other Jewish actors on Hogans Heros.

 

Werner Klemperer - Col. Klink

John Banner - Sgt. Schultz

Leon Askin - Burkhalter

Howard Craine - Hochstetter

 

May you be reunited, in peace, with the rest of your family Mr. Clary.

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 hour ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

Excellent actor and a true hero.  That he was capable of doing a series that basically made fun of WWII says much about his character as a man.

 

Several of the actors had to flee Germany.  https://groovyhistory.com/hogans-heroes-the-lighter-side-of-wwii/3

 

Quote

Werner Klemperer was born in Cologne, Germany, and John Banner and Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) were born in Austria; all were Jewish. Klemperer and his family fled Germany for the United States in 1935, as Adolf Hitler was rising to power, and Klemperer joined the U.S. Army when World War II broke out. 

Banner had been held in a pre-war concentration camp, and when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, he was working as an actor in Switzerland. He promptly emigrated to the U.S., and later joined the U.S. Air Force, even posing for a recruitment poster during his wartime service. Hogan's Heroes cast members have stated that Banner lost family members, conceivably due to Nazi persecution, during the war.

Askin had fled Austria in 1940 and, like Banner, served in the U.S. Air Force during the war. His parents were killed at Treblinka, the extermination camp in occupied Poland that was the second-most deadly camp in the war, ranking behind only Auschwitz in the number of prisoners killed.

Howard Caine (Gestapo Major Hochstetter), who was also Jewish, was born in Tennessee. He served in the U.S. Navy during the war, fighting Japanese forces in the Pacific theater of operations.

Interestingly, because of the composition of the show, the "Germans" were the only ones in the main cast who served in the U.S. military during the war, because they were older -- Bob Crane and the actors who portrayed his "Heroes" had all been too young. One of Hogan's Heroes, though, was caught up in the war in the worst way.

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

 

[Utah Bob #35998]

4 hours ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

Excellent actor and a true hero.  That he was capable of doing a series that basically made fun of WWII says much about his character as a man.

The series made fun of Nazis, not the war.

[Blackwater 53393]

3 minutes ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

The series made fun of Nazis, not the war.

 
My uncle was one of the soldiers who personally witnessed the travesty at Auschwitz after it was revealed.

 

He always said there wasn’t a damned thing funny about the Nazis!

 

What I remember about Hogan’s Heroes was that it made fun of nearly EVERYTHING military.

 

Still, I know of several who saw no humor in WWII and even less in interacting with Germans.  I’m half German or more and seventy plus years later, I am still careful when dealing with some Jewish folks that I know haven’t let it pass.

 

HELL! I haven’t forgiven those who did these terrible things and I despise them!

[Pat Riot, SASS #13748]

Rest In Peace, Mr. Clary