Did “Hogans Heroes” really become popular in syndication on German television?
It did indeed! Kabel 1, a German cable station, aired the show for many years. The German title for the show is called, “Ein Käfig voller Helden,” which means, “A Cage Full of Heroes.” The show is dubbed in German and the actors used to play the HH characters are the same ones used to dub the show “M*A*S*H” in German. In fact, the voice used for Hawkeye Pierce is the same actor who dubs Hogan’s voice. There are some minor differences. Newkirk stutters in the German version–the explanation given is that his British humor didn’t carry over into German very well, so they decided to make his character stutter in order to make him seem more comical. Also, some of the German characters (e.g., Sgt. Schultz) are given exaggerated regional dialects that make their characters sound like the German version of a redneck. The German version also created a new character named “Frau Kalinke” who was supposed to be Klink’s cleaning woman. She never appears in the show, but conversation refers to her
