stalag 17

[dr greg]

I just watched this classic again, and there weren't many flying jackets to be seen, except on the guys who just arrived, I thought they were general issue, and seeing that the whole camp is full of flight sergeants, I expected a lot more to be on display, seeing as the film was made only 7 years after the end of the war.

 

[FourKingTwenty]

It's more realistic that way. I think the ex-POWs involved in the production like Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski helped make it much more realistic.

When my grandfather was captured, the Germans took his leather jacket. He spent 11 months in Stalag Luft III and Stalag VII-A in his flightsuit. Guys weren't walking around those camps wearing A-2s and crush caps.

 

[dr greg]

horse's mouth

That answered my question perfectly, and it was what I had assumed was the case in reality.

 

[PADDY]

McQueen/Hollywood fantasy...

Just following the vein of this thread.

Think about the now iconic character of Virgil Hilts (The Cooler King) and the kit he was supposedly carrying in his plane, which he then ditched but taking all his kit with him before becoming a POW.[huh]

A baseball glove; a flight bag; boondocker boots; drain-pipe chinos; old sweatshirt,,[huh]

Hollywood jazz's up and rewrites history all the time. As a journalist once quipped: "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story!!"

 

[patrick1987]

Great Escape or Stalag 17 thread? Another question: am I correct in noticing Hogan's Heroes was based on Stalag 17?

 

[Lincsong]

Yes you are.

This is one of my favorite Billy Wilder films. He was just a gifted filmmaker and he knew exactly how to make real life satire appear on film. My favorite character;;; Animal.:eusa_clap

 

[Twitch]

And Lincsong even looks a little like Sgt. Schultz!

 

[Jack Scorpion]

I love this movie. And Otto Preminger was such a good villain.

 

[dr greg]

Hogan's garbage

I read that the two ex-POW's who wrote the play Stalag 17 on which the movie was based actually sued the makers of Hogan's Heroes, quite rightly in my opinion, but lost, because apparently there are no similarities!?!?!?!?
I always hated HH because I saw S17 as a kid and thought the TV show was a crap rip-off and about as funny as cancer.
The real life story of Bob Crane however is fascinating as the film Autofocus reveals..fine movie in itself.
As to the Great Escape, good movie , but what was worse than McQueen's wardrobe was James Coburn's supposed 'Aussie" accent, that stank let me tell ya, there were decent Australian actors around UK/Europe at the time like Rod Taylor, Ed Devereaux, Peter Finch and so on who could have handled what was, really, a minor role..why they put in someone who had no idea how to portray the character is an example of Hollywood at it's best/worst.

 

[Lincsong]

And Lincsong even looks a little like Sgt. Schultz!

I knooooooowwww nnnnuuuuuutheeeeeeeennnngggg!!!!!!!

 

[Sefton]

You probably can't guess my favorite character...

 

[Prairie Dog]

Stalag 17 is my favorite Billy Wilder film. This is Wilder at the top of his cynical game. Of course the big prize here is the Oscar won by William Holden (Sefton) for Best Actor of 1953. Two of my favorite characters were Harvey Lembeck (Sugar-Lips Shapiro) and Robert Strauss (the Betty Grable-loving Animal) who added comic relief to this film. Strauss who repeated his Broadway role as Animal, was nominated for best Supporting Actor, but lost to Frank Sinatra.

In Stalag 17, Wilder created one of the great absurd moments in film history. During the mail call scene Harvey Lembeck is getting a ton of letters and poor Bob Strauss is pining away that no one wrote to him. He questions Lembeck and he finds that all the letters were from a collection agency about his overdue payments on his Plymouth. Instead of love letters to "Sugar Lips" Shapiro, the collection agency wants "the third payment on the Plymouth, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, they want the Plymouth." I don't know about the rest of you, but the sublime absurdity of a collection agency tracking some soldier all the way to a POW camp in Germany for overdue car payments just cracks me up every time I see this film.

Animal: What do all those broads say?
Shapiro: What do they always say?
Animal: Lemme read one.
Shapiro: It's not good for you, Animal.
Animal: Hey, this is with a typewriter... it's from a finance company.
Shapiro: So it's from the finance company. So, it's better than no letter at all.


Animal: Hey... do Grable.
Bagradian: Now see here, Scarlett... I'm crazy about you and always have been. I gave you kisses for breakfast, kisses for lunch, and kisses for supper... and now I find that you're eating out.
Animal: Not Gable - GRABLE.

Sefton is cooking an egg
Animal: Where'd it come from?
Sefton: From a chicken, bug-wit.

Shapiro: Hey Schultz, sprechen Sie Deutsches?
Sgt. Schulz: Ja?
Shapiro: Then droppen Sie dead!

Shapiro: I'm tellin' ya, Animal, these Nazis ain't kosher.
Animal: Ya can say that again!
Shapiro: I'm tellin' ya, Animal, these Nazis ain't kosher!
Animal: I said ya can say it again, that doesn't mean ya hafta repeat it!

 

[dr greg]

Dramatic license

Another historical question, would a POW as obviously jewish as "Shapiro" have been safe and secure in a Nazi prison camp, I thought they were pretty rough on Jews who actually fought against them in other armies.

 

[FourKingTwenty]

I think it varied from camp to camp. My grandfather is Jewish. He mentioned that the officer who interrogated him after he was captured had threatened him. He hasn't said anything to me about being treated differently while at Stalag Luft III.

That wasn't always the case. In some camps, the Jewish POWs were segregated from the other POWs. At Stalag IX-B, Jewish POWs with some non-Jewish POWs were sent to the Berga forced labor camp. Many of the POWs sent there died.

Stalag IX-B had a reputation as the worst POW camp in Europe. POW camps run by the Luftwaffe, like Stalag Luft III, had a reputation for having better conditions than the camps run by the Wehrmacht. Of course, Hitler ordered fifty Stalag Luft III POWs to be shot after The Great Escape.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

Stalag IX-B had a reputation as the worst POW camp in Europe. POW camps run by the Luftwaffe, like Stalag Luft III, had a reputation for having better conditions than the camps run by the Wehrmacht.

Do you mean the SS? The Luftwaffe is part of the Wehrmacht, the SS is not.

 

[FourKingTwenty]

Do you mean the SS? The Luftwaffe is part of the Wehrmacht, the SS is not.

Actually, I meant POW camps run by the Luftwaffe, like Stalag Luft III, had a reputation for having better conditions than the camps run by the Heer.

The Luftwaffe ran the POW camps for captured aviators, such as members of the RAF, RN - Fleet Air Arm, and the USAAF.

 

[Gideon Ashe]

Fighter Pilot Kit

Just following the vein of this thread.

Think about the now iconic character of Virgil Hilts (The Cooler King) and the kit he was supposedly carrying in his plane, which he then ditched but taking all his kit with him before becoming a POW.[huh]

A baseball glove; a flight bag; boondocker boots; drain-pipe chinos; old sweatshirt,,[huh]

I cannot answer with exactitude; except for that character was supposed to be a P-51 pilot, shot down and taken into custody. Fighter pilots all had their, "flyway kits" with them(we now call it a "bug-out bag".) Great latitude was and I believe, still allowed in the cocmposition of such kit, beyond the composition demanded by the Personnel Equipment NCOIC's orders.
Also, many pilots, particularly fighter pilots, flew in their "undress" uniforms, and the comfortable equipment of their choice.
An A-2, "issued" undress tans, and enlisted mans brogans are not out of the realm of consideration for a "Hilts" Fighter pilot. They are more comfortable, wear better and are suited to the task.
A relative of mine who was a P-39 pilot, used to carry a small chess set, a set of lock picks and a small axe, not unlike a tomahawk, and a Colt .44-40 single action revolver, as well as a med kit fit for a major hospital. His choice. His slightly earlier contemporaries in the AVG wore much the same fighting uniform.
I have no problem with "Hilts's" kit.
Their dramatic license is yet to expire.lol

 

[FourKingTwenty]

While a pilot could have carried all that stuff, it would have been taken from him once he was captured. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my grandfather was captured by the Germans and sent to Stalag Luft III. When he was captured, the Germans took nearly everything he had including his jacket, his USAAF-issue wristwatch, and a mezuzah he kept on a string around his neck. He sure didn't replace it with a "buy-now-pay-later" Rolex like the one Clive Nutting had.

He was captured in May of 1944, five months after the Great Escape. Perhaps things had changed by then. Perhaps the Germans who captured him took his stuff because they wanted to mess with a Jewish USAAF Lieutenant. Perhaps the Germans who captured him were just thieves.

I suppose it is possible to look like Hilts in a POW camp. In a camp where POWs can order Rolex wristwatches, anything seems possible. That wasn't the Stalag Luft III my grandfather was in. He was in a Stalag Luft III where the guards stole the chocolate bars out of the Red Cross care packages.

 

[Gideon Ashe]

History cannot be changed by any decent person.

Good Day,
Your Saba lived his experiences, and no one has the right or self directed duty to alter those experiences. What happened, happened.

He is fortunate to have been only the victim of hate and theft by the German guards at his Stalag Luft. That he escaped with only the loss of "things" and not his life is remarkable in itself.
Germans and their enablers in Festung Europa were not much different in their hatred toward things/persons Jewish, and any survival, notwithstanding nationality, which was not much of a shield, if at all, is remarkable.

An uncle of mine was twice captured and escaped before he reached a compound. The second time, three days after the first event, he was shot and left for dead. (He got better lol )and waited, not that he had much choice, for friendlies(Brits)to take control of his area. The Bosche never bothered to check him for indicators of his being Jewish the first time or second time he was taken; just went thru his pack and took his chow, gloves and tobacco. The second time they just shot (three times) him and left him.

Poor ba***rd was short, skinny & sickly all his life and no one in the family ever thought he would be anything but 4F. Wrong!!! He was discharged in 1945 as an Army M/Sgt., and had a hatfull of decorations. He was sickly.
He died in 1950 of some heart related illness we all were unaware of.

 

[FourKingTwenty]

I'm happy to hear that your uncle made it through the war, but I'm also sorry to hear he died not long after. My grandfather was less-seriously wounded than your uncle when the FW-190 shot up his B-17.

My point was that everyone's experiences were different. Not only that, there was a wide variety of experiences. When compared to the experiences of the POWs from Stalag IX-B who were sent to Berga, my grandfather was quite fortunate. Of course, when I read about the Rolex ordered by Clive Nutting, it seems like an unimaginable luxury compared to what my grandfather described. The conditions clearly varied from camp to camp.

That's why I think "Stalag 17" is a more realistic portrayal of the POW camps. Many of the POWs in the film are wearing ill-fitting overcoats that look like they were probably surplus coats provided by the Red Cross. To me, that looks more realistic.

As I mentioned, my grandfather's jacket was taken when he was captured. Since he was captured in late Spring/early Summer, the warm clothing needed for high-altitude bomber crews would have been pretty uncomforable and difficult to carry around. I think that pilots and flightcrew members captured during the Winter months were more likely to be allowed to keep and wear their jacket.

As you mentioned in your first post, a pilot like Hilts could have carried quite a bit of stuff with him when he bailed out. Of course, if my grandfather and your uncle are any indication, he wouldn't have been able to keep it for long. Especially later in the war after rationing and shortages had taken their toll.