reverse Hogan's Heroes?
 

Weird question but not sure where else I could ask this: (have been busy reading books about WWII and London) In the '60, there were popular TV shows & movies about Allied POWs in German camps (Hogan's Heroes, The Great Escape, etc). Were there any shows or movies about German POWs? Maybe someone who lived or traveled in Europe then would remember.

We were in London a few months ago and were so impressed w/the Tube system as a way of travel. Now I read that those same stations were where thousands of people slept or got medical care or kept warm during the war. Now I'm even more impressed!

In Switzerland, from 1954-61, they made a few films about soldier HD Laeppli. He is loosely based on the figure "Soldier Schwejk" from Jaroslav Hasek. He is a bumbling loveable soldier who never could carry out his orders as requested. He drove the authorities crazy. However, he was never on the front, never carried a weapon and had only to do simple tasks.

He was played by Alfred Rasser and the Swiss adored him.

I live south of Indianapolis, Indiana very near Camp Atterbury. Still active today as a reservists' base, it was a training camp and POW camp for WWII. Mostly for Italian POW's.

If you can get a copy of "The Atterbury Files" it's an interesting read. Written in the 80's and since updated it documents the history of the camp.

North of the current camp is a chapel built by the Italian POW's. Very small and built with scraps it's open to the south. The Italian POW's couldn't find the right color of red for painting one of the small frescoes. Supposedly they used their blood to get it right.

Another fascinating story I recall is the Italian POW's going on farm work detail with a single guard. One of the guards remembers having the Italians get into the back of a truck to be transported to their work site for the day. After all the men were in the truck the guard would throw his rifle up to one of the Italians and climb in himself. At which point the man would hand the rifle back to the guard.

There was a book for teens a while back called "The Summer of My German Soldier" about a German POW in the US's midwest. Can't recall if it was also a film.

I have no idea what might have been made for German audiences, but my guess is that until well into the 1960s, well, let's just say the emotional dynamics would have been very different from Britain and the US. For one thing, the POWs they were most concerned about were those held in the Soviet Union, the last of whom didn't come home until 1955. It just wouldn't have been on to risk anything that might look like heroics about them.

But I think there was a book and film in the British market called 'The One That Got Away' about the one and only German POW in the USA (or Canada?) who made an escape, though I can't recall how far he got. And I'm sure I've seen one or two movies set in British POW camps for Germans (maybe one starring Hardy Kruger?): I think the focus was on an incident where hardcore Nazis 'tried' and murdered a fellow-prisoner who had done something they considered disloyal.

There is an interesting story to be told, and I've seen a documentary that did so, about the German POWs who stayed on in the UK. Many were held for two or three years on construction work, but increasingly came to be treated as any other 'guest workers', and quite a few settled and married here. One became a famous sporting hero as early as the 1950s when he played out the football Cup Final match despite having unwittingly broken his neck in a collision with another player.

indytravel, in Australia the experience of WW2 Italian POWs was very similar. They too ended up in country towns, working on farms, and became very popular - especially, it would seem, with some of the farmer's wives. There were stories of Italian POWs strolling into town on weekends, unescorted, to visit the local pub. When the war finished some managed to avoid being sent home (in at least one case with the connivance of the townspeople), while many others returned as migrants.