Hogan's Heroes: The Wackiest POW Camp in Germany

Our older brothers and fathers were in Vietnam, where casualties were mounting every day, but at home we watched wacky soldiers: McHale's Navy, No Time for Sergeants, F-Troop, Gomer Pyle USMC, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, and, the wackiest of all, Hogan's Heroes (1965-71), which also drew from the spy and "I've got a secret" craze.

It was set in a World War II prisoner of war camp, Stalag 13, where the "prisoners," deliberately captured, were all spies:

Back row: LeBeau, covert operations; Colonel Hogan (Bob Crane), the leader; Kinch (Ivan Dixon), communications.

Front row: Newkirk (Richard Dawson), impersonations and con games; Carter (Larry Hovis), explosives and all things scientific.

The commandant, Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer, right), was an incompetent bureaucrat. The only guard was Sergeant Schultz (John Banner, left), a sweet-tempered toymaker in civilian life, who turned a blind eye to the unusual activities ("I see nothing!").  Both were victims of circumstance, not actively evil; the  villains were the Nazi higher-ups, who might discover the secret operation and shut it down.

What was the attraction for gay kids, other than the fact that the only other choices on Saturday night were The Lawrence Welk Show and the first half of a movie?

1. Lack of displayed heterosexual interest. Other entries in the spy genre, such as I Spy and Wild Wild West, involved its heroes in endless leering at bikini-clad women, but the POW camp was an all-male world, with no women visible except for Colonel Klink's secretary and an occasional female resistance agent. Hogan occasionally smooched with a woman, but no episodes involved hetero-romance.

2. Dreamy guys in the cast, especially Robert Clary.  No beefcake, unfortunately -- no one as much as unbuttoned a button, even while lying around in the barracks. In fact, it's almost impossible to find nude shots of any of the cast members, even in other projects.

3. Hogan and Klink certainly weren't buddies. Klink was constantly annoyed by Hogan's  irreverence. Hogan found Klink stuffy and old-fashioned (another 1960s clash between the establishment and the counterculture).  Yet as they strategized against each other, or more often worked together toward some common goal, they developed a love-hate bond that one could easily see spinning into a forbidden romance.  It was a pleasure to watch them interact every week.

Bob Crane (1928-1978) became so famous as Colonel Hogan that it's hard to remember his many other roles.  He starred in the Disney movie Superdad (1973) and his own short-lived Bob Crane Show, guest starred on everything from Ellery Queen to Love Boat, and worked extensively in theater.

He was married twice and had five children (shown: his son Scotty), but he also had relationships with many women, and occasionally men.  He was reputedly a BDSM bottom; however, no BDSM scenes appear in the hundreds of tapes he made of his sexual encounters.

When he was murdered in 1978, people speculated that it was a BDSM scene gone wrong.The main suspect, his friend John Carpenter, was acquitted on lack of evidence.

Greg Kinnear played Bob Crane in the 2002 movie Auto-Focus.

How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) and Annoy Every Gay Person in the World

In 2015, the German police burst into the Leipzig home of Max Moritz, and found320 kilos of drugs stored on shelves in his bedroom, plus 13,000 euros in cash and two hard drives detailing the transactions of a drug dealing empire.  The teenager was the biggest drug dealer in Europe, selling online through a website called Shiny Flake.

Sounds like a good story in there, right?  Netflix brought it to the small screen as the short series How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).  But of course for...um...narrative purposes, the writers had to make a few changes.

1. Instead of booming cultural capital of Leipzig, Moritz Zimmerman lives in Rinseln.  There is no such town in Germany, but it's described as insular, boring, and depressing, where everyone wants to get away.

2. He has a best friend, who happens to be in a wheelchair.

3. He has some family issues.

4. He decides to sell drugs only in order to win the GIRL of his dreams (actually the GIRL who just dumped him). 

That's right, the most cliched, conformist, heterosexist, offensive plotline imaginable.

Hint: gay boys exist, and even heterosexual boys occasionally do things for reasons other than to WIN GIRLS.

Besides, you can't win A GIRL.  They're not prizes in a competition.  If a GIRL is not interested in a social relationship with you, leave her alone.

Who's responsible for this slap in the face of gay people and GIRLS everywhere?

I just ran through it on fast-forward, to see if there might be any beefcake or gay characters to partially redeem the mess.

Beefcake: None.  Nobody unbuttons a button.

Gay characters: No.

Gay subtexts:  Maybe Moritz and his best friend Lenny. 

Maybe.

One episode guide has Lenny  "confiding in a new friend," suggesting some gay-subtext buddy-bonding, but guess what -- the "new friend" is a GIRL.

Well, do the actors at least have a gay connection? .

1. Moritz is played by Maximilian Mundt, otherwise known for a few guest spots on German tv and Tigermilch (2017), about two teenage GIRLS who witness a murder (top photo shows Max and his buddies in another movie ogling a GIRL).

2. Lenny is played by Danilo Kamber, otherwise known for Die Pfferkorns, a long-running series about kids who solve crimes.  Two boys and three GIRLS.

3. Moritz's drug-dealing competitor, Bubba (who thinks of these stupid names?), is played by Bjarne Madel, previously the star of the humorous cop show Tatortreiniger (Crime Scene Cleaner, 2011-2018).  His character is straight, but at least he appears in his underwear.

4. Ruben Brinkman plays another dealer.  In the Dutch drama Feuten (2010-2013), about fraternity hazing, he plays one of the adults.  But at least he takes his shirt off.

5. Daniel Riffert, who The Girl is dating,  is played by Damian Hardung, also seen in the Italian tv series The Name of the Rose alongside John Turturro and Ruper Everett.  Maybe he plays the gay monk.

But he also stars in Das schönste Mädchen der Welt (2018), a retelling of the Cyrano de Bergerac story about a boy trying to win THE GIRL of his dreams.  And his demo reel is about a boy trying to win a Muslim GIRL.

Well, at least there are a lot of beefcake photos of Damian online.

6. Max Von Pufendorf has nothing to do with How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).  But he popped up when I was searching for "Danilo Kamber" "schwule." 

You could do worse. Like spend more than 5 seconds watching Moritz trying to win The Girl.

Lutte, Lucha, and Ringen: Graeco-Roman Wrestling for Grown-Ups

The high school and college wrestling we know, with adolescents in very revealing singlets trying to pin each other, is purely American, not practiced anywhere else except in a few Canadian schools.

In Europe, it's all Graeco-Roman wrestling. lutte in France, Ringen in Germany, borroka in Basque.  And practiced primarily by adults, not as a school sport.

I never did see the point in displaying the biceps and bulges of teenagers to an audience of strangers.  It makes more sense to wait until they're adults, and are more able to handle the knowledge that they are objects of admiration.

Besides, grown-up physiques are far superior to thin, lanky, barely post-pubescent puppy-dog muscles.

Teenagers do participate in Lutte on occasion, but it's not a usual thing, and they don't seem to be very good at it.  Here Nazaryan from Bulgaria beat Nifri from France 9 to 0.

Of course, grown-ups don't display their beneath-the-belt parts quite as much, or as aggressively, as the high schoolers, but that's not necessary a bad thing.  No embarrassing "Should I pretend not to notice?" moments.



















Besides, they are open for dating.  Or at least a romantic fantasy about dating them.

















Grownups are less likely to be proficient in English, so if you are going to cruise, a familiarity with French helps.  Or Greek.

The Only Penis Drawn by Willy Pogany

My first exposure to mythology came from some older books in the Denkmann library: The Adventures of Odysseus, The Children of Odin, and The King of Ireland's Son, all written by Padraic Colum and illustrated by the Hungarian-American artist Willy Pogany (1882-1955).


He liked his models big.

Later I found some other books illustrated by Pogany.  This is my first exposure to the Faust legend.  The diabolical figure Mephistophiles is rather muscular, and naked, but I was disappointed to see that he had no penis.

Ok, for some reason  the Devil never has a penis in Western art.

But there's no excuse for Pogany's depiction of  Amfortas in the German epic Parsifal without a penis.

One might expect the advertising layout for Mohawk Rugs to feature Native Americans, but no, it's a harem of Middle Eastern boys.

Pogany was also interested in the female form. His art instruction books all have naked women on the covers, and he illustrated Pierre Louys' Songs of Bilitis (1926), poems in praise of the lesbian poetess Sapho.  Del Martin borrowed its title for the first lesbian organization in the U.S., The Daughters of Bilitis.


Also some heterosexual erotic art -- but even there, his men lack penises.














In fact, I was able to find only one penis depicted in all of his oeuvre.  Sort of:

See also: Why the Devil Has No Penis

Summer 1981: Male Nudity in German Class

After the 1978 of Grease, my favorite Boomer summer was the summer of 1981. I went to an Italian Film Festival, moved into my own apartment, learned about the Canterbury Tales and the Beat Generation, and saw a dozen movies: Clash of the Titans, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Wolfen, Arthur, American Werewolf in London, Hell Night, The Chosen.  Not to mention TV: One Day at a Time, Alice, Taxi, Soap, Barney Miller. And  subtext songs on the radio.

Every morning I worked in the college library, checking out books and scouring the shelves for works that my American, British, and French literature professors left out. Everyafternoon, I took summer school classes: Chaucer in June-July and Culture and Civilization of Modern Germany in July-August.

When I took Introduction to German Literature a few months before, Dr. Weber tried hard to prove that Death in Venice had nothing to do with gay people.  But now the gloves were off: Homosexualität 'absolutely, emphatically, did not exist in 20th century Germany.

Photographer Wilhelm van Gloeden (1856-1931) moved to Taormina,, Sicily, where he specialized in placing local men and boys in classical settings with pillars and laurel leaves, usually nude, channeling the homoerotic glory of ancient Rome. According to Dr. Weber, he was trying to evoke the military might of ancient Rome as a model for Germany's future. No Homosexualität 

What about Stefan George (1868-1933), who became obsessed with an adolescent named Maximilian Kronberger?   When the boy died of meningitis on the day after his sixteenth birthday in 1904, George wrote a series of poems, The Seventh Ring (1907), which described their encounter as that of a mortal meeting a god (in Dante's Inferno, the seventh "ring" of hell  is inhabited by sodomites).  Eventually the "Cult of Maximin" drew a circle of gay artists and writers.

According to Dr. Weber, Maximin represented the symbolist quest for beauty for its own sake.  No Homosexualität 





What about the physical culture movement, a celebration of the male body, often nude, a fascination with gymnastics, boxing, and track and field, arguably the origin of modern athletics?  (Franz Kafka, author of The Metamorphosis, was a devotee).


Dr. Weber: the glorification of male bodies was a remedy to the feminization of German culture among the symbolists.  No Homosexualität 



At least he Said the Word several times.

He positively refused to discuss the gay symbolism of Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse, or Der Eigene, the first gay magazine in the world, published from 1896 to 1932.  An offshoot of the physical culture movement, it had over 1500 subscribers and contributors like Thomas Mann and Wilhelm von Gloeden.

See also: The Gay Werewolf of Steppenwolf; and Death in Venice.

Philipp Danne: Teen Horror Hunk

Born in 1985, Philipp Danne is well-known in Germany as a hunk with a chiseled physique who specializes in horror movies: his characters encounter zombies and monsters, a virus that turns you into a zombie, and a few psycho-slashers.

  Hunks in horror movies usually spend so much time falling in love with women before, during, and after the crisis that men are either irrelevant or competitors, but Philipp seems to be surrounded by male friends instead.  And he's had time for a few especially intense gay subtexts in his non-horror related roles:

Klaus, best friend of class bully Diego (Martin Dimant) in The School Trip (2004).

Robert Greinier, the high school swimmer who competes with Rico (Fredrick Lau) and is killed in Freischwimmer (2007).

I haven't seen the Finnish film Black Ice (2007), about a heterosexual romantic triangle, but rumor has it that Philipp plays a gay-vague character (not one of the triangle participants).

Der Mann auf dem Baum (2011): about unmarried father Hans (Jan Josef Liefers) buddy-bonding with the college student Martin (Philipp) after they collide in a skateboarding accident.  They team up to prevent Hans' son from being taken away to Denmark.

And that's not including his tv work.

Kafka's Boyfriend: 10 Surprising Gay Facts about Everybody's Favorite Writer

The one thing I learned from studying literature for ten years at Augustana College, Indiana University, and USC:
Writers must never, ever be gay.

If their gayness is undeniable, it is a trivial thing, not worth mentioning, as irrelevant to their art as their preference for marshmallow sundaes.

If it is deniable, it will be denied.  Diaries, journals, and stories will be scrutinized, ahd the most fleeting reference to a woman's beauty will be pointed out triumphantly: "See?  See?  See?  Not gay!"

And the strongest, most passionate, most intense same-sex friendships will be ignored.  "He never mentions that they had sex!  Not gay!"

Like Franz Kafka (1883-1924), author of The Metamorphosis, which everyone has to read in high school. 

Biographers and literary critics scream loudly and vociferously that he was "Not gay!"  Saul Friedlander discusses some same-sex desire in his new biography, The Poet of Shame and Guilt (2013), but insists that Kafka never acted on his icky impulses.

But Kafka has a substantial gay connection.

1. Gay symbolism in the stories.

The Metamorphosis: Your relatives are shocked to discover that you have turned into a disgusting, slithering monster (like when homophobes discover that you are gay).

The Trial: You are arrested by unspecified agents of an unspecified government agency for an unspecified crime (like homophobes putting you on trial for making a "choice" that you never made to do evil that isn't evil).

2. In a 1917 book, psychiatrist Wilhelm Steckel analyzes The Metamorphosis as an evocation of gay self-hatred. Kafka did not deny the theory, and even wrote to his friend Felix Weltsch to ask his opinion.

3. Kafka was thoroughly disgusted by the idea of sex with women.  He preferred to court them by letter, so they wouldn't need any physical contact.  He writes in his diary of a nightmare in which a woman gropes him and tries to tear his clothes off, while he is struggling desperately and screaming "Let me go!"

Sounds really heterosexual to me.

4. He was immersed in the Physical Culture movement of early 20th century Germany, which idolized the naked young male body and sang the praises of same-sex activity.

5. He tried to read The Role of Eroticism in Male Society (1917), an early gay history by Hans Bluher, but had to put it aside for a couple of days because it was too "exciting."

6. He had crushes on guys throughout his life. In 1914 he saw 24-year old writer  Franz Werfel (left) in a coffee house, and rhapsodized over "the beautiful profile of his face pressed against his chest."  Later he dreamed that he kissed Werfel.

7. At the age of 19, he modeled for a painting St. Sebastian, the Christian saint who was arrowed to death (top photo, not Kafka).  Throughout history, images of St. Sebastian have been renowned for their blatant homoeroticism. I've never heard of a model for St. Sebastian who wasn't gay (Yukio Mishima also posed).

8. In 1902, while a student at Charles University, Kafka sat in on a lecture by Max Brod (left, the one with the chest hair).  Afterwards Brod took him home and...whatever happened, their relationship was the deepest, most intimate in Kafka's life.  After his death, Brod was named executor of Kafka's estate, and supervised the publication of his stories.

9. Kafka was also a close friend of philosopher Felix Weltsch (1884-1964), who wrote about anti-Semitism in a way that presages current views about homophobia.

10. He lived in Prague, a city which now has more public penises per square mile than any other city in the world (except maybe Thimpu, Bhutan).

Helmut Riedmeier, German Bodybuilder with Something Extra

Helmut Riedmeier was born in Munich on May 14th, 1944, during World War II, and took up bodybuilding as a teenager.

He won the Junior Mr. Germany award in 1964 and Mr. Germany and Mr. Europe in 1965.

In 1966 he came in second place in Mr. Europe, losing to a young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He began posing for physique magazines as a teenager.  After he moved to London in 1968, he did some nude porn-style shoots for Basil Clavering of Hussar Studios.  The surviving photos make good use of his "something extra."

No sex scenes have survived, if any existed, but there is some homoerotic buddy-bonding.

Although Helmut never achieved the worldwide fame of Arnold Schwarzeneggar or Franco Columbu, he maintained a strong competitive presence during the 1970s and 1980s, placing in Mr. Europe 5 times and Mr. Universe twice.

Meanwhile, according to one website, he had a nightclub act, performing nude as "White Heat."

I haven't been able to find out much about his later life, but in 2001 he won the International British Master Championship, and in 2006 he competed in the German Master Championships, at the age of 62.









He's retired, living in Munich, and still buffed at age 73.

There are nude photos on Tales of West Hollywood.

Top 10 Public Penises of Munich

Munich has one of the biggest, most vibrant gay communities in the world, centered around the classic gay neighborhood, Glockenbachviertel.  You can dance, cruise, and hook up around the clock at bathhouses (Deutsche Eche, Schwabinger), dark-room bars (Camp, Ocsengarten), sex clubs (Duplexx), private clubs (Underground), and sex shops (Bruno's).

It also is one of the best cities in Europe for museum aficionados:
The Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek (paintings).
The Residenz (the palace of the Bavarian kings)
The Glyptothek (ancient Greek and Roman)
Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst (Egyptian)
The Museum Funf Continente (non-Western)
The Bavarian National Museum (decorative arts)
The Lenbachhaus (a new museum of modern art)

And, while you're browsing for beefcake and paintings, don't forget to check out some of the best public penises in Europe.  They're all in the same area, within a few minute's walk of the Residenz.

1. Hermann Hahn (1868-1945) sculpted a lot of Munich's public art, but he's most famous for the nude Rossebändiger (Horse Trainer) in the Beeldenpark sculpture garden, near the Alte Pinakotheken

2. Julius Troschel (1806-1863), a neoclassical artist, sculpted a soft, nude Death of Adonis somewhere between 1840 and 1850.

3. Also Zethus and Amphion, the buffed twin brothers who founded Thebes   They're both on display in the Neue Pinakothek

4. Bernhard Bleeker (1881-1968) also has a Rossebandiger outside the Neue Pinakothek, and a Speerträger (Spear Carrier), a young man with a penis but no spear, in Lietzensee Park.

5. Harmlos (Harmless), in the park of Prinz Carl Palais, reflects the myth of Antinous, the brash, violent suitor of Penelope who tried to kill Telemachus in The Odyssey.  Franz Jakob Schwanthaler recasts him as a soft, "harmless" youth.












6. Hans Wimmer (1907-1992) cast another soft, harmless youth, or Jungling (1952), in the garden of the Lenbachhaus.

7. The Kuenstlerhaus on Lembachplatz offers us this buffed centaur.

8. Luitpoldbrücke, a stone arch bridge over the Isar River, has four figures, representing a hunter (Bavaria), a woman with a sword (Swabia), a fisherman (Franconia), and and a woman with grapes (the Palantine).  Bavaria, by Hahn, is nude, but I think Franconia, by Balthasar Schmitt, is cuter.

9. The Friedensengel (Angel of Peace), a 1899 monument in Maximilian Park in Bogenhausen, just on the other side of the Isar, contains allegorical murals depicting war and peace.  This one, unfortunately, is war.

10. Reichenbachbrucke, another bridge over the Isar, contains another nude statue, and, in the summer, a steady stream of swimmers and splashers.