In my
heart,
I feel you are all my brothers
Five stories to make this a better place
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3 Donīt ever judge a book by the cover... nor a man by his uniform:
Theater of War, a Hoganīs Heroes story by Eva M. Seifert
Germany, 1944. Stalag 13 is just another of
the many prisoner of war camps in Nazi-Germany. Or is it? Ever since the
American Colonel Hogan was taken prisoner there, it has become a rather outstanding
prison-camp. Despite its foolish and inept Kommandant, no prisoner has ever
successfully escaped from there. And acts of sabotage in the neighbourhood have
been numerous since the cocky colonel arrived. What is going on there?
Colonel Hogan is actually the
brains behind a small intelligence unit: Hoganīs
Heroes. His team has set up an escape-service, helping bailed out
flightcrews and escapees from other camps to get back to England. In their
spare time, they blow up bridges, ammunition depots, factories in short,
everything useful they can get their hands on. They come and go as they please,
for the stupid Kommandant of the camp, Colonel Klink, never notices anything,
and is nothing but a tool in Hoganīs hands to get what he wants without Klink
even noticing it. And an inept, manipulative Kommandant is vital for Hoganīs
missions. So what better way to keep him in his job than to let him have an
escape-free record? And thus the prisoners at Stalag 13 have simply been
ordered by London to stay put and never to escape.
This has been going on now for
several years. Hogan despises the Kommandant, not only because he represents
the enemy, but also because of his stupidity. Still, in order to use Klink as
best as he can, he had to establish quite a close relationship with the fool.
But it frightens Hogan when he discovers he has actually started to care about
Klink. That wonīt do: Klink is nothing but a tool in his hands. Expendable. And
Hogan sets out to prove that he is just that: expendable. But... is he really?
"I hold the world but as
the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part..."
However, it seems that Hogan is
not the only one playing more than one part. The soft and good-hearted "I know nothing" Sergeant
Schultz, Klinkīs brother-in-law Captain Müller, Allied commander Colonel
Randall... Even Klink himself appears to have some qualities Hogan had never
bothered to notice in the inept Kommandant. And in retrospective, things seem
to add up to a most unbelievable outcome. For who would have thought that the
mythical German underground leader The Stage was actually working right
alongside them all those years?! Unfortunately, Major Hochstetter of the
Gestapo has come to suspect the same...
Meanwhile the campīs population
is booming and Klinkīs budgets and consequently all basic necessities are
cut to the absolute minimum. The only way of keeping things bearable for the
prisoners is for Hogan to cooperate with Klink as much as possible. Strangely
enough, Kommandant Klink seems to grow now that the situation gets tougher and
tougher. Heartbreaking scenes unfold when a load of starving, abused prisoners
from another camp arrives, and Hogan and his men have to grant Klink one thing:
no matter how incompetent he is, at least he always took care of his prisoners
to the best of his abilities. Hogan even discovers he is starting to regard the
Kommandant of their prison-camp as a friend much to the resentment of his
fellow-prisoners. But then the SS shows up in camp...
As the Allies fight their way
into western Germany, a peaceful surrender of Stalag 13 and the nearby town is
arranged. An Allied administration unit takes over the camp until it will be
liberated by Allied troops. Hogan isnīt too happy with some of their decisions,
but hey, theyīre the Allies, the īgood guysī, arenīt they? Kommandant Klink is
bound to find out the difference between the Allies and the Nazis. As is The
Stage...
What happens when an art-lover
and pacifist loves his country so much that heīll sacrifice not only his
dreams, but also his life and even his personality to liberate Germany from one
of the most horrid evils in history?
Based on the American TV-series Hoganīs Heroes, Theater of War should actually be classified as fanfiction. Yet it is
one of the best stories I have ever read; global publication would probably
turn it into an all-time classic. Its main objective is a "donīt judge a
book by the cover"-attitude, for there are several people from the series
whom we learn to see with completely different eyes. All this is told in a
realistic and very well written world war II-thriller, with the Gestapo and the
SS, with dangerous underground activities and the truth about concentration
camps, with bombings and malnutrition, with courage and cowardice, with
friendship, fear and hatred, with life and death. But the most important part
is the human interaction, and people learning to see that a human being should
always be treated as a human being. An intriguing read for anyone willing to
examine his or her own attitude towards other people.
Best quote: "Dear God, I hate this war..."
The first four acts of the story
Theater of War (two more acts are
still to follow) can be downloaded from the internet (see link below).
Unfortunately, the story is not yet completed, but the some 650 pages available
are bound to turn you upside down anyway. It is recommended however to have at
least some prior knowledge of the original TV-series. Videos of single episodes
(approximately 25 minutes) can be watched at www.tvland.com, but the series is also available on dvd,
both for region 1 (all six seasons), for region 2 (the first two seasons), and
for region 4 (all seasons?).
Together weīll cry happy
tears...
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Download
the story Theater of War from the internet
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Get Hoganīs Heroes on dvd:
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The
other four stories the whole world should read:
Love is strong; it only cares of joyful giving
Then why do we
keep strangling life?
We could really get there, if you cared enough for the
living
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