Sometimes, POWs were shot through their hands. From day-one, I didn't find anything in "Hogan's Heroes" to laugh at.
They certainly made fun of war but I did hear Werner Klemperer speak of war in dark terms. He served in the real one (WW II) and I heard him on the radio saying while the war was necessary it was a horrible thing.
Yes, it was cringeworthy.
It might have been cathartic for some cast members. A number of the actors in real life experienced the war first-hand as Jews who fled Germany, lost family members, and served in the US military.
Robert Clary (LeBeau) was a Holocaust camp survivor with a number tattoo. Klemperer’s family story is more well-known.
Off topic - very similar reaction here as well.
Weird that network television would make WWII prison camp comedies barely 20 years after we lost 400,000 WWII US servicemen.
Obviously an effort to program masses to further disregard our greatest generation veterans, and desensitize new generation to horrors of war as military industrial complex Vietnam war draft was occurring.