Hogan’s Heroes: Season 1 Ep 14, “Oil For The Lamps Of Hogan”

LOGLINE: The Germans want to safely build a synthetic fuel plant in Stalag 13, but Hogan convinces them that there is oil beneath the camp.

General Burkhalter arrives with a nattily-dressed man, Fritz Bowman. Hogan sees them talking to Klink and gets LeBeau to take "Listening Post #3," i.e. in the safe in Klink’s office, to get further details. Carter, Newkirk and Kinch are busy cleaning the office under the watchful eye of Corporal Langenscheidt, and when they see LeBeau, they start a fake fight so Newkirk can open the safe and let LeBeau inside.

Burkhalter, Bowman, and Klink go into Klink’s office, where Burkhalter explains that Herr Bowman wants to build a synthetic fuel plant at Stalag 13, and that the personnel and prisoners will be moved temporarily to other camps while a new Stalag 13 is built.

After LeBeau is rescued from the safe, he tells all this to Hogan, who knows his whole operation is blown if they’re moved away from the current location. He decides to stall Klink.

Klink tells Hogan the plans and that Burkhalter wants them out as soon as possible. Hogan tells him that it’s going to take a while to pack, have their mail forwarded, disconnect the phone, etc. Then, he asks Klink to autograph a picture of himself (which heretofore had been hanging in the delousing station) for his men, telling Klink that they’re obviously going to send him back into combat. Burkhalter arrives and Hogan starts to question him, leading to the general yelling at them and ordering them to get ready to move as soon as possible.

The Heroes steal a barrel of oil and use some of it to make it appear that there’s oil under the compound. LeBeau, Newkirk, and Carter come up under the water tower that night, startling Schultz, who is finally convinced to present them as escapees to Klink. He sentences them to 30 days in the cooler, to start after Burkhalter leaves. As they’re getting ready to be marched back to the barracks, Klink notices the oil smeared on their faces and demands an explanation. Carter tells him that there’s an oil field under the camp.

When they get marched back, Klink and Hogan are left in the office. Hogan tells Klink that a former POW was also a geologist and an engineer, and that he did the analysis and confirmed that there was oil under the camp. He proposes that they wait until after the war, buy the land under Stalag 13, and set up the Klink-Hogan Oil Company, then suggests getting Burkhalter in on it because he can call off the conversion of the camp. Klink goes to Burkhalter, who’s asleep, and tells him about Hogan’s proposal. Burkhalter is good with it (as long as Hogan isn’t part of it) and says he’ll talk Bowman out of building his synthetic fuel plant there.

Bowman is not persuaded by Burkhalter’s arguments, and suggests that Burkhalter and he write up their proposals and present both to der Führer and let him choose. This scares Burkhalter and Klink, who calls for Hogan…

At the end of the show, Klink discovers that Hogan and crew had deliberately poured oil into the hole to trick them into not building the synthetic fuel plant there. Hogan argues that doing so saved Klink from the eastern front. When Klink wonders about Burkhalter, Hogan says the Germans will probably lose the war and Burkhalter will "sink into the wallboards." When Klink suggests that the Germans might win, Hogan asks "how will the Germans win without oil?"

CAST:

• Bob Crane as Hogan
• Werner Klemperer as Klink
• John Banner as Schultz
• Robert Clary as LeBeau
• Richard Dawson as Newkirk
• Ivan Dixon as Kinchloe
• Larry Hovis as Carter
• Cynthia Lynn as Helga
• Leon Askin as Burkhalter
• William Mims as Bowman
• Jon Cedar as Langenscheidt

Episode 15, "Reservations Are Required," is next…