German Soldiers threaten actor over anti-war film

[n2doc]

The German army is investigating death threats sent to a young actor who was in a television film depicting the Bundeswehr as a bunch of buffoons, the army has confirmed to The Local.


Wilson Gonzalez Ochsenknecht, 22, one of the movie's stars, told Friday’s Bild newspaper that he was "devastated" by the death threat postings, which appeared on Facebook.

The paper, which said it had seen the threats, said one solider called Ochsenknecht a "dirty son of a whore."

The writer, a paratrooper, noted that his battalion lost three soldiers two years ago on Easter. "Be a man and visit me in Paratrooper Battalion 261. I'll kill you, you faggot," the posting said.

Ochsenknecht’s film, "Welcome to War" was shown on private television channel ProSieben on Easter Monday.

more

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120413-41927.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Germans also "don't get" Hogan's Heroes.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I don't either, for that matter

Even at 10, my age when Hogan's Heroes debuted, I was dumbfounded by the premise of the show. Among my adult friends was a former POW who had suffered horribly in captivity - captured in North Africa and subsequently moved to Sicily, to mainland Italy, and finally to Germany itself, finally liberated by British forces in the last days of the war. He found nothing amusing about trivializing anything perpetrated by the Nazis.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Hogan's Heroes was a little before Mel Brooks' The Producers came out.

Brooks said that he wanted to "have the last word" on the Nazis by subjecting them to ridicule and satire. I guess that HHs was premised on similar sentiments: make fun of Nazis.

BTW John Banner (Sgt. Schultz) himself was a German POW in Switzerland and Otto Klemperer (Col. Klink) and his family had to flee Nazi Germany b/c they were Jews.

[Cirque du So-What]

5. The whole premise of The Producers

hinged on the expectation that people would find any attempt to make light of Nazis so repulsive that the show would be a huge flop. Guess Max Bialystock and I both had the public figured wrong, eh?

[customerserviceguy]

6. As I recall

all of those who played Nazis on HH were Jewish. They wouldn't do it any other way.

[DetlefK]

3. I guess, it's more about the actor himself.

From what I have seen of him, he lacks talent. If his daddy weren't a famous german actor, he wouldn't get casted.