The time Randall blew it by speaking German

Otto Jansen
   Hogan's Heroes was supposedly to have been in a time period of the forties in the sitcom that aired in the sixties. They had one episode where an American pilot came to

camp at stalog 13 and the crew quickly suspected he was a German plant by General Burkolder (si). They deduced they would put hi to the fire and window test right away one night when old Randall fell asleep to determine whether they should tell hi further of the operations in barracks four. They would pretend that there was a fire and awaken Randell telling him to open the window in German. if he understood what they were saying and rushed to the window then he was clearly a German.

This ignores the fact that any German speakers were still around as America was a multi-lingual society and as a propitiate of language I wish more Euro-Americans had embraced their culture and been as stubborn in speaking and keeping their tongue  as recent immigrants. Why Colonel Hogan and Klinchoe would just assume that this guy was American because he knew the German language and what to do when ordered during an emergency really shows how by the sixties English had predominated thinking, There were tons of World War II soldiers that knew good German even those not brought up with the language and culture so this test is just stupid and I had to bring out after all these years of this episode first airing because it is Hogan's Heroes after all.