To those who don't recognize the name, he played LeBeau on "Hogans Heroes".

He survived 3 years in Nazi concentration camps. He's now 93 years old and the last surviving member of the main cast of "Hogans Heroes".

Fascinating life. Funny / tragic.

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/robert-clary?clip=95852#interview-clips

How's this for irony?

Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink), Robert Clary and John Banner (Sgt. Schultz) were all Jewish or were of Jewish descent.

As was Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) and Howard Caine (Major Hochstetter )

Very interesting. Thanks. One of my favorite shows when I was young. I have the first season on DVD.

I read that Werner Klemperer agreed to play Col. Klink on the condition that Klink never had an episode where he successfully foiled something the prisoners planned.

I like the show quite a bit too. I have the whole series on my home server and it's one of my go-to shows when I'm looking for something light and entertaining.

edit - well that turned into a real rabbit hole - thanks!

I've never seen the final episode of Hogan's Heroes.

My dream ending would have been for Klink to assemble the allied prisoners and announce that the camp was surrendering to the advancing allied forces.
When the top ranking American officer in charge arrives to accept the surrender he would be accompanied by an OSS officer who would say, " I am here to extend special thanks to a prized undercover operative. This asset was responsible for this camp being a center for sabotage and intelligence that aided the war effort tremendously." He would then step forward, shake Colonel Klink's hand, and say, "Come with me, Ike would like to thank you personally for all you've done for us."
I would then love to see the look on Sgt Schultz and Hogan and the other prisoner's faces when they realize that Klink was the mastermind who allowed their activities to take place all that time.
"What Hogan- did you really think I was that stupid?"

Wish that could have been the final episode.

As I recall, the series didn't have a finale, just a last episode that wasn't any kind of ending or wrap-up.

no irony

Wener Klemperer and John Banner were both WWII US Army veterans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Klemperer

" agreed to the part only on the condition that Klink would be portrayed as a fool who never succeeded"

the others for sure did it for the same reason.

The irony I spoke of has to do with the fact that the show was heavily protested by the American-Jewish community while at the same time several of the actors on the show were Jewish.

I never knew of such protests.

One thing for sure, the theme song has to be one of the most memorable is television history.

at that time a show like Bewitched was at first seen as promoting witches and witchcraft and the producers were unsure how it would be received

and maybe Hogan's was controversial at first as it could be seen as trivializing WWII.

( Star Trek was badly received by some for political, racial and ethnic reasons and got cancelled in the end because of that.)

Star Trek was cancelled due to poor ratings.