Captain Berger

Captain Berger is a fictional character who appeared in the Hogan's Heroes episode, The Tower. He was played by Willard Sage.

Hauptmann Berger was a German officer of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Efficient with a degree in architecture and electronics, he was one day placed in charge of a special radio tower which was part of a sophisticated rangefinder system. Once this system was fully functional, it would be able to home in on the frequencies in approaching Allied bombers, enabling the Luftwafe to intercept them before they could reach vital military targets in the Third Reich. It was because the Allied forces were not likely to drop bombs near a POW camp and risk killing some of their own men that Berger had arranged with General Burkhalter to have the tower set up near Stalag 13. He sent Klink an important map with information concerning the tower, which Hogan and his men tried to intercept only to be unwittingly thwarted by the Kommandant himself. Against his better judgment, Burkhalter placed Klink in charge of security, threatening to have him court-martialed and sent to the Russian Front as an infantry private if anything untoward happened to the tower. Hogan and his men managed to distract the guards Klink assigned to the tower that night, including Sergeant Schultz, by Hogan firing a gun unseen as Kinch called them pretending to be Berger, leading them on a wild goose chase. Once the guards were out of the way, Hogan and his men blew up the tower. Thanks to lovely Underground agent Lili Wester and some compromising staged photographs of her and Burkhalter together, Hogan saved Klink from taking the rap for the sabotage.

Though it is not known what happened to Berger after the tower disaster, he was very likely made the scapegoat after Burkhalter was forced to let Klink off, and consequently sent to the Russian front.