Here in Part 2, the viewer finally hears Nita Talbot's character's name mentioned. In talking with Colonel Backscheider, Marya refers to herself in the third person.
When Marya is in the back seat of Klink's staff car with Hogan, she asks him about the location of the "secret German fighter bases," which is the story's MacGuffin, and then about "the second front." The second front refers to the Soviet Union's dictator Joseph Stalin's insistence that the Western Allies, primarily Britain and the United States, invade northwestern Europe to fight Germany on a second front.
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, negating the non-aggression treaty the two powers had signed in August 1939, that became the only significant ground combat happening in Europe. With America's formal entry into the war in December 1941, Stalin began calling for a second Allied front to ease the tremendous combat burden on the USSR, but Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted on Allied operations to secure North Africa and Italy before turning to northwestern Europe with the invasions of France in June 1944.
This is why there are so many references to "the Russian front" in Hogan's Heroes (1965): until June 1944, it was where the vast majority of German combat in Europe occurred. (By late 1943, German forces were also engaging Allied forces in Italy.) And because the series was made during the Cold War, when wartime ally the USSR had become the enemy, continual reminders about the dangers of fighting Russia also served to reinforce fears about "the communist menace."
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, negating the non-aggression treaty the two powers had signed in August 1939, that became the only significant ground combat happening in Europe. With America's formal entry into the war in December 1941, Stalin began calling for a second Allied front to ease the tremendous combat burden on the USSR, but Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted on Allied operations to secure North Africa and Italy before turning to northwestern Europe with the invasions of France in June 1944.
This is why there are so many references to "the Russian front" in Hogan's Heroes (1965): until June 1944, it was where the vast majority of German combat in Europe occurred. (By late 1943, German forces were also engaging Allied forces in Italy.) And because the series was made during the Cold War, when wartime ally the USSR had become the enemy, continual reminders about the dangers of fighting Russia also served to reinforce fears about "the communist menace."
As Hogan leaves Backscheider's office, he makes a very Columbo-esque move by opening the door, stopping, and hinting about someone important coming (and this is 5 years before Columbo's first appearance).