This song is called “Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp”,
It’s about Klink, and his prison camp.
But “Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp” is not the name of the prison camp, that’s just the name of the song.
That’s why I called the song “Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp”.

You can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.
You can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.
Get shot down and they’ll bring you in,
It’s-a many miles from ol’ Sing Sing,
But you can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.

Now it all started on Thanksgiving Eve of 1943 – that is – it was 1943 and on Thanksgiving Eve, when my B-17 bomber got shot down flying towards Stalag 13. But my B-17 bomber didn’t get shot down above Stalag 13, it got shot down above a tank factory nearby Stalag 13. I survived & was captured by a German patrol, who brought me to the camp for booking. Colonel Klink, being the kind of guy he is, decided he didn’t need to hire a garbage collection crew from the nearby town of Hammelburg. He chose me, Colonel Hogan and the rest of the gang to take out the garbage.

So, under guard, we took half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a gray Dodge Power Wagon [1], snuck in shovels and clubs and implements of destruction and headed on towards the Hammelburg Dump. Well, we got to the dump and there was a big sign and gate in front of the dump that said “Geschlossen an Thanksgiving”. Well, we never heard of Thanksgiving being celebrated in Germany before, and with things on our minds, we looked for a place to ditch our captors.

We found one. We knocked ‘em out and ditched ‘em on an obscure side road, and a little further down from the side road, off the side of the road, there was a factory, and inside the factory, they were makin’ tanks. And it hit me that this was the very same factory that I’d been shot down over, so as a little act of revenge and sabotage, we decided to block the gates with our half a ton of garbage.

That’s what we did, and we drove back to Stalag 13, had that proverbial Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat & didn’t wake up until the next morning, when we went to roll call & got a special message from Klink. He said, “Hogan, I’ve been told that there’s a half a ton of garbage in front of a tank factory! Do you know anything about this!?” And in a rather gutsy move, Hogan said, “Why, yes, Klink, I cannot tell a lie, we threw all that garbage there.”

After speaking to Klink for forty-five minutes, we finally arrived to the moment of truth and he said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage and also had to speak to him in his office. So we went over to that gray Dodge Power Wagon, took out and hid all our shovels and clubs and implements of destruction and headed on towards Klink’s office. Now folks, there was only one of two things that Klink coulda done in his office, and the first was that he coulda set us free for being so gutsy and honest with him at roll call, which wasn’t very likely, and the second was that he could’ve given us a warning and told us never to be chuckin’ around garbage again, which is what we expected.

However, when we got to Colonel Klink’s office, there was a third possibility we hadn’t considered and we were all given 30 days in the cooler. Hogan said, “Klink, I don’t think we can pick up the garbage while we’re locked in the cooler”. Klink responded, “Shut up, Hogan! Dis-missed!”And that’s what we did, went to the cooler & got locked up for our alleged crime.

I want to tell you about the town of Hammelburg, Germany, where this happened here, war factories usually have five 37mm flak guns, two 50mm flak guns and two 88mm flak guns, but this particular factory had twelve 37mm flak guns, ten 50mm flak guns and nine 88mm flak guns, being one of the biggest factories in Hammelburg and every one of the Allies wanted to bomb this place into oblivion. And they was buildin’ all sorts of army equipment with all the resources being delivered here. They was building Panzer IVs, Panthers, Tigers, and prior to my arrival, some spies had taken twenty-seven 8X10” color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used in preparing this operation. Took pictures of the front door, the back door, the assembly lines, the inspection center, and that’s not including the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we were locked in our cell. Sergeant Schultz said he was going to be guarding us carefully. He said, “Hogan, I am going to be guarding you and your men carefully, now give me your wallets and your belts!” Intrigued, I said, “Schultz, I can understand you want our belts so we can’t strangle each other, but why do you want our wallets?” And he said, “We don’t want you to spend money on anything while you’re in here!” I said, “But what about our fake IDs?”, to which he responded, “I know nothing! Nothing!”

Schultz also took out the toilet seat so we couldn’t use it as a boomerang, and he took out the radio so we couldn’t tune into “Ye Olde Mythbusters” and learn new ways to escape from jail. Schultz was making sure, and it was about 4 or 5 minutes later that Klink (remember Klink? It’s a song about Klink) called Schultz over for some official business, and in an act of forgetfulness, left the cell door open. We broke out of the cooler, had another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and returned to our cell via a hidden tunnel in our barracks so as not to alarm Klink & Schultz the next morning.

We woke up & got down to business. Hogan had snuck in the twenty-seven 8X10” color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. Schultz came in & said, “Everyone stand up!” We all stood up, and Hogan stood up with the twenty-seven 8X10” color glossy photos with circles and arrows. Schultz asked what we were doing, and we told him that we were just playing cards & sat back down. Schultz took a look at us just shuffling around twenty-seven 8X10” color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. He went back to his duty, but then took another look at twenty-seven 8X10” color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. And he pretended not to know anything about our little scheme because this was a typical case of American time-wasting & there wasn’t nothing he could do about it. And Klink couldn’t be bothered with the twenty-seven 8X10” color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used in preparing this operation. And we paid Schultz & Klink $50 each to be let out & had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what we came to tell you about.

Came to talk about our plan.

They got a tank factory in Hammelburg, as I told you before. It’s called Maschinenfabrik Hammelburg AG, where they build tanks that get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. We went down to get jobs one day, and we walked in, sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so we looked and felt our best that morning. ‘Cause we wanted to look like typical German dudes from Hammelburg. Man, we wanted to feel like…we wanted to be typical German dudes from Hammelburg – at least for the time being. We walked in, sat down, we was hung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds o’ mean, nasty, ugly things. And we walked in, sat down and we handed in fake resumes, and the guy said, “OK, see the manager, down the hall on the right.”

And we went there and we said, “Sir, we wanna build! We wanna…we wanna build! Build! We wanna… we wanna see barrels and gears and treads and armor plating – drink motor oil, too! We mean build!”

“Build!”

“BUILD!”

“BUILD!”

And we started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “BUILD! BUILD!” and the manager started jumpin’ up and down with us and we was all jumpin’ up and down yelling, “BUILD! BUILD!” And when we calmed down, he said to us, “OK, you’ve got the job!”

We felt somewhat iffy about it.

We proceeded to the training area gettin’ more inspections, injections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff they was teachin’ to us at the thing here, and we was here for two hours…three hours…four hours, we were there for a long time goin’ through all kind of mean, nasty, ugly things and we were getting impatient, and they was inspectin’ & injectin’ every single part of our work, leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when we were about to get our job assignments. We walked in, walked in, sat down after that lollapalooza, and he walked up to us and we asked “What do you want?” He asked us, “Kids, have you ever been arrested?

And we proceeded to make up a story about a restaurant massacre or something. All I remember was it involved an orchestra & harmonica-playing squirrels and stuff, and he interrupted us and asked, “Kids, did you ever go to court?”

And we proceeded to make up a story about 27 8X10” black-and-white photos with circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped us right there and said, “Kids, we’re assigning you to work at Assembly Line W. NOW, kids!”

And we got to work at Assembly Line W, which is where you get to do all the dirty and dangerous jobs involved in tank production, which is where they put people for committing their special crime, and there was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly people workin’ here.

Mother rapers.

Father stabbers.

FATHER RAPERS!!!!!!

Father rapers working on the same assembly lines as us! And the meanest, nastiest, ugliest one – the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to us and he was mean & ugly & nasty & horrible and all kind of things! He walked over to us and said, “Kids, what’d ya get?” We each told him we got ice cream. He said, “No, I mean, what’d you get arrested for?” We replied, “Jaywalking”, and he left us alone & didn’t care about us. So we each snuck away when it was convenient, planting explosive charges throughout the factory and stealing critical documents that the Allies might find interesting, and we had a great time doing this stuff and everything was going fine until a German officer came along with an announcement and said:

“Attention, we’vereceivedwordthattheremightbesaboteursinthisfactoryamongusdoingcrimeswastingtimestayalertifyouhaveinfoonthecrimetakesometimekindatypeofthing…”

45 minutes and none of us understood a word he said, but we didn’t care. Once the charges were set, we waited for our shift to end. We stole some pencils for our personal use on our way out, and when we were a safe distance away, we detonated the bombs and reduced the factory to rubble.

When we got back to our barracks, we found a piece of paper. On one side of the piece of paper, in the middle of that side of the piece of paper, away from everything else on that side of the piece of paper, in parentheses…

Capital letters…

Quotated…

Read the following message:

("HOGAN, HAVE YOU BEEN FOOLING AROUND?”)

Hogan went over to Klink’s office and told Klink, “Klink, you’ve got plenty of guts to ask if we’ve been fooling around. I mean…I mean…I mean, we’ve been sent to the cooler for attempting escapes, burning your food and being a litterbug!” He looked at Hogan and said, “Hogan, that’s enough! Dis-missed!”

And friends, somewhere in the history books enshrined in print and electronic form, is a tale of our exploits. And the only reason I’m singing you thins song now is because you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you’re in a situation like that, there’s only one thing you can do, and that’s to walk into the shift supervisor or whoever’s office and say, “Boss, you can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.”, and walk out.

You know, if one person – just one person does it, they may think he's insane and they won't take him. And if two people…two people do it – in harmony,
they may think they're both gay and they’ll probably send them to a concentration camp [2]. And if three people do it..three…can you imagine, three people walking in
singin’ a bar of “Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp” and walking out!? They may think it's an organization. And can you…can you imagine fifty people a day – I said
fifty people a day walking in, singin’ a bar of “Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp”and
walking out!?!? Friends, they may think it's a movement! And that’s what it is – The Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp Anti-Massacree Movement! And all you have to do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar – with feeling.

So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar and sing it when it does. Here it goes…

You can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.
You can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.
Get shot down and they’ll bring you in,
It’s-a many miles from ol’ Sing Sing,
But you can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.

That was horrible! If you wanna take down the Third Reich, you gotta sing loud! I’ve been singin’ this song for twenty-five minutes now, which is actually a big fat lie because 1. This song is only 18 minutes long, and 2. It’s mostly talking, except the chorus. Regardless, I could sing it for twenty-five minutes and for another twenty-five minutes! I don’t give a crap if I get tired and mess up!

So we’ll wait ‘till it comes around again, this time with harmony and feeling.

I’m just waiting for it to come around, so go play Game Boy or something…

All rightey then!

You can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.
(But don’t get caught, now!)
You can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.
Get shot down and they’ll bring you in,
It’s-a many miles from ol’ Sing Sing,
But you can do lots of espionage at Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp.

Da da da da da da da dum…
At Colonel Klink’s Prison Camp!