| Leon Askin  AKA Leo Aschkenasy
Born: 18-Sep-1907
Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
Died: 3-Jun-2005
Location of death: Vienna, Austria
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: Austria
Executive summary: General Burkhalter on Hogan's Heroes Military service: US Army Leon Askin's family could not afford to send him to school full-time, so he studied acting at night school while working as a bookkeeper and salesman. He worked as an actor and director in Vienna and parlayed that into a steady work at the famous Louise Dumont Theater in Düsseldorf, Germany. Because of his ethnicity Askin was fired in 1933, and subsequently arrested and beaten.
He returned to Vienna, then fled to Paris in 1938 when the Nazis took Austria. His parents were imprisoned and killed in a Nazi concentration camp. In Paris, Askin was put into a French internment camp -- not for being Jewish, but for being from Nazi-controlled Austria. He applied to emigrate to America, and arrived in New York in 1940, where the Austrian Leo Aschkenasy became the American Leon Askin and served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
As an actor, Askin was often cast as the bad guy with a foreign accent in American movies and TV shows from Mission: Impossible to The Monkees. His most famous role was on the prisoner-of-war sitcom Hogan's Heroes, as General Burkhalter, the big Nazi who was always threatening to send Col. Klink to the Russian front.
Father: Samuel Aschkenasy
Mother: Malvine Aschkenasy
Wife: Mimi
Wife: Annelies "Lies" Ehrlich
Allied Internment Camp Inmate
Austrian Ancestry
Jewish Ancestry
Risk Factors: Obesity
TELEVISION
Hogan's Heroes
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Odd Jobs (1984)
Airplane II: The Sequel (10-Dec-1982)
Going Ape! (10-Apr-1981)
Genesis II (23-Mar-1973)
The World's Greatest Athlete (14-Feb-1973)
Hammersmith Is Out (12-May-1972)
Guns for San Sebastian (20-Mar-1968)
The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (3-Jan-1968)
The Perils of Pauline (2-Aug-1967)
Double Trouble (5-Apr-1967)
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (31-Aug-1966)
Do Not Disturb (22-Dec-1965)
John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (24-Mar-1965)
One, Two, Three (15-Dec-1961)
The Last Blitzkrieg (30-Jan-1959)
Son of Sinbad (31-May-1955)
Valley of the Kings (21-Jul-1954)
Secret of the Incas (28-May-1954)
Knock on Wood (14-Apr-1954)
The Robe (16-Sep-1953)
South Sea Woman (3-Jun-1953)
Road to Bali (19-Nov-1952)
Official Website:
http://www.askin.at/
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