Decades before Hogan's Heroes was pitched, there really were POWs whose duty it was to help other POWs escape. These men were trained by the branch of British Military Intelligence known as MI9. The tools of their trade didn't include radios, a network of tunnels, or costumes so good that nobody batted an eye at seeing the black guy dressed as a German soldier; instead, they used the board game Monopoly.
Let's say you're a POW, and you want out. You would reach out to one of these special prisoners; and, if he thought you had a decent chance of making good your escape, he would write a letter home, asking for food and games to lift his spirits. German operatives reading the letter would find nothing to raise suspicions, and they would let it go through.
The secret of the letter wasn't anything written on the letter itself: It was the way the writer wrote out the date on the envelope that was the real code. If he wrote the date longhand (e.g., 25th May 1942), the Royal Mail Service sent it to the addressee; if the date were written numerically (25/5/1942), it was sent to MI9.
MI9 would respond to the letter with a copy of the board game Monopoly. (Back then, I should tell you, the game board was much thicker than what you see today.) The prisoner looked for a small dot on the Free Parking space: the untrained eye would assume it was nothing more than a printing error; to the trained eye, it was a sign that this was what he wrote for.
Peeling the paper off of the board revealed hidden compartments, containing materials to help with the escape:
One of the compartments held actual Reichsmarks. You would use some of this money to bribe a guard. Soldiers assigned camp guard duty were not the best and the brightest that the German military had to offer, and they were paid like they weren't very good or very bright. Offer Schultz 20 marks in exchange for him holding off reporting finding something at the fence for half an hour, and you had yourself a deal.
Also hidden in the board was a Gigli saw. This was designed for cutting through human bones in a matter of minutes; it could go through wire like a hot knife through butter. It would take you less than two minutes to cut a hole you could crawl through.
Another compartment held a tiny compass, good for getting your bearings; this was useful with another item hidden away: A map of the region, printed on silk. Silk was used for three reasons: It didn't tear as easily as paper; it wouldn't turn to wood pulp if it got wet; and it could be stuffed into your pocket silently. This last quality was particularly important while you were making your way in secret, while you were hiding from people whose idea of a warning shot was one that made you bleed out instead of killing you immediately. Once you successfully made your way to Switzerland, you could move more freely, and get transportation home.
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