The Man Who Fled N*zis And Played One On TV:- John Banner was born Johann Banner in Vienna, Austria, in 1910 and was a successful actor in Europe before World War II. In 1938, when N*zi Germany took over Austria, he was on tour in Switzerland and escaped to the United States, unable to return home. While Banner survived, his parents and siblings were left behind and were later killed in N*zi concentration camps. When he arrived in America, he did not speak English, but he learned it and slowly b