10 Jul Das Boot
Das Boot, WWII Movie about a German U-boat
(1981) Das Boot is a German war film, the fictional story of U-96 and its crew. It is the final days of World War II, and the captain and crew know well the chances for their survival are slim. In fact, in the opening credits we read that of the 40,000 members of German U-boat crews who served during WWII, only 10,000 survived.
The movie is based on the 1973 German novel of the same name by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, a war correspondent who spent time with the crew of the actual U-96. In Das Boot, the story revolves around Leutnant Werner, war correspondent, who certainly didn’t know what he was getting himself into. I think I saw him praying a couple of times.
I’ve heard about Das Boot since I began watching WWII movies so I was excited to be able to watch it on The Military Channel’s An Officer and a Movie. Host Lou Diamond Phillips’ guest host was retired Rear Admiral Charles Beers who was Commander of nuclear submarines.
This is, the Admiral said, the premiere movie for life on a submarine, but things have changed a lot since WWII. First of all, he went on to say, the German submarines were about half the size of the Americans’ at the time. I perked up when he mentioned that today they can take showers aboard a submarine … but not in U-Boat 69. And, of course, no air conditioning. When things got bad, no oxygen.
So I can only describe the reaction I had to this movie as a visceral one. Their quarters were so cramped that I was claustrophobic. I knew the men smelled; they admitted it. The music (excellent), the sonar pings, the water, the explosions, the creaking and crunching as they descend too far down … I felt every bit of it.
In the beginning of the movie, you meet the crew, and they’re all handsome and (mostly) clean shaven. By the end it was hard to tell most of them apart. They just all had sweaty beards, and I read that the movie was filmed in sequence so they could grow them realistically.
Here is the one light moment: the crew sings a famous British song. By the end of the movie, I was cheering for the Germans. I guess that was the idea.
They made us all train for this day. “To be fearless and proud and alone. To need no one, just sacrifice. All for the Fatherland.” Oh God, all just empty words. It’s not the way they said it was, is it? I just want someone to be with. The only thing I feel is afraid. (Lt. Werner)
Das Boot – The Director’s Cut at amazon.com
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