Maartje (00:14)

Welcome back to Rosie the Reviewer. This week we are discussing Das Boot, which came out in 1981. It was written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen and is based on the 1973 semi-autobiographical novel Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. It follows a German U-boat crew as it navigates a patrol in the Atlantic Ocean early in the war. The characters are fictionalised but the anecdotes are based on Buchheim’s real experience as a war correspondent and propagandist on the U-96 — an actual submarine. The film’s tagline is “A Journey to the End of the Mind,” which seems accurate to me. It was nominated for six Academy Awards and had the most Oscar nominations of any German film until All Quiet on the Western Front — a World War One movie, funnily enough. You can watch the movie on YouTube if you do your best. What did you think of the movie?

Sam (01:17) I thought it was probably one of the best war movies that we’ve watched — certainly the best submarine movie, not that we have much to compare it to at this point. U-571, I’m looking at you. This one doesn’t have Bon Jovi in it, unfortunately, but in every other respect it’s better. I had also read the book. I think the film is a very fair adaptation and we’ll talk a little bit more later about whether other people agree with me on that or not. It’s such a descent into basic human emotions — fear, panic, that kind of stuff. I thought the score was really remarkable and the acting was solid. I especially liked the captain. Broadly speaking, this movie is very tense, paced very well. There are lots of extremely tense, claustrophobic, terrifying scenes in it. And I genuinely do think that even if you aren’t into World War Two, you could probably enjoy this movie. What about you?

Maartje (02:12) I also really enjoyed this movie. It’s a really good one. If anyone remembers from our other submarine episode, I am terrified of small spaces and of the ocean, so this one is a kind of dangerous movie for me — but it’s a really, really fun one. It’s in German with different dialects on purpose, which is fun, but it makes it sometimes a little hard to understand. Thankfully it has subtitles. I also read that it was going to feature either Robert Redford or someone else really famous from Hollywood, and I’m glad it ended up not being that. I feel like I should have watched this sooner. Maybe I thought it wasn’t going to be up my alley, but it’s a really good movie. Big fan.

Sam (03:06) Yeah, an absolute classic for a reason.

Maartje (03:09) They shot it not in an actual submarine, but in a full-scale replica. They shot it silent because the camera was so loud inside the structure that they had to dub it over later. You can’t really tell, and I think that’s a real feat of filmmaking.

Sam (03:26) Yeah, I had no idea. I enjoyed the theme so much that I looked it up and there’s a techno remix by the group U96 that became very popular after the movie came out, and it goes so hard. I recommend that everybody look it up and listen to it. Just put it on while you’re cleaning the house — it will really motivate you.

Maartje (03:47) Guess what? I can put it on the website. It’s a very long movie, by the way, but it didn’t feel that long to me. The other U-boat movie felt longer to me but was actually shorter, so I guess that’s another plus for this one.

Sam (04:05) The interesting thing about that is that when the movie was first released, it was released in a cut that was much shorter than the one we saw — a lot of the character development and interaction scenes were cut, so it was much more of a straightforward submarine action movie. Then a couple of years later the director’s cut was released, which is what we saw — the three-and-a-half-hour version. They also made an even longer, four-hours-and-change version that aired as a mini-series, which you can also access. I watched the director’s cut because that’s the one most people recommend, but if you want more Das Boot, you can definitely watch the longer one.

Maartje (04:45) Let’s get into the movie.

Sam (04:56) There are some opening cards as a sonar pings and a submarine emerges from the watery gloom. It’s very atmospheric. La Rochelle, France, Autumn 1941. Germany’s vaunted U-boat fleet, with which Hitler hoped to blockade and starve out the British, is beginning to suffer its first major setbacks. British freighters are now sailing the Atlantic with stronger and more effective destroyer escorts, inflicting heavy losses on the U-boats. Nevertheless, the German High Command orders more and more U-boats, with even younger crews, into battle from their ports in occupied France. The battle for control of the Atlantic is turning against the Germans. Forty thousand German sailors served on U-boats during World War II — thirty thousand never returned.

Maartje (05:41) Just the idea that you would know, getting into a U-boat, that your chances of survival were only twenty-five percent. Couldn’t be me. I would never go into a small space in general, but then — holy fuck. Those odds are really nasty.

Sam (05:58) Yes, and there are really no non-horrifying deaths you can die on a submarine. In the book they talk about how if the submarine was hit while it was above the water, the people closest to the escape hatch might get out, but the engine room guys didn’t have a chance.

Maartje (06:13) Right, so basically the lower ranks would just always die. The non-officers most likely would just die.

Sam (06:22) Yes, exactly. And I had read that when this film premiered in LA — bearing in mind that 1981 was some time ago now — people actually applauded after the opening card saying that thirty thousand Germans had died on the U-boats. I thought that was an interesting reaction.

Maartje (06:40) Very interesting. Also kind of mean.

Sam (06:44) Yeah, it is. I think that at the time it was showing in Los Angeles, there was quite a substantial Jewish minority population, so that might have factored into it. And I will say that after the movie, the crowd gave it a standing ovation — they did enjoy the film ultimately. I think in some ways you manage to sympathise with these people as humans, if not with their ideology.

Maartje (07:06) I talked to you a little bit about this as I was watching. You kind of almost forget that these are — quote-unquote — the enemy, for us Europeans and for countries that were part of the Allies. I was rooting for these guys so hard. I was like, they’ve got to make it. I always find it really interesting to see how the Germans portray themselves, whether they have outspoken political opinions in the movie or not. I felt like this one really didn’t, so much, in a way. How do you feel about that?

Sam (07:45) Yeah, the captain makes a few remarks about the Nazis and how Hitler is mismanaging the war, and you can tell he’s very cynical about the whole ideology. In the book they take that a bit further — it seems like most of the people agree with him, except notably the first watch officer, as we’ll talk about later. I do think that Buchheim, the author of the book, was very much driving at dismantling this myth of the U-boat hero, while at the same time depicting that not all of these men were diehard Nazis. A lot of people got involved in the war for different reasons. Also, notably, everyone who served on a U-boat would have been a volunteer, and so that adds another dimension to it.

Maartje (08:31) Sure does, especially since the crew in this particular U-boat seems fairly unhappy to be where they are — and it’s fairly early in the war.

Sam (08:43) Yeah. We should talk about the Battle of the Atlantic, because that’s the context of this whole movie. Even though most of it takes place in the very cramped world of one little submarine, it’s taking place amidst momentous events. The Battle of the Atlantic was — as Churchill stated, and these are his words — “the dominating factor all through the war. Everything happening elsewhere depended ultimately on its outcome.” As we’ve discussed before, Britain was heavily dependent on supplies from overseas, without which it may have been forced to make an early peace with the Nazis. 3,500 Allied merchant ships were sunk, along with 175 warships, during the Battle of the Atlantic. This amounted to 14.5 million gross tons of shipping lost. On the other side, it cost Germany 783 U-boats and 47 German surface warships. And in truth, though this movie depicts it as the tide turning against Germany, the German Navy didn’t really lose its advantage until May of 1943. The Germans had always struggled due to an insufficient number of U-boats. The supreme commander of the U-boat arm was always asking for more but kept being turned down. They were also unaware at what point the Allies began to be able to read their Enigma signals. In the Battle of the St. Lawrence, for example, the Allies often knew where German submarines were and the Germans didn’t know that. Then in 1943, Karl Dönitz was promoted to commander-in-chief of the Navy, but he would not delegate control of the U-boats. Because he wouldn’t delegate, this resulted in weak U-boat strategy. At this point the Allies had also begun to develop stronger convoy protection and long-range aircraft. So that was the beginning of the end for U-boat supremacy in the Atlantic.

Maartje (10:56) So interesting. What got me from just watching the movie is the sense of how long these men would be on these U-boats. Like, for a really long time. It must also be so heavy on your mind to be stuck in a tin can like that for that long.

Sam (11:16) Yeah, and in this movie we obviously see them going through a lot of harrowing experiences. That’s part of Buchheim trying to put anything that could happen on a U-boat patrol into one story. In reality, most U-boat crews would have spent months at sea just very bored. You’re sitting in a tin can with approximately fifty other guys and a lot of the time you’re just sailing around, waiting.

Maartje (11:41) Yeah, I think we get a little bit of that in the very beginning of the movie, but then they just get into altercation after altercation and trouble after trouble. It makes for a good movie, but you also have to think — Jesus, being stuck in a smelly tin can like that for that long is going to drive you nuts.

Sam (12:03) Right. You’re always damp. It smells like nutsack in there. There’s one toilet for all of these guys. It’s not a luxury cruise.

Maartje (12:11) No, they even show the toilet in the movie. It’s tiny. It just made me laugh.

Sam (12:18) And I think I mentioned when I was reading the book — there’s a very long period of the main character just talking about how it’s day after day after day of the same stuff. As a reader it started to get monotonous and I was like, my god, is the whole book going to be like this? But no, it gets very exciting after that. And I think that’s very effective on the author’s part, because if I’m finding it monotonous, imagine if you were actually on the U-boat.

Maartje (12:49) That’s taking a risk as an author — trusting that your reader will stick with you long enough to get to the action.

Sam (12:58) Yes.

Maartje (12:59) Anyway, there are three U-boat officers, including a submarine captain referred to as “the old man” by his crew. He’s played by Jürgen Prochnow, and we also get war correspondent Lieutenant Werner, played by Herbert Grönemeyer, and the chief engineer, played by Klaus Wennemann. As we meet them, they arrive at a party in a French bar. It’s chaotic. There’s some dancing and singing and it’s all good fun. The captain is endeavouring to introduce the war correspondent to his crew, as Werner will be joining them on the U-96 to take photos and write propaganda stories about U-boat heroes. We learn that the chief engineer’s wife is ill, but the U-boat is shipping out the next morning and he hasn’t heard from her. All the officers and crew are extremely drunk — which the captain presents as a normal state of affairs. But there are slightly darker undertones when another veteran sub captain, Philipp Thomsen, played by Otto Sander, gives a drunken speech mocking Hitler and then passes out in his own vomit. It’s a really good party, you guys.

Sam (14:16) Yeah, and I think it’s important that these guys are drunk, yes, but they’re not just drunk — they are obliterated. A level of drunk that I think demonstrates how much fear you would have, knowing that you’re going out on this U-boat tomorrow and there are very good odds that you won’t come back. In fact, better odds than not. These guys, although they are on the surface having a good time — when you do that kind of damage to yourself, it’s really indicative of what you’re feeling inside.

Maartje (14:48) Yeah, there are people puking in the bathroom, trying to hold each other up, but they’re all just too drunk to do basically anything. A strange opener for sure. They are just scared of dying — which immediately makes you root for them. These guys are doing something they don’t really want to be doing and it must be really dangerous what they’re getting into.

Sam (15:20) Yeah, for sure. And you can tell these veterans — like Thomsen — he’s just past the point of caring whether or not he gets himself in trouble.

Maartje (15:28) They also constantly mock Churchill in this movie, which made me laugh.

Sam (15:32) Yeah, they definitely do that. I enjoyed the use of the character Werner — he’s obviously a stand-in for Buchheim, who wrote the novel. The novel is written from the perspective of the war correspondent, and that was Buchheim’s role when he sailed with the U-boat. Because of Werner, we actually get introduced to characters and have the submarine explained to us, which is very helpful.

Maartje (15:55) The first thing I thought when I saw him was, can this guy please go wash his hair?

Sam (16:01) Ha ha ha ha.

Maartje (16:02) Which makes me feel like an old lady.

Sam (16:04) Yes. The U-boat is all loaded up with provisions and made ready to leave the next morning. Werner is shown around as the sub sails out of the harbour. Pretty much immediately the captain initiates a practice dive drill. Everyone has to be at their stations, knowing what they’re supposed to do. As Werner observes the men in action, he finds out more about them. The first watch officer is viewed as a tight-arse by the rest of the crew — he’s the only one who keeps his uniform on the whole time. He’s an ardent Nazi, very much in line with the party ideology, while the other guys don’t seem to be particularly. The captain makes some negative remarks about Hitler and the other officers don’t dispute this. Some other important characters: the second watch officer is a bit of a stirrer. We have the navigator, Kriegbaum, who is not really happy to be there. We have the chief mechanic, Johann, who will come up later. And senior crewman Ullmann, who has a conversation with Werner at the beginning about his French girlfriend — he’ll also come up later. There’s also a part where Werner sees a fly on the wall — this is from the book — and the narrator talks about seeing this fly and is like, how did a fly get on a submarine? Why is it here? He talks about spotting it at various points during the patrol.

Maartje (18:25) It’s like him being a fly on the wall in the submarine. There’s also an actual fly on the wall.

Sam (18:30) Yes. The fly is kind of a through line of the book — it almost becomes his little totem.

Maartje (18:31) I do want to say that when they do the drill, they explain that they can’t go much deeper. That’s a really nice setup — it’s a really effective plot device to plant early in a drill, because you know it’ll come back later.

Sam (18:59) Yes, absolutely. A mock submarine was created for this movie to be shot in, and the interior was meticulously recreated based on photos that Buchheim had actually taken during his patrol. They had built a big hydraulic apparatus that would shake and rock the set to simulate depth charges, so these guys really were getting rattled around. The movie was also shot with a handheld camera — shout out to cinematographer Jost Vacano, because he had to follow the guys around in this cramped setting, and it doesn’t feel like the Blair Witch Project. It’s very well filmed.

Maartje (19:35) Very well filmed. They filmed pretty much in chronological order — so as you see these men becoming messier and more scruffy, that’s all happening in real time. Apparently the director also told them not to get any sunlight, so that grey pallor was actually real.

Maartje (20:33) On their twentieth day at sea, after much boredom, the crew dives due to a nearby ship and they are unable to attack it, which the captain doesn’t like. But soon enough they find themselves in pursuit of a convoy of freighters. There’s some really good score — let’s give the composer a shout out. His name is Klaus Doldinger and he’s awesome. A British destroyer attacks with depth charges, which are very terrifying, but they manage to escape with only very mild damage.

Sam (21:14) Yeah, I love this. I didn’t particularly notice the score before this, and then as soon as they were on a chase there were these dun-dun-dun trumpets and heavy bass drums — boom-boom-boom — and I was like, my god, I love this. I was vibing.

Maartje (21:28) Very classic, but in a very exciting way.

Sam (21:31) They encounter a massive weeks-long storm. During the storm, if they’re above the water they’re getting tossed around in the waves, so it’s better to sail underwater, but underwater they can’t move very quickly. The storm injures a crewman and blows the submarine off course. By this time the men have grown beards and are scraping mould off the bread before they eat it — you just can’t keep anything dry. They’re eating lemons to prevent scurvy. They randomly encounter Thomsen’s boat in the gale, which they’re pretty excited about at first, and they do a little light-signal message. But it makes the captain pretty frustrated because if two of them are together in this massive ocean, they’re obviously not spreading out and catching convoys. But soon after, the storm abates and the sub finally has some luck, encountering a convoy and scoring two successful sinkings.

Maartje (22:38) Yeah, I thought the attack sequences as well as the depth charges were pretty cool, and the way they were shot is neat. I don’t know how they managed to make it so interesting. It must be the conversations they have in the meantime, and especially the captain. The captain is fantastic.

Sam (23:08) Yes, for sure. He’s really good. He’s an old salt. He does not panic no matter what happens — he’s always the one, if something terrible is going on, walking around checking on the crew. You can tell in his eyes that he feels like he’s there with a bunch of kids and he’s got to hold the line and be the responsible, serious one.

Maartje (23:31) It might date me a little, but I found him the most attractive of all the people in this movie. He just kind of commands attention.

Sam (23:45) Yes, a very quiet authority for sure. I’m going to read a passage from the book. The narrator is up on the bridge taking one of the watches, getting soaked, holding up heavy binoculars in the fog. The navigator beside him says, bitingly: “The gentlemen at headquarters ought to see all this just once. Nothing but ocean, and not a trace of the enemy. I can just imagine how they picture it. We put to sea, run around for a few days, and hey presto, here come the freighters sailing along, crowds of them and all loaded up to the gunwales, a daring attack, fire everything we’ve got. A few depth charges in return just to teach us not to get too uppity. The victory pennant on the periscope for a lot of fat tankers and tie up at the pier grinning from ear to ear. Brass bands and decorations, of course. But there really ought to be a film of all this. Close-ups of pure shit. Horizon bald as a baby’s bottom, a couple of clouds, and that’s it. Then they could film the inside of the boat. Mouldy bread, filthy necks, rotten lemons, torn shirts, sweaty blankets, and as a grand finale, all of us looking utterly pissed off.”

Maartje (25:02) Yeah. Some of this frustration is aimed in the movie at our war correspondent in the beginning. They don’t like him being around. They think he’s there to tell a good news story when they really don’t feel like it is one. And I really like his character development — at first he’s this optimistic, excitable guy trying to make a good report on what he’s seeing, and nobody wants him there. But then slowly as the movie goes along he becomes part of the crew in a meaningful way.

Sam (25:41) Yes, definitely. He’s for sure an outsider. There’s a scene where he gets in the way and someone throws an oily rag in his face — this is probably not really true to life because an enlisted man would not be able to do that to an officer without consequences, but it does give you some idea of how the crew perceived him.

Maartje (26:01) Didn’t Buchheim get really upset about this?

Sam (26:04) Yeah, he did. He’s like, that would never have happened.

Maartje (26:06) Yeah, I read his criticisms and I thought they were a little harsh, to be honest. I understand that you’ve lived this and you’re upset that it’s not exactly like it was in real life, but also it’s a movie. You’ve got to increase the tension a little bit, otherwise you’re not going to make a very good movie.

Sam (26:29) Yeah, it’s his baby. And it’s tough because he criticised it for being too much like an action movie, too unrealistic in places. His book has some very important themes he was driving at, and it’s up to the viewer whether or not the movie achieved those aims. But as the author, I’m sure it’s frustrating to see something brought to the screen and think, well, this is not exactly how I would have done it.

Maartje (26:55) They are forced to dive below test depth — lower than they’ve gone before — to avoid depth charges launched during a counterattack by the convoy’s escort vessels. During this their boat is very badly damaged. The terrifying experience causes Johann, the engineer, to lose it for a few moments — just screaming and disobeying orders. He later apologises to the captain and begs him not to have him court-martialled. The whole thing is just freaking terrifying.

Sam (27:41) Yeah, and the British destroyer’s sonar is pinging, so they’re having to be quiet because it can pick up any sound in the water. They go deep enough that there are rivets popping, and at one point the control panel is ablaze. The submarine gets pretty fucked up.

Maartje (27:55) Yeah. To the point where I was like, how can they realistically survive any of this? It feels like such an impossible task when there are rivets popping and things are on fire. I didn’t realise there was also wood in there — the cots are wooden. Just imagine if that electrical fire had spread anywhere else. You’d quickly suffocate if you were unlucky.

Sam (28:36) Yeah, they also had a lot of wooden framing inside the submarine, and when you got to a certain depth the wooden framing would start to crack. So I’m sure that was also terrifying.

Maartje (28:47) Yeah, and it’s very scary in the movie because the sound design is really effective — you feel the creaking and the sighing of the ship, and you’re like, shit, they’re going so low, this is so dangerous. But the captain is not panicking at any point. Which is reassuring — as long as he’s not panicking, then why should we?

Sam (29:12) Yes, exactly. Once the escort leaves, they are able to surface despite how badly damaged the ship is. They manage to patch it up. They find the tanker they hit is still afloat — it’s on fire, just sitting there on the water, completely ablaze, billowing smoke. They torpedo it once more to put the killing shot in, before they realise there are still British sailors on board. They’re aghast — why haven’t these guys been rescued by their own side? But when the sailors attempt to swim for the submarine, the captain orders the ship to back away. You can tell by the looks on the guys’ faces on the bridge that it’s not a good feeling leaving these men in the water, even though they’re the enemy.

Maartje (29:59) This kind of shocked me. We talked about it in our U-571 episode, I think, that German subs did on occasion pick up men lost at sea. I was kind of expecting them to do that here — and then they didn’t do it, and I was pretty shocked. I was like, wait, these men are just going to die out there — and yes, they will.

Sam (30:23) Notably, fairly on in the war, they were explicitly told not to pick up survivors. This is one of the scenes that I think Buchheim included in his book in order to puncture this idea of U-boat sailors as having fought a clean and honourable war.

Maartje (30:39) Interesting. So a little myth, just debunked?

Sam (30:42) Yeah.

Maartje (30:43) They’ve been out on the sea a long time but they believe they’ll be home for Christmas — then they get new orders. The ship must first reprovision in neutral Spain at Vigo, and then go to La Spezia in Italy, in the Mediterranean.

Sam (31:00) They’re very aware that passing through the Strait of Gibraltar — which is only seven miles across and heavily patrolled by the British — will be extremely hazardous.

Maartje (31:08) Yeah, this is when the captain tells Werner and the chief that he’s made a request for them to disembark at Vigo — he’s like, well, I’m not taking you anywhere else. He thinks the chief should be going to see his wife. That’s when Werner offers to take letters from Ullmann — the young guy with the French girlfriend — to his pregnant girlfriend. This poor girl in France is in real danger because she wants to keep the baby, but if the Resistance find out she’s pregnant with a German baby, she’s not going to have a good time in France. So he offers to take all his letters to give to her. As the U-boat arrives in Vigo, the officers go aboard a German merchant ship that will provide them with more fuel, food, and torpedoes. They find it and its officers really, really clean and civilised after weeks on the U-boat. When a senior officer tries to talk to the captain, the captain just doesn’t say anything in return. Nobody has their uniform on except the first watch officer — they’re all scruffy. I think if he’d said anything he would have offended this officer, but he just shuts up, which is quite good. He does discover that the request for Werner and the chief to go ashore has been denied, so they have to stay on the vessel because there aren’t enough men to replace them.

Sam (32:44) Yeah, that’s an interesting character note for the captain — he’s like, I can’t save my crew, but maybe I can save these two guys.

Maartje (32:54) Yeah. It made me really sad, because Werner didn’t really want to go in the first place. But the chief I think would be happy to go — he’s kind of an older guy and he’s tired.

Sam (33:09) Yeah, and the chief’s job is to oversee basically all the mechanical stuff on the ship. So every time the ship sustains damage, he’s the one coordinating all the repairs. He has a big job.

Maartje (33:23) Yeah. Tell me a little more from the book, please.

Sam (33:27) Yeah, so I believe it’s as they’re sailing to Vigo. They see a vessel coming at them in the dark and the captain calls ready the torpedoes. Everyone is like, okay, but shouldn’t we signal to them and see what kind of vessel it is? So they signal — no response. They signal again — no response. Then finally they get an answer saying it’s a Spanish passenger liner, full of civilians. The captain is like, well, I’m not sure if I believe that, because of course you would say that if you were a British liner. So he asks the Spanish captain to come over to the submarine on a lifeboat, and no one comes and no one comes and no one comes. So then the captain is like, we’re going to torpedo it. They fire a torpedo, but the torpedo malfunctions. And as they’re trying to fix it, the captain of the ship comes over and they find out that it is indeed a Spanish civilian vessel — if they had torpedoed it, they would have been responsible for massive civilian loss of life.

Maartje (34:39) Oops. Well, close call, I guess.

Sam (34:41) I think it’s indicative of — the captain is not necessarily the good guy. He was prepared to torpedo this vessel despite not being a hundred percent sure what kind it was. For him it was worth the risk: these guys have seen us in the ocean, so if they are an enemy vessel, we have to get rid of them and leave no survivors.

Maartje (35:06) Interesting, because I feel like the movie softens that a little bit. We do see a similar thing with the English crew on the vessel that’s sinking and on fire — the captain just moves away. But I quite like that I get to relate to and root for these guys even though they are German. Maybe that makes me weird, but I did like that I felt I could root for them.

Sam (35:52) Yeah, and based on a great novel that really does delve into characterisation.

Maartje (35:57) Yeah, I’m really surprised at how much depth they manage to get in here. Every character gets a little light shone upon them and I think it’s quite well done.

Sam (36:13) The U-96 returns to sea. The captain hatches a plan to use the sea currents to float through the strait without engine noise to avoid detection. At the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean meet, there is a current on the top of the water running out of the Mediterranean — the water is warmer because it’s been in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the cold Atlantic current runs underneath. So if you go down deep enough, theoretically you can use this current to float through. During their attempt, they are attacked by a fighter plane that wounds the navigator, Kriegbaum, and badly damages the ship. The captain gives the order to prepare to abandon ship and sails hard for the African coast. As British warships begin shelling them, they must dive under the water. However, the bow planes become stuck and they cannot stop the dive once they’ve started.

Maartje (37:27) This whole scene was absolutely terrifying and I also thought Kriegbaum was a dead man. They have sort of a medical officer on board, but they have literally a first aid kit and that’s all. There’s not much they can do about bullet wounds or shell fragments.

Sam (37:56) I did enjoy a scene with the medical officer earlier where he asks a guy to drop his pants and all the other guys in the submarine are standing around looking with great interest at this man’s groin — it turns out the guy has crabs and everyone makes fun of him.

Maartje (38:13) And then in the scene after that you can see them all standing in line with their pants down to be inspected.

Sam (38:20) Yeah. Venereal disease — quite an issue among armies across time and space.

Maartje (38:25) And especially in cramped spaces, no doubt.

Maartje (38:31) The ship hits the bottom at 280 metres down, which is basically off their indicator. Realistically you think they’re going to implode. It doesn’t immediately implode, but it is taking on water. The chief has to bridge the damaged battery cells, among many other significant repairs, or they are going to be stuck there. The men are trying to get the water out with buckets, which is not very efficient. As the repairs are made, they realise it won’t be safe for them to surface until nightfall, so they have to wait — using oxygen tanks for sixteen hours. Just imagine suffocating in a coffin like that.

Sam (39:24) The guys who are awake have to keep going around and checking that the oxygen masks haven’t fallen out of the mouths of the guys who are sleeping.

Maartje (39:31) As soon as they’ve made their repairs, they will have one chance of blowing their ballast tanks using compressed air. If that doesn’t work, they’re stuck on the bottom of the strait and will become a fancy iron coffin. I don’t know — this was not good for my claustrophobia, Sam. I was having a very bad time watching all this.

Sam (39:51) Yes. They’re 280 metres down and the sub could give up the ghost at any moment. There’s a part where a guy is lying on his bunk breathing the oxygen and he hears the hull creak — he stops breathing for a moment, just holds his breath, because he’s worried that this is it.

Maartje (40:12) We’re going to implode. The idea of just suffocating in that thing at the bottom of the sea where no one is coming to save you is just terrifying.

Sam (40:37) Yeah, absolutely. Their Hail Mary works and they are able to surface. There’s a scene where all the guys are standing around watching the depth gauge — for a long time the needle stays stuck at the bottom and they’re waiting for it to start going up, and then it starts to creep upwards and everyone is just giddy with relief. When they get to the surface, the engine repairs have also succeeded, so they are able to limp back to La Rochelle. The men celebrate, and they are celebrated when they reach the docks — there’s a big welcoming party for them. And just when they believe they are safe, an Allied bomber attack occurs, wounding many of the crew. Everyone is running and screaming, trying to get into the big U-boat pens to be safe from the bombs. Ullmann, Johann, the second watch officer, and another crewman are killed. Werner is in a haze. He rushes toward their sinking U-boat and he sees the captain watching it go down. Then the captain collapses and dies, and Werner kneels by his side, just overcome by the pointlessness of it all.

Maartje (42:00) I felt so betrayed by this ending. Just before the scene, there’s a line where the captain says — “Not yet, comrades” — which made me laugh a little, and I was like, getting away, how nice. And then they die anyway. I just felt kind of sad. Can’t they at least die in some fancy battle?

Sam (42:27) Yeah, for sure. And I’ll just read the last paragraph of the book. “And there in the haze I see the old man, streaming with blood, his sweater and shirt torn to shreds, his eyes, which were always narrowed, are wide, wide open. At almost the same moment we sink to our knees, bracing our arms on the splintered stones, and face each other like two sumo wrestlers. The old man opens his mouth as though to let loose a great shout. But all that gushes from his lips is blood.”

Maartje (42:56) How morbid to end it like that.

Sam (42:59) Yeah. The old man is the guy who always has it together. Everyone looks to him, even in their moments of panic. He’s this symbol of the old salt, the sailor who has seen so many battles and at this point seems untouchable. And then we just see him die at the end.

Maartje (43:21) Very helplessly, too. Oh man. Alright. Well, that’s the end of the movie — but you have some very interesting notes prepared, so I would like you to share them.

Sam (43:41) The real U-96, upon which Buchheim went on patrol in 1941, sank twenty-seven Allied vessels during its time in service. It was eventually sunk by an Allied air raid, but not until after it was decommissioned in early 1945, and none of the crew were killed. The real captain of the U-96, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, upon whom the old man was based, consulted on the film — his job was to make sure the vibes were right, that people were behaving the way real submariners would behave. Despite this, Buchheim the novelist was disappointed in the adaptation.

Maartje (44:26) Yeah, and I read that one of the choices Buchheim was disappointed with was the rivet scene — in real life, if one rivet was going, that would basically signal that the whole submarine was going to implode. He was disappointed that multiple rivets pop in the movie. But I’m like — my guy, it’s a movie, you need to sell it to the audience. I don’t think one rivet would have done it justice.

Sam (44:56) Yeah. This is a guy who’s really committed to detail.

Maartje (45:00) I do get it, especially if you’ve been there. But I find it really difficult when people can’t look past the fact that something is meant to be entertainment and not a documentary. Maybe I’m just too well-versed in narrative and I understand that sometimes you have to bend it a little for it to be effective.

Sam (45:35) Yeah, and a lot of the scholarship around both the movie and the book is around Buchheim’s choice to write it as a novel and not a historical account. The way you would critique a novel and the way you would critique a piece of history are different, so it’s a bit of a grey area.

Sam (45:55) The Navy, including the U-boat crew, suffered little of the stain of National Socialism after the war — their exploits were often viewed as clean and honourable. Even a few years after the war, after denazification, they were pretty much still putting out the same polished U-boat propaganda, being like, yeah, these guys were heroes. They were viewed as distinct from the Nazi disease. Then when this novel came out in 1973, a lot of U-boat veterans decried it as targeting their valour — many didn’t like it very much. But the interesting impact was that many of the German post-war generation began to be a little bit more self-reflective. They began to question their parents about the war and more seriously question the role of the U-boats in it — that even if individuals behaved honourably, as a whole, the sense of glory was faulty.

Maartje (46:56) Yeah, and you made a really interesting remark earlier — you reminded me that being on a U-boat was voluntary. You can’t really claim to be completely clean if you signed up for it.

Sam (47:13) Yes. Feeding off of that, there has been significant controversy around the novel. Buchheim has an interesting role because as a war correspondent he was not an actual combatant, but he worked for the propaganda machine. Even though he was not an avowed Nazi and was disillusioned with Nazism early on, he still participated in this system. A lot of people have talked about whether we should have sympathy for those fighting for National Socialism, and whether this book humanises them too much. But despite all these criticisms it has been enduringly popular and sold many, many copies.

Maartje (47:52) Yeah. I don’t think you can hide behind your profession as a journalist or a war correspondent. I think you’re always in some ways complicit in the system you’re part of.

Sam (48:18) Yeah. I think the point of Buchheim’s book was to lift the lid off of this horrifying experience and puncture this idea of the U-boat war having been more honourable than other types of war. He did want to make people reflect on what the Germans had done during the war. And I think the novel certainly accomplished that aim — it got a lot of conversation started.

Maartje (48:45) Yeah. It’s making me wonder whether the fact that it was written as a novel is a safe choice or a really smart choice. Maybe it’s both. That way you can express a little more freely what you’re trying to express.

Sam (49:06) Yeah, and more people will read it — your message gets out to a larger audience than if you’d written a dry history book.

Maartje (49:24) Alright, so that’s roughly twenty-five years after the war. Not that long after. I don’t know how receptive people would have been to a non-fiction book about Germans being less than honourable in the way they’d portrayed themselves for many years. Maybe it’s easier to digest if it’s fiction.

Sam (49:52) Yeah, for sure. And the real captain of the U-96, Lehmann-Willenbrock, read the novel and wrote a letter to Buchheim about it. I’ll just quote from his letter: “The book was well worth the effort. Today’s reader will find out and see for himself what kind of men the submariners were and what their fortitude and so-called heroism were really about. Certainly there will be a lot of criticism from our ranks because it is unpleasant to take that gently dusted, gold-framed picture under the magnifying glass again. And that Dönitz myth is spoken with such reverence. It’s just a question of whether one should concern himself over it or simply let that generation pass into eternity without being understood.” And then he added a P.S.: “It’s a good thing you made clear in advance that the characters portrayed did not really exist.”

Maartje (50:42) That is funny. Like, you’re saying, well, maybe it’s good that people get to read about us — but also it’s not us.

Sam (50:49) Yeah. I definitely think he was trying to be a little funny there.

Maartje (50:52) We have to rate this movie, but before we do, I’d like to remind you that you can follow us wherever you get your podcast and rate us five stars. You can leave a review too if you’d like — we’d like it very much. And you can send this episode to a friend.

Sam (51:07) Every time you send this episode to a friend, a tiny innocent fly survives an unlikely submarine voyage.

Maartje (51:13) Amen. Now, what should we rate it?

Sam (51:16) Mouldy breads out of ten?

Maartje (51:17) Ew. That sounds good. Let’s do it.

Sam (51:20) How many mouldy breads out of ten would you rate this movie?

Maartje (51:22) I would rate this movie 9.2 mouldy breads out of ten. I thought it was fabulous. I thought I was going to hate it and I really, really liked it. I thought the pacing was excellent — I did not feel like I was watching a movie for three and a half hours. The acting was excellent, the characters were good and well developed. The action was good, the soundtrack was fun. I don’t know, it’s just really fun. How about you?

Sam (51:50) Yeah, I’m going to give it a similar rating — I’m going to give it a nine. It’s one of my favourite movies that we’ve watched. Did it wrestle with the morality around fighting for National Socialism enough? I don’t know. I do think that the author made that attempt. Whether or not it translated sufficiently to the film, I’m not a hundred percent sure. But it’s a very well made film. The acting is great, the soundtrack is great, and I definitely would recommend that people watch it.

Maartje (52:17) Alright, are you reading anything?

Sam (52:19) I’m reading Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally. It’s a novel upon which a very famous film by Steven Spielberg was made, which we will talk about on the podcast. I’ve seen the film and I’m really enjoying the book. Even though it’s a novel, the author thoroughly interviewed many of the people that were saved by Oskar Schindler and did a ton of thorough research, so it’s very historically accurate.

Maartje (52:49) Interesting. Also — how many Spielberg films are we going to watch? Because the movie coming to this podcast next week is also by Spielberg. How many films has this man made that are about World War Two?

Sam (53:03) He just loves World War Two.

Maartje (53:04) I mean, can’t really blame him, because we’re out here only talking about World War Two as well. I’m also reading a new book — it’s called Atmosphere. It’s by Taylor Jenkins Reid and it’s really, really fun. It’s set in the 1980s and it’s about female astronauts falling in love, I think. I’m about a third of the way in and it’s really fun so far.

Sam (53:40) That sounds great.

Maartje (53:41) I think you would really like it actually. It has the subtitle A Love Story, but it’s more than just a love story — it’s a love story in space, which is fun. If you want something not so heavy after Schindler’s List, give this one a read.

Maartje (54:06) Alright. Well, thank you for listening to yet another episode of Rosie. You can follow us wherever you get your podcast and rate us five stars. You can send this episode to a friend. You can follow us on Instagram at Rosie the Reviewer Podcast, or you can visit our website to hear the great techno version of the soundtrack — and you can also rate this movie with us there. Please go visit the website and we’ll see you next week.

Sam (54:37) Bye.