Das Boot (1981) Reaction/Commentary 

The real chief engineer of U96 died last year at an age of 107. He was the last surviving german WWII U-Boat veteran.

This film shows that there is nothing heroic about war. It's all about death, loss, violence and pain. There is nothing good. That is the fundamental message of this masterpiece. Peace.

In my opinion, the best war film ever made. I visited a U-Boat that is now a museum in Kiel. Germany. It is incredibly small and that's coming from an ex tank crewman!.

My grandpa was on a U-Boat, while just 17 yrs old. His boat was sunk and he was rescued by a German crew. After that, he was engaged to a a supply vessel for the German U-Boat fleet and was sunk again, but rescued another time, but this time by the British. He was lucky after all and made some lifelong friends in England during his captivity. He hated war and was quite open about his being anti-fascist during the rest of his life! I'll never forget him.

As a retired vet myself, i understand why they showed compassion towards the survivors of a doomed ship. Once their machines are destroyed, they are no longer combatants but survivors that are entitled to an opportunity to surrender. The Geneva Convention makes concessions for situations like that.

Lieutenant Werner is more or less Lothar-Günther Buchheim, the author of the novel Das Boot, which the movie is based on. He was a war correspondent aboard ships and U-boats during WW II, including the U-96.

* remove all furniture and carpets from your viewing room. * hang up blackout curtains. * remove all lighting, replace with a single dim red bulb. * wear wool and cords. Do not change them for three weeks. * scatter rusty metal parts around the room. * hang German dried sausages everywhere. * run a tube from car exhaust into room. Fill room with CO gas to taste. * puke in one corner. Do not clean it up. * relieve yourself in a bucket. Do not empty it. * throw 30-40l of water around the room. Let it go stagnant. * sleep no more than four hours a night on a cheap, broken camp bed. * no showers. * eat only 1 meal a day, stale bread and those sausages you hung up only. * drink only 100ml of water a day. * get a friend to throw firecrackers at you at random intervals. Throw yourself into the walls when they do. * repeat for three weeks. Congratulations. You have a sense of what it was like to live on a U-boat. You are now ready to watch "Das Boot"

Jürgen Prochnow was 40 years old at the time of filming. The real captain after which he was modelled was around 30 years old when he was commanding the u-boat and he was called "Der Alte" (the old guy) by the crew. For me this hard to imagine. When I was 30, I barely had my shit together so to speak.

Among other things, the captain also played Duke Leto Atreides in the old Dune movie.

U-boats had usually 3-5 Hydrophon/Radiooperators. The Typ VII U-Boat had stored oxygen and CO2 scrubber for 72 hours, if they were used up, they had air for around 6-8 hours befor the CO2 concentration became dangerous. Vigo was in neutral Spain, the resupply had to be done as quick and quiet as possible, and they had to be out of harbour befor sunrise, because the UK would make a fuss about it and also send a destroyer to wait for the u-boat. Unlike the US Navy, for the Kriegsmarine the goal was to sink ships, not to kill as much sailors as possible. On larger convoys the Brits had small empty freighters with extra quarters and medical staff to pick up survivors, on smaller convoys one of the escort had the duty to pick them up. Thats why the captain of the u-boat is upset that there are still people on the burning ship.

one reason he didn't mind them being drunk on shore is that the uboat arm suffered a 75% casualty rate

You know you are watching a good WWII movie if you start rooting for a german crew to survive.

The end of the movie never happened, the attack was added for dramatic effect. U-boot U-96 and her crew made it. The movie is based on the novel written by the war correspondant we see in the movie. The Captain survived the war and was a technical advisor to movie director Wolfgang Petersen. Older officers like the Captain and Thomsen are from the "old guard" who were in the military before the N@zis came to power. Many of them were closet anti-n@zis. In Europe, women sleeping with the enemy had to go through "the walk of shame" at the end of the war, they heads were shaven and they were paraded through the city's streets, naked and with swastikas painted on their bodies. The crowd threw rotten vegetables and stones at them. The movie's pace is purposefully slow because this is what sub warefare was all about: very few action and a lot of waiting. One of my favorite war movies for sure!

Das boot is a masterpiece. No propaganda no happy ending just the cruelty of war.

Some real WW2 submarine veterans watched this movie in the theaters when it came out, but some had to leave because it was so realistic (similar to American veterans in Saving Private Ryan) . But they ended up thanking the director for finally telling their story. Btw, they were not trying to attack the port. They wanted to break through Gibraltar to get into the Mediterranean and get a new home port in Italy. At the time Rommel was attacking in North Africa and they needed U-Boats in the Mediterranean to protect Rommel's supply lines. This was really happening and UBoats actually managed to break through, but it wasn't easy. It also weakened the presence in the Atlantic because Germany didn't have enough boats to begin with.

What not many people outside of Germany know: This film is an adaptation of the book with the same name. The author, Lothar-Günther Buchheim, based it on his own experiences as a propaganda officer being guest on several ships. The captain (only ever called "Kaleu", short for his rank) is actually modelled after the captain of the Wehrmacht, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (who actually managed to survive the war, and later from 1969 to 1974 commanded Germany's first and only nuclear ship, the "Otto Hahn"). Das Boot is the first book of a trilogy about the Kaleu and Buchheim. The other two are called Die Festung (The Fortress) and Der Abschied (The Farewell).

Hey Mike, I just wanted to say thank you for watching this. The directors cut is definitely the way to go with this movie. This is not only one the best submarine movie ever made, but just one of the best movies ever made. The German sub was not a submarine in the technical sense, but a U-boat. When travelling underwater it used electrical power, drawn from batteries giving it a limited range. It had to spend most of the time on the surface where it was propelled by two diesel engines which also charged the battery.

As for the Kaleun's compassion: Originally, U-Boat warfare was conducted in a way that the U-Boat surfaced, stopped the ship and allowed the crew to radio for pickup and evacuate before sinking the ship as per the old prize rules. Of course this was stopped when the convoy system was introduced, surfacing in front of a convoy would've just resulted in every gun in the convoy immediately bracketing the sub. There were occasions where survivors were actually picked up by U-Boats and saved, but that practice was stopped by Dönitz' orders after the Laconia incident, when U-156 and U-507 were bombed and forced to dive while carrying survivors. That's the reason the Kaleun orders the ship to reverse and pull back. In case a ship was sunk in a convoy, there were "mercy ships" with the single purpose of recovering survivors after the attack was resolved. In case these ships weren't present, it usually was the escorts' (Destroyers and Frigates) duty to pick up survivors after the situation was deemed safe. After six hours of quiet, the sight of survivors on that burning tanker clearly showed that the convoy abandoned the vessel and its crew - that's why the Kaleun gets angry. There's also a scene in the extra-long TV miniseries cut (6+ hours) where the Kaleun admonishes the crew while celebrating sinking the freighters, reminding them that they weren't just sinking ships, they were killing fellow sailors and abandoning the survivors to the mercy of the sea. Quite probably because of his backstory being in the merchant navy before the war - he's telling Leutnant Werner about him sailing on a four-master with "cargo holds as huge as a church" when they shared a quiet moment on the conning tower. He clearly felt a sense of kinship to his fellow sailors, even if they were crewing enemy vessels. That sense of kinship was carried by the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe both, who had a certain sense of being more "elite" than the regular infantry, up to the point where they operated their own POW camps for naval and air crew, where those POWs were treated comparatively better than their infantry counterparts (for example, the POW camp in "The Great Escape" is a Luftwaffe camp).

It's a strange thing for me, as a U.S. Submariner, but I feel brotherhood for the German submariners. Seeing them killed at the end is devastating.

I had a neighbor who served on a boat like that. When the series was on TV he started having flashbacks. He was completely drunk and shouted so loudly that the entire neighborhood could hear it. He was a friendly guy and he always greeted everyone he knew with “Alle Mann an Deck,” a Marine command to inspect the entire crew. He died in the nineties.

I first watched this as a 6 part Mini-series on the BBC in the early 80's. Incredibly gripping tv then & has more than stood the test of time.

One of my favorite movies of all time. I was chuckling when Mike was lamenting that the movie wasn't showing much action. Once it gets going it never lets up!

The problem of going to deep isn't the hull integrity in the first place, but the ability to get up again. In these submarines you need air pressure to press out the water in the ballast tanks. to do that the pressure has to be higher than the water pressure. You need enough air to do that. Air is compressible and there is a limit of how much compressed air is available. So there is a limit you can't co beyond. And this is the critical depth for an Uboat in WWII. You go deeper and you sink until you implode or hit the ground. The safe depth is where the boat has enough air left after a long dive. The critical depth is where you can go twice without refreshing your air tanks. The danger zone is the depth you can go once and stay for a short time.

This movie was filmed entirely with practical special effects using an advanced custom made hand-held Arriflex camera with proto-Steadicam technology. It took two years to make, and was finally cut from over 330,000 metres of exposed film. With a budget of 32 million Deutsche Marks, it was the second most expensive German film the world had ever seen (beaten only by Metropolis) and remains one of the most expensive today.

Thanks for reacting to the german version of das Boot,i think thats one of the best movies ever made,👍 from Austria

The crazy thing about war is, both sides have all these crews who think they're only doing what they have to do. And yet there's no alternative when the "wrong side" doesn't relent.

i can only think of one other film that stands next to this in giving you the feel of life on board and thats Master and Commander :The Far Side of the World

Just some more inside info: The soccer team they were rooting for was Schalke, which is a district of Gelsenkirchen, which is in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany. You'd think that most Navy soldiers would be recruited from the northern, coastal areas of Germany. Not so for submarines. They recruited people mainly from the industrial areas of the Ruhr and some from Schlesien, because they needed people experienced in metal working and mechanics, so they'd have the necessary skills to keep these boats operating and repair them. That's why many of them have German accents from those regions and rooted for that soccer team.

During production, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, the captain of the real U-96 during Buchheim‘s 1941 patrol and one of Germany's top U-boat "tonnage aces" during the war, and Hans-Joachim Krug, former first officer on U-219, served as consultants. One of Petersen's goals was to guide the audience through "a journey to the edge of the mind" showing "what war is all about."

When I first saw this movie as a teenager I was kind of upset and disappointed by how it ended. Took me some years to realize that yes, it *had* to end that way, to drive the point home. It's since become one of my all time favorites and I truly believe it's one of the best movies ever made, full stop. It's a shame that it has fallen a bit off the radar, so to speak.

My uncle was about 20 in 1943 working on a mine search vessel and he told me the U-Bootleute didnt even fear the Gestapo. When you have gone through that shoot, what shall you be afraid of?!

War Crimes where made by every Army, thats a fact. But it´s always the same thing, in every war, the loosers are always remembered as the Bad ones.

"All quite on the Western Front" is not about WW2, but About WW1. The original book is from 1928. The first movie adaptation was from 1930, and was banned in Nazi-Germany, after they already forced the movie to be censored after its release. EDIT: Even if the Director's Cut is a great version, I still prefer the television Version with a running time over 300 minutes, divided into three or six (depending on the airing) smaller segments. That was the first version I ever saw, when I was about 13 years old. EDIT2: Yes, you watched the Director's Cut, with about 200 minutes running time. The Theatrical cut has about 140 minutes runtime.

As far as I know: Only definitely sunk (and confirmed sunk) ships were counting to the list of successful sunk ships by that U-boat. So they sank it right then and there instead of saving the torpedo and sailing away while that tanker was still damaged on the surface.

I've championed Das Boot for YEARS. It's one of the best war movies ever IMHO. There are multiple versions of Das Boot. You're watching the 3hrs 17mins (ish) Directors Cut. There's also a miniseries cut of that same thing, which turns the running length to about 6hrs, spread over 3 movies. It's just a 6hr version of THIS. It doesn't feel padded either. It's just more of the doom. There's also a recent (2019) TV series on Atlantic, which is also incredible. It's a tie in to this movie. It looks like it was filmed at the same time, with the same equipment and same cast, yet it's set around the occupied naval base at La Rochelle. There's lots of film noir style French Resistance subplots. Any "good" war movie makes you watch it and think "I'm glad that's not ME". The soundscape in Das Boot is TERRIFYING. Oh yeah, Hail Johann. MVP.

34:28 The guy really broke a few bones. There are simply too few reactions to this great movie.

I was really shocked when I watched this movie as a teenager in 1981. In contrast to US movies, war is shown to be nothing else than ugly, brutal, and inhumane. By the way, I would recommend the longer TV version (5h), because the cinema version rushes things here and there.

This is one of the best war films , that in the end shows the true horror of war .No one wins a war , they only leave survivors .

This movie got big arround the World, specialy in Hollywood. They were impressed by the acting of Jürgen Prochnow. He went to the US and stayed. He became a US citicen in 2004. He played in movies like 'Dune', 'Beverly Hills Cop II', 'Judge Dredd', 'Body of Evidence', 'The Englisch Patient'.

There is no better movie about submarines in combat during 2nd world war. 30.000 german submariners never returned home. 784 submarines got lost. Almost 2900 allied merchant ships were sunk and 30.000 seamen were killed. Fortunately those horrific times are gone. 01:05:37: Leutnant Werner quotes Rudolf G. Binding's poem "Schlacht - Das Maß "

This is my favorite movie. I lived in Saint-Nazaire, where the 7th flotilla was based. U-96 was stationned there. I was a child, and we played in the submarine base. Svastikas and generators still everywhere. My high school was 120 meters from the U-boat pens. We dug up a 500 pound bombs digging for a music studio creating under a wine celar. And a 250 pound bomb right after. It was one of the only building that escape the destruction because those two bombs didn't go off. There is a sort of Bomb shelter airlock, for equilibrating the tide. Now there is a museum with a french Narwhal class submarine based on the type XXI. At the time we drunk beers directly beside it. Every time I visited it I was at home. "Do you need the audio description guide ?" F**k that, I know all of it. It's very strange to look at was wasn't completely leveled by the bombings, and sobering knowing what already knew at the time happened. By the way there is much more footage. My version is something like 5H30, and I think there is an even longer cut, maybe 6H.

Finally. A reaction to "Das Boot". There is a severe lack of reactions to this movie.

More German warmovies Stalingrad (1993) Downfall (2004) Bridge (2008) A great series is Generation war

Erwin Leder, the chief engineer Johann, should have been atleast nominated for an Oscar.

"You guys have had a lot of luck." 1 minute later.....

In that scene starting at 47:00 min, they have sink the ship because the huge fire is acting as a beacon for the enemy to know where to look for you. They were assuming there were other ships in the area to come and rescue all the men, that's why they stayed down for 6 hrs. Also, the compassion...because they can only hope for rescue as well, though in a sub it's unlikely. They feel compassion, because it could be them! There is a different code at sea, if you have a ship, you rescue even enemy sailors, and drop them off for prison camps at the nearest port. Of course in subs, they can't take survivors, no room, no medical care, no food....no spare resources to spare.

43:00 A greater depth means that the explosion of the depth charge barrels will be compressed by the same pressure that acts on the submarine hull. This means that unless it is a direct hit, it is not likely to kill them at that depth, whereas if they stayed on periscope depth (11-15 meters), even an explosion 16 meters away could seriously damage the hull. Plus there is a slight chance that the destroyer is an older version with older version of depth charges that can´t even reach that deep.

As someone who's watched "Das Boot" numerous times and loved it from the first time I saw it at age ~14 when the 6 hour mini-series version was aired on Norwegian television in the late 1980s, I must admit I take some delight in reaction-videos where the one reacting think they're safe just because they made it safely home to port...

40:24 ASDIC was already a thing when the WW2 started. It was the allied answer to the question of "how can we locate the submarine if it doesnt make any sound?", and they came up with an idea to make it make a sound, by bouncing an ultrasonic wave from its hull, and then locating where that bounce happened.

I was 14 years old when i seen this Movie for the first time. 1981. The best Movie about WW2 ever.

most of the actors became famous in german tv and cinema except Lt. Werner. Herbert Grönemeyer, the actors real name, became a famous singer. Something about the "boat". One day, the swimming pontong was missing. Steven Spielberg borrowed it for raiders of the lost ark.

In Fact, this is just a short version of a much longer TV-Mini-Series. 😉

This has some of the most memorable comic relief of any action drama. Guy mumbling about tying his butt hairs to someone's nose hairs. lol

one of the best movies ever made. also - one of the greatest (if not the greatest) movie sound track ever made.

The party scene at the beginning : People who served on U Boats realized they were pretty much dead..thats why in the moments they had they went completely bananas living every moment to the max. Also the guy who plays Lt Werner is Herbert Grönemeyer...one of the greatest German music stars of all time...look him up..he fills 100k ppl stadiums

I've seen this film at least a dozen times and it's interesting watching you see it for the first time. You get it pretty well.

what a comprehensive and great reaction. also, as a german, these subtitles are among the most accurate i saw for this movie. Just a great video, you won a sub.

Ive seen this movie over 100 times. best ever war movie.

This is why Das Boot is a Masterpiece!! probably one of the best war movie, with another older german movie "Die Bruck' (The bridge) and saving private Ryan

When it comes to compassion and German submarines in WW2, you can read up on the Laconia incident. In the beginning of the war subs would sometimes help survivors, e.g. dragging life boats out of harms way. During the Laconia incident, there was also an attempt to help the crew (a majority were Italian prisoners, but the ship was a target because it was a passenger ship used as a troop transport. But it also had some civilian passengers) on board of the twice torpedo'ed ship. Several uboats were called in to help with the efforts and Werner Hartenstein, the commander of the sub that had sunk the Laconia, even send a message on an open channel in English explaining the situation and that they were in a rescue attempt. And had red crosses put across the boats. The Americans decided to strafe and bomb the subs anyway, killing many survivors and damaging some subs. After which Admiral Dönitz forbade all rescue efforts for the future, IF it put the U-Boot in danger. He was later indicted for this at the Nürnberg trials, omitting the second part of his order completely during the trials. Though it was him, also, who had agreed further subs to Hartenstein's position to aid with the Laconia. War is ugly and there was not much place for chivalry - or basic humane compassion.

"Lieutenant Werner" is Herbert Grönemeyer - he actually did not make a careeer as an actor after this film, but as a pretty famous singer in Germany in the 90s and on and off again later (search for him on youtube, e.g. the recording "Bochum"). Many of the rest of the crew became well known actors in german television, some in international Films (like Jürgen Prochnow, the Captain). Since the film is a bit older, some of the actors died already, e.g. Klaus Wennemann (the chief) of lung cancer.

a great movie this one is. personally i like it how it shows not all the axis soldiers were mindless murderers. just people who were put under arms like anyone else in the world.

Mike, you got my like and subscribe for not just being a military person but for being so understandable about the subs and navy in general. I was a tanker and im not in a NATO country but i respect a professional when I see one. Stay safe!

This movie is one of the best anti warmovies out there. No heroism, no propaganda, no happy ending...just suffering and dread with small moments of joy which will vanish in an instant. The book is also something I would suggest to give a shot. Also there is a 6 hours cut of the movie that was made for TV which expands the story a lot For a Number 3 of movies from the german perspective I would suggest "Stalingrad" from 1993

The author of the novel, Lothar G Buchheim, was a reporter on a submarine, like Lieutenant Werner, and has incorporated his experiences and those of other reporters into the novel.

I think it's just a movie about the realities of war. No matter which side you're on, the governments have thrown you into the most horrific situation and you are fighting for your and your comrades survival. Also it being a german film and german guilt that they have, they wouldn't make a film where it's at all a glorious ending for them. Great review dude! Enjoyable!

This film is an absolute masterpiece and my personal favorite film. Unfortunately, it came away empty-handed at the 1983 Academy Awards, although it was nominated in six categories (including Best Director and Best Cinematography). These awards went to a "small, insignificant" film called *Gandhi* (eight Oscars). btw: *SailorVince* has also reacted to *Das Boot,* in which he examines how realistic the movie is. The title of his video: *Real navigation officer reacts to Das Boot*

I liked your reactions and insights very much! The special effects were ahead of its time especially for a film made in Germany. The boat was reconstructed on land 1:1, I was in it in the 90´s and it felt very claustrophobic, with many hard edges you can bump into. Buchheim the autor of the book said the behavior in real life was more disciplined than described in the movie. Greetings from Germany!

You have a point when it comes to general pacing of movies in the last 40 years. However in this one, the director's cut that came out in '90 added an hour of non-action scenes. It was in order to make us understand just how mind numbingly boring the sub life is in between the fights.

The lesson I got from this film is this: in a war, it doesn't matter how strong, brave or smart you are. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you won't make it home.

look for the 6 hour version, it has more character shots and doesnt feel so rushed.

The lack of understanding of the machinist loosing it comes from that not much research had been made to bring a foundation for understanding. PTSD, loosing nerve, etc was just evidence of weakness. That went for all countries.

Fun fact: The original submarine set of the movie still exists and you can take part in a scripted "submarine"-LARP that playes on the set. It´s an "alternate history"-LARp, so it doesn´t take place during Nazi Germany.

i think its like with fighter pilots they talk about downing aircraft not killing the pilot, so its probably easier to just think of the ship and not the people on board

One of the best Warfilms and Submarine Films ever

That blonde guy watching them is a famous german singer ( at least famous in Germany) Herbert Grönemeyer

I believe that those bays shown are the actual German Submarine Pens at La Pallice, not far from La Rochelle. They were used because the La Rochelle pens had too much "new " building around them, but both sets are still in surprisingly good condition because of how well they were built.

I was lucky enough to visit the u-boat bunker in La Pallice when I was a child. The end is not quite realistic: The huge concrete building on the starboard side of the open lock was the lock bunker: when getting into the harbour basin, the boats were in this bunker to protect them against air raids. The tide has an amplitude of five to six meters, there, which means getting through the lock could take quite some time, so that this was a very vulnerable situation. The main bunker has a concrete roof 6 m thick, and there are several huge pieces missing where some large bombs had hit it. It is so large that no one ever bothered to demolish it after the war. The bunker has been used by the French navy since the war ended. We visited in the 80s, with my parents and my uncle and his family, and some friends: six adults, six children, and strolled into the open doors of what was very much an active French naval base. A slightly annoyed French officer stopped us eventually when we were already 50 m into the bunker. He was then nice enough to show us the bay where the last scenes had been filmed. That's almost 40 years ago, and I still remember it quite clearly.

Hydrophones 'passive sonar' as shown here is the main sonar used on modern submarines, active sonar originally called asdic used by one of the British destroyers, while fitted to all modern submarines is rarely used as while it will give a precise position of your enemy, it also exposes your own position.

Great reaction to a great film. Thank you. Das Boot is an experience not entertainment. That's what makes it so great. All the best.

The original cut of it as a tv serial is the best version.

Stalingrad from 1993 is also a great german movie

During WW2 the average type vIIC Uboat carried about 45-50 crew. It might interest you to know those enclosed uboat hangars were built by the germans during ww2 to protect their boats from the RAF dropping bombs; those concrete submarine pens exist to this day, used by the french navy now. A ships asdic [radar] lost the signal when directly over the submarine until the allies transitioned to 'the hedgehog' from depth charges. A ship uses asdic to drop its charges over the submarine, contrary a ship can use its hedgehog to launch it's charges.

Whenever I watch the film, and even in the clips shown here, it amazes me how you feel like you are in the scene with the crew. I can't remember another film doing it so well.

Das Boot is an absolutely stunning piece of work. Maybe the best war film ever made. It’s great to see someone with military knowledge and experience share their reaction to it. Bravo, sir.

5:42 Sailors! 16:44 French resistance would have killed her for go out with a German. 19:02 In another Submarine movie "The Widowmaker", the sailors were only allowed to Shower once a week and that was a Nuclear powered Submarine in the 1960's. So these guys must only do what the Americans call a "Spit Bath" ie use a fannel to was the face, then the hands, the arms, arm pits, chest, grion and last the "crack of the ar*e" . This type of thing is still used by Special Forces to this day, out in the "field" to maintain good personal hygiene.

Remember, for mariners sea is their ultimate enemy. That is unwritten rule. They might fight aganist each other but all remember that. So, leaving those men is kinda aganist that rule. When under attack convoy ships had strict orders to to not stop to rescue them as it would make them siting ducks for torpedoes etc. Escorts too. Sometimes there were rescue, hospital ships to gather them , if not... Tough luck. Being merchant mariner there was not a safe job too. And sub had no space for more men. Sometimes they took oficers as POW, but raely. Anyway wad is hell.

Thank you, for this reaction glad you enjoyed it. Didn't realised i dont follow you so i just changed that. Keep it up

the uboat pens in france are still standing

19:01 "We saw their bathroom, but where did they shower?". Answer: in the bathroom or the ocean. Welcome to a WW2 sub! :D

This is one of my all-time favourites. If you're thirsty for more one day, give the mini series version of this a try. Not much more combat, but lots of extra subtext and character stuff. For example, after the Lieutenant gets the oilrag in the face and runs off, they all have a good laugh about it. The "angry" Chief Bosun included. Just to underline what an outsider he is at the beginning. Bullying the christian crewman. The Chief Engineer's wife's sickness etc. You get to know the crew a lot better.

"What's the punishment if the Partisans find out she's pregnant?" Because the father was a German soldier, the French resistance would kill her for being a "collaberator" - and most likely kill the baby as well. When they fired at the tanker the second time: the captain presumed that the crew would have been evacuated, since the ship was burning. The U-boat doesn't have room for prisoners, thus the captain backed away from the survivors. The reason for going ahead and sinking it is two-fold: 1. To prevent "friendly" ships from colliding with it while its adrift, and 2. To help to conceal their wherabouts. Another "fun fact": during Hitler's reign, during any formal get togethers on German soil, the first toast was supposed to be to Hitler. If not on German soil, this was not a requirement. Oh, the reason for the great camera work: the Steady Cam rig was invented for this film.

I too was never drunk while in uniform but then again my platoon and i were 98% of the time behind enemy lines in combat, no time for Alcohol, having fought during the Angolan war in 1986, also i am of German origin and one of my great uncles served on U-boats and was one of those that never came home his boat was sunk in the north Atlantic in 1944. Both Grandfathers came back luckily one only in 1949 after having been in a Russian gulag the other was a fighter pilot fighting on all fronts other than the Eastern front.

My great-uncle was a sailor on a U-Boat in WW2. Sadly he never came back, as so many other U-Boat crewmen, even when of course he was fighting for the wrong side.

Last time I saw this movie was when my dad was still alive. He passed in 1993, so it's been a long time for me. Was interesting seeing this one again (even if it was through your channel). Still a good movie

34:16 This scene was filmed in a huge water basin. The actor was thrown from the command tower and broke two ribs when he hit the railing. The interior of a Type VII submarine was recreated for filming. Because the actors were more or less locked in this 1:1 replica for several weeks, the pimples, bumps, and pale skin color ended up being real.

“I like to plug up the tub during my shower and pretend I’m in a submarine that’s been hit.” - Steven Wright

Steven Spielberg borrowed their full scale surface mock-up sub for _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ during the period when they were filming all the interior parts. After they got it back from him, the back third broke off, and Peterson jokes about Spielberg loosening some of the bolts holding it together. That’s why you only see the front two thirds of the sub when it arrives at port at the end.

Just a bit of movie-making trivia. The way the movie was shot was partly inspired by Italo western movies, especially classics directed by Sergio Leone. It shows in the wide-angle shots, although there were only a few of them (when the U-Boat was on the surface), the use of silence and letting the sound effects carry the atmosphere, and the close-ups of faces. For many actors, this movie was their first big role that got their names out there and started their careers. Similar to Leone movies, the casting focus wasn't on popular names and faces, with a few exceptions. But faces with strong, individual characteristics, the more expressive, the better. The pacing choices are also closer to classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, with long stretches of nothing really happening to get the point of the situation across (and again, having those remarkable faces to deliver the contrast between strong emotions like excitement or terror and the dullness of boredom filled the scenes), instead of going with pacing choices that were typical for war and/or action movies in the 80s. It's a shame that so many movie makers these days are afraid of the power of silence and faces that aren't considered conventionally attractive. All that said, there's a pretty good making-of documentary of the movie, "Behind the Scences - The Story of Cult Films: Das Boot" (title of the vid on yt), it also comes with subtitles. aside from being really interesting, I find the "Oh, we almost died this way, that way, and there were broken bones, it was cold, ah, good times, glad I could be a part of it" attitude of the actors charming.

The compassion comes from the ship no longer being a threat. It's like shooting at a parachute. Unacceptable. Even in war. It's a question of honour. Google for the names Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown (a B17 named Ye Olde Pub). Same story. The swedish band Sabaton (they teach history through music; especially WW I and WW II) made an animated music video painting the story. The title of the song is "No bullets fly".