Real navigation officer reacts to Das Boot
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- I am always scared of ships that tend to sink. But I am willing to go pass that to give a professional review of the movie Das Boot. This movie is actually older than I am, but have constantly been praised as one of the greatness movie ever made, even to this. We will see however if it is also a realistic movie.
Das Boot is a 1981 West German war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann. It has been exhibited both as a theatrical release and a TV miniseries (1985). There are also several different home video versions of various running times, as well as a director's cut supervised by Petersen in 1997.
An adaptation of Lothar-Günther Buchheim's 1973 German novel of the same name based on his experiences aboard German submarine U-96, the film is set during World War II and follows U-96 and its crew, as they set out on a hazardous patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic. It depicts both the excitement of battle and the tedium of the fruitless hunt, and shows the men serving aboard U-boats as ordinary individuals with a desire to do their best for their comrades and their country.
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".
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A little bit about myself: I used to work as a navigation officer for the Canadian Coast Guard fleet for more than four years. I also did my training at the Coast Guard College in Cape Breton. I took part on multiple operations around the country, including the Arctic. Nowadays, I enjoy a comfortable life on shore. I still work for the Coast Guard, but from the office. A drastic change in my everyday life, but it gave me the opportunity to do youtube videos like this one.
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0:00 - Intro
0:36 - Bosun’s first impression
1:27 - Unprofessional vs Incompetent
2:21 - initiation
3:27 - Wild officers parties
4:08 - Busy shipyard
5:28 - loading food supplies
6:06 - tight space onboard
07:14 - not enough bed
09:12 - boat drill
10:16 - French pronunciation
10:54 - officers are not patriotic
12:39 - chart work
14:50 - Too far away
15:29 - Real Boredom
16:18 - Periods of rush and periods of waiting
17:23 - instruments in bad weather
19:15 - log book
20:01 - creaks
21:15 - Stupid show
21:55 - Sea sickness
23:16 - Interactions onboard
23:47 - Man overboard
24:47 - Morse code
25:50 - Calculate your position
27:54 - Fire onboard
28:53 - Good movie
29:13 - Unstable crewmember
30:30 - Abandoning ship
31:56 - How a ship sinks
32:19 - When are we going home?
33:47 - Change of plans
35:19 - Astronavigation
36:07 - Ranks on the uniform
37:23 - change of plans, again
38:13 - Navigation lights
39:14 - The plan fails
40:59 - Taking water
41:33 - Sleeping nest to the engines.
42:16 - medical evacuation
43:02 - conclusion
My Grandfather served on U-181 under captain Freiwald, he was 2nd Radio mate. Before he passed away 1991 he told me several times that subs are hell and this movie is a 99% accurate.
AKA DER FUNKER, great post to be stationed at I'd bet.
Did they went to Singapore?
@@darthkade83 Jakarta, ;Malaysia and Singapore,after several diesel engine failures, u 181 was given to the IJN afterwards. lucky for my GPops he went was never subject to imprisonment, after he came home he got instant a job and could provide for his family
thanks a lot for your comment.
i was looking for ex uboat sailer comment about this moovie on internet but i found none👍👍
i once read that the party at the beginning wasn't accurate. They would never party like that before they went on a trip. They were a lot calmer
The scene where the chief engineer has a nervous breakdown always brings me to tears. He's one of the captain's oldest friends on board, has been through hell with him and never even flinched under stress, and then breaks in the worst possible moment. I don't know if you missed it, but that moment when the captain retreated quickly to his quaters, he got his pistol to shoot the engineer before he could open the hatch (which was possible and in this situation would immediately sunk the submarine). The horror in his eyes is breathtaking, you immediately know he would have shot his friend but he also realized that he had to in order to safe the ship and crew. It's just so incredibly HUMAN, and relatable, which makes this movie so amazingly good.
You said that this movie has no right to be so good whilst being so old, but I would offer another perspective: newer movies have no right to be so bad in comparison to movies like this.
Yup, that is a good perspective indeed!
No, it was not possible that he could open the hatch, thats physicaly impossible.
@@wolf310ii You're probably right, I was most certainly misremembering something here. I have to check the book (the movie does not mention the details) but there's definately something a paniked sailor might do or damage in the tower that will be fatal to the crew and sink the ship.
@@EvilGrin In the engine room he could do much worse, there are the air intake valves.
Its not that a paniked crewmember could damage or sink the boat, its that paniked crewmember makes noise and give away the position of the boat, or do other irrational things, for wich the crew has no time to deal with while hunted by a destoyer.
An u-boat has to react fast on every move the destroyer makes, to avoid getting hit by depth charges. Hydrophon operator, captain, helmsman and machinists have to concentrate on their jobs and dont need distraction from a man going crazy.
You cannot open the hatch even a meter under water, due to pressure. And he was the chief machinist, not chief engineer, a technical carreer NCO. There is a professional distance between skipper and him, when he comes to apologize.
As a German native I find it quite interesting how much freedom they took with the translation in the subtitles. It's gonna be giving you roughly the right idea, but it's full of inaccuracies. Early on when the new guy complained about harassment the captain actually said "they peed on you", not "they initiated you". Later they talk about the masks being useful when Frensen farts, nothing about his feet at all. And that's just two of the more blatant examples.
There's actually an english dubbed version of das Boot. Having seen the German original a million times, I can say it's actually quite good. The subtitles though, yeah, that's quite sloppy executed I would say.
@@florianfeith I don't think it's necessarily sloppy. They don't just have to translate the words into another language, but have to also translate what those words actually mean. Imagine if somebody translated "Schweinehund" to "Pigdog" instead of something like "Bastard". I'm a native German and English speaker, and I agree that the translation took many liberties. However, I think it is absolutely justified to do so. For the most part, I noticed that the translation wasn't accurate, and thought that the translation still gets the point across fairly well, and possibly more so than a literal translation would have.
One thing I didn't like was that they translated Kaleun (which is short for Kapitänleutnant) to Captain. They actually got his rank wrong. Unless there's some weird navy stuff going on that I'm unaware of, which is entirely possible.
ive seen das boot over many different platforms and this is the only one where such inaccuracies are present, all the subtitles ive seen have had your version of it
@@florianfeith the blue ray directors cut has most of the OG cast speaking English too. Unlike the older English versions
There are at least two completely different sets of English subtitles for Das Boot that I've seen, in various versions of the film in circulation. One set is *considerably* more accurate than the other; which is so badly written that it actually mistakes "Kaleun" for the captain's *name,* as opposed to a contraction of his rank, "Kapitan-Lieutnant," which wrecks one of the literary devices of the original story - we never find out the captain's name.
The guy dancing on the table with the singer...that's my older brother Markus, who studied classical ballet in Munich^^ He also danced the banana dance (I think it's only in the 6-hour version of "Das Boot"). But later Peterson decided to cut it out and have a crew actor do it again. He really wanted everyone on the boat to be an actor and not extras (as far as I know).
I think it's the best german movie ever. Das Boot was nominated for 6 Oscars in 1983, including Best Director, Cinematography and Screenplay. The soundtrack from Klaus Doldinger was a absolut Bestseller in germany.
The Boat was filmed based on the book by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Buchheim was in real life the military reporter shown in the film. There is also a making of the film on CZcams, in which you can see that director Petersen was advised by a U-boat commander from WW II. Various other former U-boat crew members were also on the set for special consultations with the actors. And of course Buchheim was on location at one point!
The submarine bunker shown at the beginning is an original location. It was a German bunker on the French coast in occupied France, and is now a protected monument.
Not only that, but the consultant for "Das Boot" was actually the real captain of U96, the boat the movie revolves around. He survived the war.
Ho, so they did have really good sources. Nice to know.
The captain in the movie was Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock. He was one of the most decorated naval officers of all time. Afters his injuries, h was promoted to naval HQ and assisted to build a new fleet in Norway.
Buchheim (Lt. Werner) wrote a trilogy about his adventures with Lehmann-Willenrock 1. Das Boot / The Boat set in 1941 / 1942
2. Die Festung / the fortress, set in 1944 when the met in Norway and 3. Der Abschied / Farewell, set in the 1960s when Buchheim was an honored guest on the last voyage of Lehmann-Wilenbrock, before retirement. This time on a civilian research vessel called "Otto Hahn" germanys one and only ever, nuclear powerd ship.
A little fact: U 96 was repaired and served through the war. It was sunk just a few weeks before the war ended. U 96 was a Type VII boat, over 700 units were build. only ONE survived. U 995, the old lady was kept and used by the norwegian navy until 1965. When norway finaly gave U995 back, the "Germany naval association / Deutscher Marine Bund" got hold of the sub and started to restorate it, in a condition that would fit 1945. Since 1971 she is a museum in Laboe Germany.
@@sailorvince6442 hard to come by. As the movie opens, of 40000 submariners, 30000 did not return. That novel was a jewel of post ww2 memorial, the only english language thing coming close was the Caine Mutiny by Wouk.
The submarine scenes were actually in a set that was on hydraulic jacks. I can't remember if they were cutaways or not so that they could film but I know it was very difficult filming this movie. Where you see the sub getting tossed about, it really was. They came to Chicago where there is a type 7c submarine in a museum and took extensive pictures and measurements to build the set. I believe the submarine in Chicago is the only one in the world.
The man overboard scene in Das boot is there because of an accident on the conning tower set. One of the actors was actually washed off the conning tower set for real by the wave machine and eveyone else was so in character they actually yelled Man overboard instinctively. They rewrote the injured actor's part in the movie and added shots of the man getting rescued from the AA mount and carried bellow.
Not just 'one of the actors' but Jan Fedder
@@briandaugherty3589 I heard this story too when I was at the Bavaria Studios in Munich to see the real film set.
He was actually injured on the set and had one ore multiple ribs broken. The director shouted "don´t stop rolling cameras!`" and the scene made it into the final cut becaause it won´t get any more authentic, will it?
I remember the Actors saying they were always wet with the endless water been throw at them .Great movie one of the best ever. They did a remake of this story a few years back . But I doubt it was as good yes the late Jan Fender who died of Cancer only a few years back is a very highly respected actor on German TV ,the other odd one out is the music star Herbert Grönemeyer who is a big music star in Germany .but they put together a good caste . The Director turned down Hollywood to make the film because he said they would never make it correctly .
@@briandaugherty3589 one of the greatest actors ever
40:25 of course, the captain knows, this is a 95% suicide mission. Look at him, it‘s him telling a heroic story not for us, but for his crew. It‘s a method of keeping up motivation.
In the 3.5 hour version, Werner and another officer talk about exactly that. The Kaleun wanted Werner and the LI off the boat in Vigo, because he knew that it was a suicide mission. The LI's wife was gravely ill, and Werner wasn't part of the actual crew, so he wanted at least those two to survive. This is while they are stranded under water on a sandbank at Gibraltar. I'm not sure if this was cut out of the shorter versions of the movie, and I'm not sure if Vince watched a version without it. I was surprised that it didn't show up in this review, because the oxygen issue was actually foreshadowed in the beginning.
@@OWnIshiiTrolling At the time of that attempt, Werner (well, Buchheim) and the Kaleun were kind of good friends anyway (not _really,_ a good bit too suspicious of each other due to how everyone "higher up" had to watch what they said or risk being imprisoned or worse), so my guess is that played _some_ role in trying to get Werner/Buchheim off the boat. But yeah, getting the LI off due to his sick wife gave him the opportunity for that. Kind of good that it failed... I very much doubt they'd have made it back out of Gibraltar without the LI...
@@Wolf-ln1ml That was the KaLeu´s predicament: He knew and liked the LI from I think, 3 earlier tours, and they were close because they were a couple of years older than all other crew members. And he knew it was the best engineer he ever had. If anyone could keep the boat together with sheer power of will and a ball of wire, it would be the LI. And it would be a close call anyway. So. Keep him to have a better chance, or save him for his wife, and maybe on the off chance of surviving Gibraltar, sail again with him later? It´s tricky.
Btw, it´s hinted the freighter captain might have ratted on them
The scene represent other story. It means in reality that the enemy have the decoding enigma machine and where at that time capable of doing intel to chase the subs. Very subtle in the movie.
They also had radar on reconnaissance planes, a thing the germans didn´t even think was possible at the time, because they didn´t know about the magnetron. Hence the plane breaking from the clouds and immediately strafing them, which the crew discusses was either a miracle or unbelievably lucky. they had no idea they had been spotted on radar.@@exmonarcagoodbye3296
I had a neighbor who had served on one of these submarines. When the series aired, he got flashbacks and was completely drunk. He bawled so loudly that you could hear it in the whole neighborhood. He was a friendly guy and he always greeted all acquaintances and neighbors with "Alle Mann an Deck", a naval order to inspect the entire crew on the upper deck. He died in the nineties.
The German U-boat fleet suffered extremely heavy casualties, losing 793 U-boats and about 28,000 submariners (a 75% casualty rate, the highest of all German forces during the war). I understand why they were partying like thay do in the opening scene.
The only thing that rankles me is the "translation" of the song. The song is "Hamboorger Jung" and they translated it to a Girl that drinks beer?
@@sakkra83 if you look at hamburg youths today it would be kind of fitting. and i'm also talking about the males
i have to say that all submariners were volunteers. all were heroes.
@@sakkra83 yeah, some translation kinda weird. at 2:52 it says "initiated" but in the original he says "they pissed on you" 😄
After seeing the (extended & highly recommended) TV-miniseries (6 episodes), it dawned on me that the wild party is actually an almost classical exposition of the drama, and also both the whole movie as well as the general situation of the U-fleet in a nutshell: We are introduced to a lot of important characters, learn about their disposition and background (e.g. the L.I is the oldest crew member, and worried about his wife, who is sick and whom he can´t reach in bomb-stricken Hamburg. Phillip Thomsen is at the verge of a nervous breakdown. 1W.O. is a party nazi, 2-W.O. doesn´t give a darn about anything, but is a capable sailoretc...), and everyone is surrounded by screeming chaos, raving insanity, suffering and molested civilians and general devastation that is getting worse by the minute.
The general situation is: Screwed. Loss rates are 66-75%, the war is going badly, everything is going south fast, they are lacking supplies and are sent basically school kids as replacement, everyone knows it, and most, but not all (adding to everyone´s tension) are thoroughly disillusioned about High command (Thomsen´s drunken adress to receiving the knight´s cross is a masterpiece in the original german text), and generally everyone is just about losing it, except they somehow cling to the edge and pull themselves together to do their job (in vain, and they know), if duty calls.
Also keep in mind that german troops had a really really bad reputation as occupiers in France, thanks to their arrogant and frivolous behaviour, and debauchery on looted commodities in plain sight of subdued locals was not unheard of.
So, although wildly exaggerated in a historical sense, the scene works brilliantly as an introduction to the drama that is unfolding in the following 4,5h.
I would actually believe that someone could be mopping the floor under a crane loading a torpedo. It was set in 1940s, in a submarine base, during the freaking World War II. I think that health and safety regulations would be the least of their worries.
soldiers back in 1940´s: Health and safety? didint hear those words since ever
If you had something like Petrol on a Ships Deck,thats a risk of an accident too and its needed to clean immediately.
The Danger ist more if one Torpedo get to explode,thats
an more realistic Reason to keep it Safe.
Nope its atleast 1941.
@@kallejodelbauer2955 Those torpedoes had a safety as well. They could not explode by falling down. The petrol was no problem either as it was and is diesel that is very resistant to ignition. Diesel is neither highly flammable nor flammable.... it's just combustible and considered flameproof at normal temperature conditions. At least we chemists consider it that way... 😉
That's the reason even today most military vehicles use diesel and no petrol. It's just safer, especially in conditions/jobs where other people will shoot at you.
There were still cars without safety belts driving around and toy kits with which you can build your own explosives...in the 1980s. Even without a war and a fatalistic mind set there were no real regulations for that. You did stupid thing, you got yourself injured, that's on you. No one sued you for it.
My father served on diesel boats in the USN from '46-'48. He watched Das Boot many years ago and said it was the closest thing to what it was like serving on subs. He remembered the noise, the battery acid, the smell, the oily plastic mattresses. He laughed when watching the comforts of today's nuke subs.
In fact it was said that some sailors who severed in diesel submarines during WW2 has PTSD JUST FROM WATCHING "das Boot".
what you mentioned at 5:45 about crane operations, ive seen plenty of photos of torpedo loadings in ww2 where crew are all over it. sometimes it just isnt possible to compare modern navy standards of safety with that of WW2
Yeah, what annoys me the most about this video is the constant "hurr durr muh safety standards". Its a submarine in WW2, doesnt really surprise me there are not safety measures present.
@@yourfriendlyneighborhoodf1802 plus, its war time
The making of das Boot: czcams.com/video/olR9l4I3xO0/video.html
I am not perfect in english, did he say something to the fact, that running in front in a WWII u-boot making sense, or was used in these time, to get quick down.
Yeah, I agree. War time safety standards were different.
the "life jacket" in the safety tour wasn't actually a life jacket, but a so-called tauchretter -basically emergency air supply to escape the sub in a pinch. Which is rather useless if the whole tin can you're in is getting crushed by water pressure. Which is why they were making jokes about it.
Yeah, the Dräger Tauchretter was basically an emergency escape SCUBA bottle for very short escapes from very shallow depths. It had enough air for a few minutes of shallow diving, just enough to get you to the surface. Mind you, at that time no-one cared about safe decompression or such things. You wanted to survive from a capsized sub starting to flood, you didn't give a shit about the bends or other such nonsense. You took any chance, and the Tauchretter, the 'dive rescuer' was just that. It was the choice between 100% certain death to only a fair chance of death. Guess which you picked.
@@RustyDust101 You would not be deep enough long enough to get nitrogen saturation. Even at 40 meters depth you have 2 minutes before you need to decompress. Not only that if you have any practice at all ascending from 20m on a single breath is quite easy. In fact it's a basic requirement from 18m for just a PADI open water certificate. 30 meters is doable without too much trouble if you have any kind of flotation.
It is probaby used in case you need to put out fire and stuff like that. I doubt it was meant to escape sub in a pinch since as you put it is waste of space if that was its only intended use.
@@MarkoLomovic you are both correct. The Tauchretter was used in every situation, with low oxygen supply. Fires, being forced to stay submerged for way too long and escaping from the submerged submarine.
@@theindustrialrevolution5623 Yeah that makes a lot more sense.
40:40 the straight of Gibraltar has pretty strong currents actually, on the surface towards the Mediterranean and in the deep in the opposite direction towards the Atlantic, due to differences in salinity and temperature between the two bodies of water.
According to Wikipeda: "During the Second World War, German Uboats used the currents to pass into the Mediterranean Sea without detection, by maintaining silence with engines off.
From September 1941 to May 1944 Germany managed to send 62 U-boats
into the Mediterranean. All these boats had to navigate the
British-controlled Strait of Gibraltar where nine U-boats were sunk
while attempting passage and 10 more had to break off their run due to
damage. No U-boats ever made it back into the Atlantic and all were
either sunk in battle or scuttled by their own crews."
Right... a bernoulli effect! Because the straight is way narrower than the rest of the waters it's opening to
Many of the shots were the whole sub is seen were filmed near the german island of Helgoland. The problem while shooting was that Helgoland is home to many many seabirds like some quite big seagulls and northern gannets. Those birds often saw the model-submarine that was used to shoot the outdoor scenes, 5,5 meteres long, as a convenient swimming landingspot. Fighting off those pesci birds became a big task. Otherwise the movie would be called ``Attack of the Killer Seagulls´´ instead of ``Das Boot´´.
Greetings Vince
Allow me to make a few comments on your statements.
The source for the film was the book by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, who was also a consultant at the film set.
In the book, author Buchheim processes his personal experiences as a war reporter and describes the situations of the submarine crew with great precision. The novel was published in 1973. It took Buchheim over 25 years until he was mentally able to review his diary entries and writings from 1941 and begin writing the novel.
The novel is mainly based on the experiences that Buchheim gained on two military missions.
My grandfather explained to me the drunken sailors at the beginning, that's fear when you have a 75% chance of dying on the next voyage, but if you refuse, you'll be court-martialed. That's why you pee and hope that the officer puts you in the hole for a while. Prison is always better than dying.
One editional comment ;) You mentioned the scene with the sinking ship and noone helping the crew. In the 5.5hour version the captain explains that he couldnt take them, because he couldnt feed them. A true point, a shows how important rescure ships are even during the war. Also a little detail, when they set the torpedo, the captain says 650meters. Later he wrote 950meters. Thats a way of protection, because he can claim (if captured) that he could not find the survivors in the water, at night and about 1km away. However about one year later, in 1942 another U-Boot commander couldnt do this. After sinking the "SS Laconia" he surfaced and took the liferafts in tow. He called the allied fleet on an international frequency and said he was coming towards them, with many survivors in liferafts. He painted a red cross to his boat and was ready to surrender... However in one of the most outrages moments in history, the US navy, not for one moment, took his call seriously and went like "Thats a stupid trap, sink them"
So help never came, instead Bombers came, the boat had to dive and the lifrafts were bombed. After that day. Germany naval command gave the so called "Laconia order" saying "No german ship is allowed to take liferafts or survivors as long as the war lasts"
Also convoys didn't stop for a damaged ship or men overboard, it would endanger the rest of the convoy. The just keep going.
@@23rdFoot But some (many?) convoys had a dedicated "rescue-ship" which was tasked with picking up survivors.
@@EllenbergW only later in the war. Up untill 1943 they were loosing ships faster then they were build. Any ship can haul supplies, or be equiped with depth charges. A crew was easier to replace....
The Laconia incident is interesting and very sad. It's interesting because it shows that the Nazi Navy and submariners were known to try and help survivors. Even after the Laconia Order came out several Nazi Submarine captains broke from the order and aided survivors. Whereas the US practiced unrestricted submarine warfare (there version of the Laconia Order) since entering the war.
Now in the US defense there biggest Navy enemy wasn't the Germans but rather Imperial Japan and Imperial Japan was KNOWN for their barbaric and brutal treatment of prisoners. Hell Imperial Japan's official declaration of war came AFTER the attack on Pear Harbor, not to mention that Imperial Navy ships would take on prisoners solely to beat or personally behead them with swords (not even joking). So with that in mind the US's decision to simply not aid survivors of enemy ships looks reasonable compared to Imperial Japan.
Now regarding the Laconia Incident specifically, while it definitely could have been handle better it's not as crazy as it first comes across. Trojan horses and people pretending to be coming for aid, or be helpless only to attack a blind sighted enemy are common staples of war for as long as humans have been on earth. Captain Richardson the Third (the senior officer who made the call to attack the ship) claimed he didn't know a red cross operation was underway and at the time thought that international rules of war forbid warships from flying the Red Cross.
He believed the ships were only rescuing Italian POWs (ironically these POWs were on board the original ship the Laconia had sunk). In his tactical assessment, he believed that the submarine might discover and shell the secret Ascension airfield and fuel tanks, thus cutting off a critical Allied resupply air route to British forces in Egypt and Soviet forces in Russia.
Now obviously Richardson could have handled the situation much better but there is logic in what he did. And to end on a positive note. During the Nuremberg trials the prosecution tried to indict Dönitz for war crimes and giving the Laconia Order however Fleet Admiral Nimitz himself came to Dönitz's defense and stated the US Navy basically did the same thing during the war and it was crazy to charged this man for war crimes. This resulted in Dönitz not being sentenced to any crimes.
@@alexblake5369 "This resulted in Dönitz not being sentenced to any crimes."
Not completely true:
" He was found not guilty of committing crimes against humanity, but guilty of committing crimes against peace and war crimes against the laws of war. He was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment"
as a kid in the 80's this was the first time i got to see the German perspective of WW2 and the other side as real people not just the bad guy
That's one of the terrors of war. We're all people. Hitler and his folk made the the Jewish part of the population into something less than human and the opponents made each other into monsters. But it's all humans. Better to remember that and find a better solution than war.
i was actually thinking the same thing back then, and actually rooting for those guys. in the end, they are all just humans following orders.
that's what post-war allied propaganda did. poisoning the minds of young people with the ridiculous "all germans were evil" message
"Tora Tora Tora" is probably the first film that way.
But also, the German navy was the least Nazified branch of the military. In the end, they were more dedicated to eachother than to Hitler.
40:50 "I can’t believe how ballsy and realistic this movie is, to the point of breaking the movie rules on heroic plans."
"Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art." Claude Debussy
There is also an element of the Germans under nazi control not being allowed to "win" in such a movie.
That they were portrayed as humans doing the best they could under the circumstances was considered contraversial at least here in the UK at the time
@@dasy2k1 If you consider an attrition rate of close to 70%, it´s debatable if the crews felt like "winning" at the time...
You are correct to give it 10 out of 10 it is a masterpiece. I was a submariner and it is accurate. But also the cinematography is brilliant. Did you notice the bar sequence was all one shot. The dock maintenance was filmed with only one pen, that was movie magic to make it look like mutable pens and much more.
What sub did you serve on?
@@Baldwin-iv445 My first posting was Rankin than Waller and Dechaineux. I did operational reliefs(short postings) on the rest. Thanks for your question. The only other submarine movie worth a watch is the comedy Down Periscope. Its on the money in its own way.
@@craig147680 Never watched it. Which is weird since my dad loves showing me old time film's and television.
@@Baldwin-iv445 Watch it with your dad he will have a laugh. All the best.
@@craig147680 Wish I could. But unfortunately he passed away in 2021.
the actors, most of them are still on duty, are from all over Germany.
Uwe Ochsenknecht (the quartermaster) comes from Mannheim, wich is very close to Heidelberg
Ralf Richter and Herbert Grönemeyer (Lt. Werner) are from the Ruhr region
Jan Fedder (died a few years ago on cancer) was from Hamburg
Martin Semmelrogge is from Berlin
The machinist Johann is austrian, he was later in the Underworld vampire movie. The actors name is Erwin Leder
They all speak the typical dialect of their regions in that movie to show that the u-boot crews were from the whole country.
One remark: Martin Semmelrogge is from Baden-Württemberg, near Stuttgart. One of the places furthest from Berlin basically 😁 In character as zweiter Leutnant he speaks with a broad Bavarian accent that Berliner would have a hard time understanding even ^^
@@hardanheavy ja er ist im Schwabenland geboren, aber wenn das bayrisch statt berlinerisch sein soll ...
außerdem war sein Vater Berliner
And, of course, Herbert Grönemeyer composed the soundtrack, which in itself is worth listening to.
@@RikvanderSchalie No, that was Klaus Doldinger. Grönemeyer is world famous in Germany, but did not compose the music for this film.
@@hardanheavy he might be born in BaWü, but sorry... He's definately speaking the accent he's using all the time and that's berlinerisch^^
I felt like the subtitles were a bit off sometimes so i tried making them more literal:
2:55 "You were initiated" --> "you were peed on, weren't you"
8:15 "Or Frenssen's feet" --> "when Frenssen farts"
9:40 "Not bad, not bad" --> "april fools!"
16:45 "They're all ready for blast off" --> "so there will be more free space"
23:25 I can't really make out where "I think half the fleet have tried her" is supposed to go, one sailor in the background said "I thought he only masturbates"
24:48 he does not mention another submarine --> "350° straight ahead"
26:16 "That's not good enough" --> "what is that supposed to mean?" also the sun isn't directly mentioned but he uses a nautical term so it should be accurate (I dont understand anything about navigation though ^^), fitting translation overall
33:32 "When it's time for us to go back" --> "When I give the order"
34:45 not quite sure how to translate but he is angry. no talk about killing them though
38:30 audio might be cut off but there was no dialogue except the steering order
A lot of other minor stuff was changed but overall the rest is pretty fitting
Ho boy, that's really bad. This actually changes the context of some scenes. Thank you for letting me know.
The subtitles are awful. I get translating and subtitling somewhat freely to maintain coherency but here it seems like the translator/subtitler just decided they knew better than the script writers.
More examples:
6:14: "Means more room for eating, less for shitting. That's also a kind of logic, eh?"
Subtitles: "First, we have to think about eating, then the end product".
6:37: Character: "Here's the radio room".
Subtitles: "Here we have the radio and hydrophone shack. The eyes and ears of the boat".
Another character: "Just who we were missing"
Subtitles: "What a jerk"
10:59: "The poor guys in Berlin seem to still be busy with inventing new epithets for Churchill. What's he called now? Boozer. Drunkard".
Subtitles: "Our masters in Berlin spend all their time finding Churchill clever new nicknames. What's their latest creation? Drunken pig. Fat-ball".
13:34: "May I see the radio message, sir?"
Subtitles: "What's the signal position, sir?"
16:36: "Listen!" [Speaker:] "Boat [i.e. this submarine] is operating against the convoy U32 is in contact with".
Subtitles: "Shut up, listen!" [Speaker:] "U32 is operating against a convoy. We are joining in the hunt".
29:00: "Reinforcements".
Subtitles: "Damn them!"
34:25: "La Spezia. Lies in the Mediterranean, as is well known".
Subtitles: "La Spezia. That's an Italian naval base in the Mediterranean".
34:39: "Shit".
Subtitles: "Swine" (as if he's insulting the captain)
34:44: I think he says "Scheisskerle! Mann!" which in this context I'd translate as something along the lines of "Bastards! Fuck! [Literally: "Man!"]".
Subtitles: "I'd like to kill those...morons".
37:35: "You have to stay on board".
Subtitles: "There's no replacement".
39:32: "We'll move in when it's dark. Above water. In the middle of the enemy battle ships".
Subtitles: "We'll move in under darkness. Then surface. We'll see if we can slip through their cordon".
Edit: Meant to highlight the completely random additions in italics but CZcams just displayed actual underscores, so I removed them.
@@dariokupper471
5:34 :"Die Gefechtsstation, ..." // "The combat station, ..."
Translated as ... *drumroll* ... "Fish store"
/facepalm
The subtitles are propably based on an earlier script. Or they changed some lines while filming... they might have even improvised a little as actors do sometimes.
34:45 "Scheiß Dreckskerle! Mann!" best translation would be : "Fickung dickheads, god damnit."
The director of "Das Boot", Wolfgang Petersen, sadly passed away last Friday at the age of 81, from pancreatic cancer....
I think one of the best reviews for Das Boot comes from the UK press at the time
"Das Boot (The Boat) might well be the only film in which the British public may cheer for the Germans"
Regarding the ranks on the Uniform (37:21): German U-boats were commanded by either a "Korvettenkapitän" (three normal stripes), a "Kapitänleutnant" (two normal and one narrow stripe), or by an "Oberleutnant zur See" (two normal stripes). The latter is the rank of the officer in question, so it's fairly reasonable to assume that he might be the commanding officer.
During the introduction he is greeted as Kaleunt by the second officer.
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 I think it shows that the dudes on the ship are idiots. Possibly promoted for political reasons.
@@666wurm Well, I had not watched the timestamp yet, and my remark was off the mark, OP is right.
It shows mostly how submariners (of all nations) are a class apart
Idiots.... Yes and no... A bit more like how British officers don't duck under fire, and how during one engagement a British captain got hit by shrapnell, destroying his eyesocket and left his eye dangling on his cheek. He kept giving orders without his voice even changing. Only when another officer on the bridge noticed blood on himself and tried to see where he was hit did they find out. Holding on to rules, regulations and etiquette was a part of being this kind of special idiot: putting the cause above your own safety/ health.
@@666wurm The men on the supply ship were technically German Merchant Marine and their ship was interned in the port of Vigo, Spain, just north of the Portuguese boarder. As Spain was a neutral nation, warships which were caught in port usually had 1 to 3 days to leave or be interned. However cargo ships could be interned indefinitely...especially if in a port of a nation which was unofficially friendly with the nationality of the ship. The men on board were probably actually Kriegsmarine and the ship was probably deliberately ordered to go to Vigo at the onset of the war precisely so they could serve as a tender to U-Boats. They could obtain supplies from Spain. As you see in the film, the actual U-Boat had to sneak in during darkness because it was an actual combat vessel.
I think they always address him as "Herr Kaleu" which means "Herr Kapitänleutnant".
30:30 I remember being a kid watching this scene with my Grandfather, who had served in the merchant marine during WWII. He was fucking weeping during this. He was on three ships that were hit during the war. One left port without him and went down with all hands. He saw this kind of thing happen first hand on multiple occasions. This experience will always mark this film as the greatest war movie of all time for me for very personal reasons.
lucky he survived, the merchant marine boats were targeted above all else by subs
God bless him.
@@jamieevans3666 well... they were literally the reason for the submarines existence in ww2
It should be mentioned that the "old man" is only the "captain" of the boat in the sense that he is its commanding officer. And it is tradition to call him that. However he doesnt hold the military rank of capitain within the German navy. He is a lieutenant whose responsibilities are more akin to a lieutenant commander in the British or American navy. So you would not expect a captains jacket. And the guy he greeted as the "captain" had the same rank as his commanding officer. So a very understandable mistake.
depends... Kretschmann was a captain, as was Prien, Lüth or Topp. But yes, in the end meager Oberleutnants steered german subs as captains... but in that time one combat mission was the best one could hope for. Still, german submariners were ALLWAYS volunteers...
In this particular scene the captain of the provisions vessel mistakes the 1. WO for the captain because of the dress of course. Both the merchant captain and the 1. WO being pompous nazis, more than sailors or soldiers.
That's somewhat incorrect. His rank is Kapitänleutnant, which is the same rank as Lieutenant in both the US & Royal Navies. The rank still exist in the German Navy today, and it's a NATO OF-2 rank.
@@Nghilifa This is incorrect. The NATO ranks are:
Kapitänleutnant equals Captain/Lieutenant-Commander equals OF-2
Oberleutnant zur See equals 1st Lieutenant equals OF-1
Leutnant zur See equals Lieutenant equals OF-1 (as well)
I think the movie is as good as it is because it is from the 80's . Model making and practical effects at the top of their game. Real fire, real water. The weight is so much higher this way.
Imagine this movie, but then in CGI and green screen. Brrr
40:34 - I'd like to point out that a few German submarines did manage to slip through Gibraltar, doing exactly that. They never went back though, so it was a one-way trip, and they spent the rest of the war in the Mediterranean.
1 out of 10 made it and those who made mostly never came back and died before war ended.
The reason for that: separate water layers (Atlantic: cold/Mediterranean:warm). You're using the cold stream at the bottom to get into the Mediterranean Sea, but can't use the warm outward-streaming warm layer above to get out of it bc vessels and bombers are waiting for you there.
thank you that you pointed it out , it wasnt an heroic act , it was an act of desperation to fullfill stupid orders
The Mediterranean was an awful enviroment for submarines. A calm, clear sea made any attempts to evade attacks hell. In fact, not a single German submarine that fought in the Mediterranean survived the war. Whether scuttled by the crew due to damage taken or sunk by the enemy, not one was intact by the end of the war.
Yes, other crewmen of the submarine and the log confirm that.
Yes, the log survived, as the ship was actually in real life not sunk in an air raid, that part was fictious. But the plan to cross the Straight of Gibraltar that way was not at all fictious, and they really had to repair the ship under water.
Dude this movie is straight up higher art.
It is more of a suspension horror movie than a war movie.
You skipped over the the shot where the boat first encouters asdic --> ultra sonic.
The sheer horror of that moment alone is like fuck me imma be anywhere but this.
What a masterpiece
"so all of that was for nothing?"
that's exactly what the memory of World War 2 is from the German perspective.
There is a very good making of on CZcams called: "Das Boot Behind the Scenes".
I saw the six-part mini-series for the first time in the mid-80s. I was about 7-9 years old. I had nightmares at that time...
I watch the mini series every 1-2 years.
One of the best German films ever made.
Best submarine film ever.
And certainly one of the best anti-war movies in the world.
23:53 yes, this film is REALLY realistic. In fact, so much so that the actors were actualy several time in SERIOUS danger. For this scene for example, they had a set that involved the konig tower... and a slides where they poured TONS of water down to simulate waves come crashing on the actors... BUT during this scene, the actor ACTUALY got swept away by the wave, and broke several ribs. it was a very stressfull film to make and you can see that in several scenes.
Also, you mentioned that the acting was incredible... fun fact, most of the guys in that film were NOT actualy actors. The first roles like the captain and such WERE, mostly from theatre and B movies, but all of the extras were just random people that were cast all over Germany, because the director wanted to create a sense of "this crew is made up of conscript coming from everywhere, with their accents and such" and so the ywere given a LOT of independance as to how to play their roles.
Well... I'll be damned, this is truly impressive.
@@sailorvince6442 Another funfact - the movie was shot PRIMARILY in chronological order so that the hair and beard growth would line up properly. And the actors were ordered to avoid daylight for weeks as to get properly pale for a submarine crew.
Also due to the noise on the set the actors had to redub themselves since the set audio couldn't be used. Most - if not all - actors also dubbed themselves in english.
@@patrickkaleja9581 Herbert Grönemeyer played Leutnant Werner (the war corrospondent and main protagonist of the movie, next to the captain). However, he was not the one who got swept overboard.
The actor that got swept overboard and broke his rips was Jan Fedder. Well-known actor from Hamburg and a local icon in Hamburg. He sadly died quite young, in his mid-sixties, exactly two years ago, to the day.
Yeah if i remember correctly most of the actors said they had a horrible time filming this movie and came out of the project dirty and kinda depressed
Hi, I'm a German.
First of all: Thank you for reacting to Das Boot. You are only the second reaction channel who did that on CZcams. The most channels are reviewing Das Boot. But reactions are rare. Like I've said: With your reaction included there are only TWO reactions on CZcams for this all time classic movie. Somehow weird, that nobody's reacting to it.
I'm only in for five minutes, but I can already say, that the subtitles are VERY sanitized and pretty inaccurate.
Only one example out of many right after five minutes: The 1.WO at the beginning, who complained about being "initiated"...didn't complained about being "initiated". The Kaleu said to him "Now out with the truth: You were p***sed on. I know. Happened to me, too".
Again only one of many weird translation choices later on: When they crew received the news about the first convoi via intercom, the subtitles for the crewman at the end said: "The torpedoes are ready for a blast off" or something like that. In reality he said "We will blow them (the torpedoes) all out to make finally more space in here (for us)".
What makes much more sense than the English subtitles. God knows, why they've translated it time and time again in that lame and weird manner.
But you were right to use the original German language with subtitles, because the English dubbed version is absolutely terribe, despite it was made with the original voices of the actors.
PS: I'm now 20 minutes in.
Without wanting criticising too much: You are making time and time again the mistake to compare your peace time duty in a democracy on a surface ship with the submarine service of the Third Reich in war times.
A debauchery (at the beginning) in a time, where more and more U-boats didn't return and one could be dead the next day...isn't the same debauchery like one has in peace times on a modern surface ship, for example.
The Kriegsmarine had even extra big houses or even little castles confiscated in France to give the stressed out submariners places for nearly unrestricted debauchery to give them a chance to get the pressure out of their systems.
You can't compare a political discussion at an officers table in a Third Reich U-Boot during war time and with possible informers and fanatics at the same table...with an officers conversation in peace times on a modern US-ship.
But I don't want to complain too much. All in all this was a decent reaction. Thumbs up! :)
My recommendation for a reaction:
Stalingrad (1993)
Greetings
Mega
Yeah, some other people mentioned the poor translation, which is a shame because this actually changes the context of some scenes.
And you are right, their context in this movie was completely different than the one I experienced. Which is why I tried to put the emphasis on '' I have never seen it''. It doesn't mean it didn't happened ;)
Thank you very much by the way
@@sailorvince6442
:-)
@@sailorvince6442
Yes they use lots of slang / colloquial speech in the movie which is often translated in very simple English.
And in the scene with pissing on the officer.
In the 3 part TV cut you can actually see it, they are pissing on the car when it passes and the captain calls it "water wagon".
That is surprisingly exactly what I wanted to say, thanks for doing the work for me^^
@@healthtrooper
:-)
My deepest respect for those still on patrol.
Greetings from Brazil.
My maternal Grandfather served as a submariner in the PTO during World War War II and he could relate to this movie on subs operated in those days. In the US Navy, even in those days, the pay was better and so was the food considering what little luxuries you had on those old subs.
This along side the Enemy Below and Hunt for Red October made up probably 40-60% of the movies I watched as a kid. Great to see someone react to it.
That movie was definitely worth it.
In a way, the old movie had an easier time to be that good: many of the real submariners were still around. And it's based on a book written by the real-life Leutnant Werner. I remember leafing through a documentary book by him, and some of the pictures reminded me of frames of the movie, even the people resembled the actors closely (or rather the other way round).
The non-patriotic officers scene at 10:57 is way more tense than you give it credit for. You could be court-martialed and executed for criticizing the leadership if somebody reported that (let's just hope that the young, eager first officer gets jaded enough until the end of the journey).
Absolutely. And that was why the LI looked so frightened to the 1WO's reaction.
The captain's actor did such a fantastic job that many people thought that he was a captain or at least a sailor - but he wasn't.
That's Jürgen Prochnow, he later went on to play the villain in a number of Hollywood movies (unfortunately, mostly bad ones).
That's Jürgen Prochnow, he later went on to play supporting characters in a number of Hollywood movies, including Beverly Hills Cop II, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The English Patient or The Da Vinci Code.
As a lifelong WWII Buff when I first saw Das Boot I was shocked on how honest and realistic the movie was. For me Das Boat it is still the gold standard for war movies.
I can just shudder thinking if Das Boot was made in Hollywood: 20 enemy battleships sunk with a single torpedo salvo, the crew alwas in perfect shape and high spirits, an immaculately clean and tidy submarine ...
Read the book the movie is based upon! Lothar-Günther Buchheim actaully was "the journalist" of the movie and more-or-less experienced it, although he summed up stories from many other submarines into this storyline ... the point is: he was part of that "community". In the book you also have the more rowdy nature of sailors on land.
And they never got those oscars they so deserved...
When Johann snaps and you see the captain rushes through the bulkhead somewhere, it's not clearly shown but he fetches a pistol. That's why the other officers are so quick to get Johann off the bridge and back where he belongs in engineering, so they don't potentially have a summary execution on-board (and lose an invaluable officer in the process).
Simply one of the greatest war films ever made. Das ist Thomsen!!
Amen.
Thomsen, von der alten Garde. Nur noch besoffen. ("Thomsen, from the old breed/guard. Always drunk now.")
And when they carry him out of the toilet, I still laugh like a moron because of Sanders' (Thomsen) sudden switch to English. "Wollte mich mal so richtig ausvögeln, aber... I AM NOT IN THE CONDITION TO FUCK!" ("All I wanted to do is get a proper fuck, but...")
fun fact: the man overboard situation was an actual accident that happened during filming! the actors were so in character that they shouted "man overboard!" when they saw their colleague falling because of the high waves. the director kept it in and added it to a couple later scenes to include the injury as a plot point. not so much a mistake as an unplanned inclusion!
My father was a pilot on the Argus sub-hunting plane (415 SQD I think) in the 1960's. He said they had a "get together" with the Canadian sub crew after an exercise...he said the submariners were "a really wild bunch".... this coming from my father who was a hard-drinking party pig in his day...he once punched out a colonel in the officer's mess for refusing to stop hitting on my mother.....so I can only assume the opening scene in this movie was probably accurate.
Note that at 29:45 the captain is not retreating, he is going into his cabin for a pistol, and returns with that pistol a few seconds later. Because the situation was basically a mutiny.
Damn...
@@sailorvince6442 Also the crewmen were very aware of it. That is why they restrained and dragged Johann away so fast, without any orders. They wanted to save him.
And then you see the relieve and the disbelief, that he didn't had to do it and that of all it was Johann after 9 trips.
@@sailorvince6442 One of the commanders of U-505 (Peter Zschech) which is now at the museum in Chicago broke down during an extensive depth charging and shot himself.
The Kriegsmarine U-Boot arm also had a special hospital for nervous breakdowns (That's what they called PTSD back then) near Lorient and also one in Bergen, Norway.
Fun fact regarding the acting of Otto Sander, who played 'Thomsen', in the French night club scene (the wild party at the beginning):
he was actually drunk; totally wasted. So when you see Sander stumbling around and babbling that wasn't (all) acting. He still was a Pro and in his role as 'Thomsen' but was totally wasted.
Great actor. And a great loss (he passed away in 2013).
He was not in the condition to fuck :D
One of my Great Uncles was on a U-boat. He was one of the few survivors after his sub was attacked and ended up in a British POW camp. He was working on a farm detail one day when a young boy fell in a nearby river and swept along.He dived in and rescued the boy and saved his life. I gather he met my Great Aunt at this point and they married, becoming part of our family,which caused some family friction, understandably, but from what I am told by my Dad, he was a really nice chap. The boy he saved was a Romany and apparently when their caravans were in the area, would take him out for a meal.
When you addressed the ranks after the crew boards the cargo vessel, there’s one thing to note. Germans throughout the war typically put a lot of training into their officers and so are therefore they are expected to lead a larger body of men than would’ve been expected in other militaries. For example in the US army a junior lieutenant commands a platoon while the Germans had their junior lieutenants commanding an entire company. In the case of U-boats, the highest rank that could command a u-boat was the Kapitänleutnant (shortened, Herr Kaleun), which is equivalent in the US to an O-3. However the first officer was an Oberleutnant zur See (senior lieutenant) and on many u-boats this rank would have also been perfectly acceptable to be commander. The only way to know who is commander is to see who is wearing the white top cap. It was an unspoken rule that even if they had an admiral on the boat, only the commander wore the white top.
The "man overboard" scene was an actual accident that happened on set. One of the actors got swept away by the huge amounts of water they used to simulate the waves and broke quite a few bones. Another actor instinctively cried "man overboard". They went along with it and changed the script to include the injuries of the crew member.
They could do this because they filmed the movie in the actual order of the scenes so they could realistically show how the people would change during the months on sea - beards growing longer, skin getting paler etc. The actors had to use thick layers of sunblocker when they went outside.
The inside of the boat was an 1:1 replica of an actual submarine of that type. The side walls could be opened so filming would be easier, but they decided against using that feature and instead only filmed with the sides closed so they could realistically capture the claustrophobic atmosphere in the boat.
Thats an amazing story. To act that realistically when reacting automatically, they must have really felt they are there.
old but good. Unfortunately, most of today's movies look like poorly made music videos.
The scene for the alarm practice drill would also include a test dive to check for any possible leaks or defects on the boat. It was not unusual for the workers who were French to do shoddy work as part of the resistance during World War 2
One of the reasons this movie was so awesome is the filmography and the set. Petersen actually had found the plans for a Type VII Uboat and had a company (one that actually built them in WW2...remember, this was only about 35-40 years after the war) actually manufacture one as a set. Much of the camera work was done inside the cramped quarters, giving the audience the claustrophobic feel of it. The UBoat couldn't really dive deep, and was only about, IIRC, 60 % operational, but was functional for the scenes.
Fun fact:
The Uboat used in this movie is the same Uboat that was used in the scene in Raider of the Lost Ark, when the tramp steramer that Indy was on was stopped by the Uboat. It was the same boat.
Not true. All of the interior shots were done on a set replica of the inside of a type viic, which was mounted on hydraulic pistons used to simulate the ship rolling and tilting in rough seas.
The exterior shots used four models of varying size and complexity, three of the u-boat and one of the british merchantman: a 6 metre model used for capturing external underwater shots in a basin at bavaria studios, a 67 metre model (1:1 scale) made mostly of wood and foam, which was used for the departure and arrival scenes filmed on location at the old submarine pen in la rochelle, and an 11 metre remote controlled model that was actually seaworthy, which was used for exterior shots where the boat is underway at sea. The merchant ship was also a model, although idk what ship type it is meant to represent or what scale they built it to, although I'd guesstimate it to be maybe 2-3 metres long.
The scenes on the conning tower were shot in a studio on a 1:1 scale model of just the tower. A tall water slide simulated waves breaking across the ship, and hoses and large industrial fans simulated the spray. The backgrounds were north sea recordings projected onto a screen behind the tower. For the scene where the crew was observing the burning merchantman, they used gas torches/burners with uneven reflectors around them, replicating the flickering of the flames by modulating the gas tank valves and wobbling the reflectors.
All of this can be seen in the "making of" of das boot here: czcams.com/video/YWq6KBH9Eic/video.html (all in german with no subtitles, i'm afraid).
Fun fact: the fun fact of your comment is correct, steven spielberg rented the 67 metre model to use in the filming of raiders of the lost ark.
Uboat interior was made about 1 meter wider/deeper for shoting purposes. It is noticeable in some parts of the ship, like front torpedo room(dancing scene).
The Commanding Officer from U-96 was in real "Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock". He survived the WW II. After the War he became the Captain of the first and only nuclear Cargo Ship, the "Otto Hahn".
Well, there was the NS Savannah too.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
The "Otto Hahn" was though the only European nuclear powered ship.
To explain the utter debauchery going on at the start: U-Boat men had a fatality rate of 75%, meaning every sortie harbored a pretty high chance to be their last one.
Yes, but the film is set in 1941.
The casualties sky-rocketed in the last years of the war as the allies significantly improved their anti-submarine warfare capabilities during the war.
@@HingerlAlois Yes, but the opening credits already told how the Brits have become better at fighting off U-Boats.
@@HingerlAlois So? It was still during wartime, u-boats were still lost, and everyone was shitting their pants and afraid deep inside that this might be their last leave. Brothels were rampant in rest areas, for all armies.
This is a classic that should be in the collection of any movie fan. I watch it from time to time, the tension and feeling of dread of the crew is palpable.
If you love Das Boot and you don't have the 5-hour / 6-episode TV version, try to get yours hands on it. Believe it or not, the extra scenes are all good, and some of them are, at least to me, crucial.
Example:
Near the end, when they have been at the bottom for a while and all seems lost, KaLeun grumbles about how the hell could The Allies see them in full darkness and horrible weather, time after time? How could they have such bad luck every time lately?
Now, the 1WO, our most ideological crew member whom we have mostly made fun of, says that he has read an article about a brand new sonar-kind of device that The Allies are supposed to have, but it works with radio waves and sees even through a storm.
KaLeun shakes his head, then sighs something to the order of: "If they can see us in the darkness, then truly all hope is lost."
This, to me, is a profound scene and I am so sad that this description of early Allied radar is missing even from the otherwise so good Director's Cut. Suddenly all that has happened this far makes sense. Their skills don't matter anymore. Unless submerged, they are always visible. They have no protection, none at all.
3 minutes in, the subtitle says "you were initiated..." but the captain actually says "sagen sie es schon - sie wurden angepinkelt" which translates as "say it - you were peed on"... so there's that
Some facts about the crew age the captain was 30 years making the oldest member of the crew and one of the oldest u boat captain (the average age of a u boat captain was 27) the second oldest was the chief engineer at 27 years and the war correspondent was only 21 years
Wow, fun facts indeed.
I had a kid in my platoon who was 16(this was in '85). Except for the Top Sargeant, we were all under 30.
@@mikhailiagacesa3406 When I did my national service in the Norwegian army, my CO & XO (Lieutenant & Ensign respectively) were around 25-26, our Sergeants were around 19-22 and I was 19 at the time. Our Battalion CO, the Lt.Col was around 40. Soldiering is a young man/woman(s) game.
Small anekdote: the crew would one day show up to do some recording for the external shots.. but the mock up ship wasn't there... it turns out: the production company rented it out to a certain Steven Spielberg for his Raiders of the lost Ark movie...
Now THAT'S, a twist.
I never knew that! 😲
This movie is a true gem. Who cares that it was made in the 80s? True brilliance is timeless.
I have seen actual footage of a German WW2 sub being loaded, and they were doing exactly what they did in the movie: pass underneath a torpedo in the process of being craned into the sub with bags of provisions they were loading at the same time. Those were different times.
The G7 Torpedo weighted around 1.900 kg. When hit by it, your smallest worry would be that your officer climbs down to hell to asskick you back into service...
I would never imagine that reaction videos genre will grow to this kind of an amazing content. I'm so happy I can just sit here, drink wine and listen to an actual officer commentary on one the best war movies of all time. Damn.
15:30 the reason the officer is upset about being too far away is because his wife is sick and he wants to get home, a U-boat only has so many torpedos, so when they shoot them all they have to go back in. So the sooner they get into a big battle the sooner he can go back home.
I watched with English voice over. Most of the actors spoke English and the producers or director didn't want English first language actors doing the voice over. The voice over with the original German actors is an excellent version. Far better than subtitles. This has to be one of my favourite films
You don't ask "Float or Sink" of Das Boot. It's one of the greatest films of all time. It's like giving Mozart a listen and then presuming to pass judgement to see if it's any good or not. History has already judged this film to be a masterpiece.
The premise and scope of this review is completely and utterly out of focus to the brilliance of the direction of this film, the film’s accuracy historically,technically, artistically is beyond any present navy personnel’s critique.
Fantastic review of my favorite war movie ever. I grew up watching this as my dad served on several boats, fast attack and missile. The thing about this film that gets me every time is how invested you get with the crew of an enemy vessel. If you're mature enough you understand how to keep this in perspective, and this movie makes it incredibly difficult. For me it was a realization to not just grow up patriotic, but to pay attention and pick your battles. The price to pay watching all that die for what cause in that war?... did they even really know?, or care? In hindsight if given a chance was it worth their lives? Movies done right, as this one did were a wake up call for me.
Germany lost the war and we're trying not to glorify it. Patriotism as it's displayed by americans is strange and frankly, sometimes kind of obscene to germans. At least i can't see why someone would blindly cheer for their country with room for criticism etc. Das Boot is great at showing the humanity on both sides though and the futility of war. My favorite submarine movie/series ever and i doubt there will be a better one for me.
@@xxJOKeR75xx There is this video with the actor who played the president in Independance Day. It's the cringiest shit ever.
He starts with how "America is not the greatest country in the world", and everyone is like omg, then he explains about some issues and the people transition to yeah he is kinda right etc., but then in the end, during suspensful music he repeats "we are not the greatest country ... but we can be." Big applause, tears in the eyes, very emotional.
Like what the fuck. Can a country be any more up its own ass?
I already thought nice now they got it during the beginning. But no it's only another way of stroking their own ego in some convoluted way.
I think Nitzsche said patriotism is the pride of the stupid. If you got nothing else to be proud about you can still be proud of your country.
Submarines dont sink. They submerge :) (unless they sink. But we try not to think about that)
Ha ha, yeah, fair point.
@@sailorvince6442 One of my grandpa's best friends was on a U-Boot during the war. He always told the joke "Our U-Boats never failed, they always submerged properly. Sometimes, the surfacing part didn't work, but hey, it's in the name: UNTERsee ("UNDERsea")"
Das Boot is one the greatest war depictions ever made. Its in my Top 3 films of all time.
I first saw Das Boot when it first was released in the US. It was still in German with English subtitles. It was an amazing and moving story. It was more poignant for me because this movie was based on actual events. It so happened that the Father of one of my friends at the time had served in the Wehrmacht during WW2. He had met and knew the U-boat Captain that the story is based on during the war while his unit was supporting the U-boat pens in France. I had the chance to talk to him a little bit about his service during the war. He would not go to see this movie because of the memories that it invoked.
Remember that the submarines of that day were surface ships that could submerge for a day or two depending on class. Ships did have lifeboats for all on board. That was mandated after the SS Titanic tragedy. They were rudimentary compared to today. The problem was when a ship was attacked very often what life rafts or boats they had on board could and likely were damaged. During the war it was SOP that torpedoed ships would be left behind so that the rest of the convoy could leave the area where they knew one or more U-boats were operating in as soon as possible. That's one of the reasons the Merchant Marine suffered the highest percentage of casualties of any organization of the war.
The Big difference between the Coast Guard and the Navy? The Coast Guard trains and then goes out to do their mission just about every day. The Navy goes out a trains and then waits to do their mission. So they keep on training and training to perfect what they are doing. Because when they Are called on to do their mission getting it wrong is unthinkable.
* When the 1WO tells his commander that he has been molested, he makes it clear in the original audio that he has been peed on, not something worse. * When the crew learn that they are going to Italy, they know it's almost a death sentence, they are not just missing Christmas in La Rochelle. * A submarine commander would not have four stripes. It's a boat. He is a Kapitaenleutnant, a modern OF-2.
Very good to know, thanks, for the corrections.
Strictly speaking, the car was peed on.
@@cliffordbernard7663 You are likely right. Clearly we have seen that the car of the KaLeun has been peed on. In that conversation though, in German, he says "you have been peed on".
You are too much in today's technology. The Boot had hydrophones, not sonar.
You can't compare this to today. These men partied HARD because there was a 25% chance they would die on their next mission which would also take 8-12 weeks out at sea. They lived like every day was their last.
This guy has no business comparing anything at all since he wasn't military. The Canadian Coast Guard isn't military or even law enforcement. They don't even carry weapons.
Being redirected to La Spezia was not a mere inconvenience, amigo. It was a near death sentence.
Thank you for reacting to this movie. Its a brilliant classic. My father is a maersk captain and his very much like the captain in the movie. My dad has been a sailor all my life and he is now (fro what I have been told) concidered one of the best captains in the maersk fleet. Im very proud of my dad.
He is an old navy officer, who went on to work for maersk, so he still uses his navy sense of getting things done, even tho its a ship with civilians on.
Much like the things you mentioned in the video, my dad has also tought me some things. One of the most important things he ever told me, was always to have a plan B, in case things go wrong.
I once got the chance to go see my dads ship, when it was getting build. It was a big tanker and my dad was stationed at the ship yard to make sure everything was build correctly. If you walked with him, the workers treated you like a god. The shipyard was in Hong Kong, I believe.
So being from a maritime background (sort of) I very much enjoyed watching the video.
If you ever watch other ship movies, ill sure hang around for that!
Have a nice day!
my grandfather was on a convoy ship in ww2 he always liked this movie because he found it interesting, he always felt bad for the germans in the U-boats because there was no escape when they were hit. they could hear the screams from the men in the uboats when they went down
How could he hear them? Could the Germans really be that loud?
@@Baldwin-iv445 i dont know, i guess the sound just travelled up through the water
@@jamieevans3666 I can only imagine what it would be like to hear men crying for help while plummeting too the bottom of the Atlantic.
@@Baldwin-iv445 not just that but when the sub gets ruptured the water pressure crushes the men, just imagine all that water pressure on your body
@@jamieevans3666 *Shiver* god that must've been horrible. Have you ever actually been on a U-boat?
The Captain's plan to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar was spot on. There are two currents in the straights, one shallow and one deep. One flows out into the Atlantic and one into the med. The Captain planned to use the inflowing one while submerged to enhance his very limited battery life. Unfortunately they were spotted on the surface before he was far enough in to implement his plan.
I remember watching Das Boot in the theatre when it was first released. When it ended, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place and total silence. No one said a word. The entire theatre was immersed in the story , I felt numb and speechless for about 20 minutes. I have the directors cut on DVD in my collection. It’s the entire mini series that was broadcast in Germany. I was on a business trip several years ago and I had a copy of the book with me. I accidentally left it behind in the hotel room and I was too far down the road to go back. I was really angry at myself, but I’ve since replaced it. Thank you for your review. It’s always good to see how a professional in the field sees how accurate movies are. I also noticed you’re RCN. I’m in Toronto. Regards and I look forward to reviewing more videos on your channel. Cheers ! 🍻
Well, i once saw the directors Cut in cinema... boy what a fucking horror element.
You ARE in the sub as the DCs drop and you fear to die the quick death by water compression... In a cinema the whole 10 out of 10 Movie goes up to 12.
And, the main difference to any US Hollywood blockbuster or plain shit like U-571 is, it is accurate like hell.
As it came out, every US and british submarine-vet made clear that THIS was real, only the german ones said, it was only 1/10 of the true horrors.. the captain of U-96, who survived the war (in opposition to the movies end) was one of the advisors... the autor of the book, Buchheim (by the way, the book is even twice as good as the movie) made sure there are are NO real mistakes, only the scene with the dancing crew-girl was done for public (as he wrote then).
This is the best anti-war movie, no heros, just normal guys who do their job, fear for their life and live or die by decicions by their captain, who got a knights cross for sinking tons of allied ships, Willenbrock-Lehman, he sunk around 180.000ts and damaged 20.000ts, 25 ships in 9 Missions. He was one of the aces who survived the war, in opposition to Prien, Lemke or Schepke. Only Kretschmann, the ace of aces of all times had more tonnage sunk and survived
Wow, nice to read, wher it was usa?
I agree , also seeing it in the cinema, have the directors cut and the book on permanent loan from a hospital i used to work at.
I noticed the gold maple leaf too.
"Why is it such a good movie?! It was made in the freaking '80s!"
Because back then, filmmakers got their jobs based on their skills and not political opinions they share on Twitter.
This must be the best submarine movie ever. It is an absolute masterpiece. When watching this movie, I felt the sheer terror that the crew must have felt.
'Das Boot' is very true to actual happenings on submarines during WW2, cause the author of the book served ok multiple submarines during that time and combined his experiences into his book.
I've always been amazed by how this movie was shot. The set is so tiny and doesn't have an opened side, like some other set might have and all the actors, crew and camera men had to fit in there an maneuver around each other. When I visited the set at the Bavaria Studios they said, the makeup department did not have to paint on any bruises. One of the most impressive scene is where one person gets washed off the tower, cause the actor broke a few ribs during it and they kept on filming. As well as when Johan almost loses his mind. And the end of course.
I really suggest watching it in english dub tho. It's closer to the original script.
The scenes at the beginning of the film - these guys knew that over 70% would not come back alive...
Normally I'd say, German with subtitles is the best way to go with this movie. But not with theses Subtitles, oh dear god. They where inaccurate, the timing was atrocious and so much information was lost. I don't know how the English dub is, but it can't be worse. If you love the movie, I recommend watching a different version. And the TV-Series. The Movie is basically a shortened version of the 6h TV-Series.
Totally agree. :-)
Wolfgang Peterson made an epic movie. There's videos of the making that shows just how insane just making it was for the cast and crew. But it works. Too well. You spend hours right there with the crew, as close to them as they are to each other. The story drags you in and you don't want to let it go. You scoff at the officers on the resupply ship right beside the crew. You cringe as the charges detonate in the Strait. And at the end you feel like you're home as the boat comes home.
And then the world ends. Just as you think they're safe and the story has a happy ending, in the space of minutes it's all wiped out.
And your heart cries watching the boat go under, before breaking seeing Jurgen's characters face right then.
I hate Wolfgang for what he put me through with this movie. Every time I watch it.
In war, there is no happy ending.
Yup, it was a very strong message, efficiently delivered.
Come on ... what did you expect? The Nazis winning? A "cruise into the sunset"? With 75% of all submarines being sunk this one is the happy ending, because at least part of the crew survives "being sunk in harbor".
@@Muck006 And that was my point about Wolfgang's brilliance. Because the audience *expected* a happy ending. They *wanted* a happy ending.
And they got the reality of The War Of The Atlantic. Up close, visceral, personal.
That's why I hate him for putting me through it - EVERY time I watch it.
I have seen the movie in the 80th together with my grandfather, he was a U-Boot veteran from WWII (Oberbootsmann), he never talked much about it. He said who really was there will not tell you stories. But during the movie he talked a little more. During the party scene at the beginning, when everyone got drunk and they had to carry Kaleu Thomsen out of the toilet, he said to me and laughed, I remember it like today, "Ja und genauso war das!" (Yes, and that's exactly how it was!). You shouldn't forget that the people otherwise had no outlet for what they went through. So there was even more drinking and partying than is usual in the Navy in peacetime. But the opportunities to do so were rare.
31:43 those ships would have had lifeboats but there's a good chance the torpedo strikes would have destroyed them or dislodged them from the davits, not only that but the fire could have also compromised them.
There are stories of some U-Boat Crews assisting survivors from sunken enemy ships, the most well-known and probably controversial incident was the sinking of the RMS Laconia.
>probably controversial
It was one of the most important incidents of the Battle of the Atlantic, as it caused U-Boat doctrine to change back to unrestricted submarine warfare.
Before that it was generally expected to help survivors in some way if possible.
Great reaction to one of (if not THE) best war movies ever made.
If you like to see more about the life aboard the uboat, try to get the 5 hour+ TV release.
Fun Fact: Steven Spielberg borrowed the Uboat bunker set in La Rochelle and the life-size uboat model made for Das Boot from Wolfgang Peterson to shoot the Uboat sequences for Raiders of the lost Ark
The Spielberg crew also severely damaged the life-size model while filming and sheepishly returned it to it's owners. The shooting had to be rescheduled to make time for repairing this blunder.
I have to say , as a german, the english subtitles are weird.
They often change the wording of sentences. They still mean more or less the same but I don't get the reason for the change.
For example at 33:33 the direct translation would be "When I give the order to do so, chief helmsman!"
The line used still gets the meaning across but why change it?
A note about the life jacket thing. The inflatable life jackets you're familiar with were fairly new then and were given to air crew's as a priority. the ones for sailors were solid blocks of cork or another buoyant plant material. They had a fatal flaw with them as they were exposed to water they would absorb some and get heavier and heavier.
In addition, the bulky part would hardly have fit through the narrow hatches. So how could you have left the boat with that?
@@robderich8533 So I looked into it a little more. To save space they did provide inflatable life jackets to U-boat crews but they were for abandoning ship not for every day use. So they wouldn't have been wearing them regardless.
@@whitetiger5284 Thank you for taking the effort. To be frank, I've never really given much thought about historical lifejackets , but I'm happy to learn.
What got me the most in this fantastic film was when the Main Engineer/Mechanic had to repair the boat by crawling in a very tight space.
He even had to use an Air Tank because most if not all of the repair was under water.
However EVERYone was depending on him because they would have never gotten off the floor of the sea without him repairing the boat.
The Claustrophobia in me got the Willies viewing that part of this film.
Hell, living on that boat like these men did would drive me crazy with claustrophobia.
It takes a special type of person to serve that way.
He used the rebreahter because he was repairing the broken batteries (battery acid+sea water=chlorine gas), not because it was under water
This movie is always recommended as one of the best military films but I've always been apprehensive about seeing it simply because it's a foreign film. Hell, it's also why it took several days to finally watch your review. I'll definitely be more likely to check it out next time the opportunity arises.
I understand your reluctance. I also tend to limit myself to only North American movies (which is a bit silly when I think about it.) But in this case, it was definitely worth it.
I haven't seen the film in some time, but it's worth noting that the original uncut version clocks in at just under 5 hours! I would recommend the full version, but don't watch it all in one sitting. I liked it. I hear it's still to date one of the more accurate WWII submariner films.
There are alot of great movies outside the US. I hope it opens your eyes a bit. Just know, that the German film industry currently is nowhere near its former glory (like this film) and sucks major ass most of the time.
For me if I hear about a movie that many people like and it not in USA, I know it had to be good. Films from USA that called good are about 10-20% disappointing
American... "Foreign film "
one reason to why "Der Alte" (The Old man. The Kapitänleutnant/Kaleu - so the captain) is so angry when they met the other U-Boat is that it means that their wide net now has even more of a gap. There are few u-boats patrolling the wast swaths of the Atlantic. So two meeting each other (unplanned) means even more uncovered area.
Also while i understand why you skipped over it i would've loved to see/hear your opinion on the WHOLE Gibraltar Scene. From the repairs and Johann (the guy who had the nervous breakdown earlier) bringing the machines back up to the boat rising again.
I also need to note that the movie has some slight anachronistic inaccuracies. One is using La Rochelle as harbour. In the year the movie takes place the Submarine installations were still being constructed, however the reason they used La Rochelle was that they still exist, so they could use the actual installations.
Then there is the the reference to the Laconia Order after sinking the freighter. After an American B25 Bomber bombed the Submarines trying to rescue the survivors of the RMS Laconia (a british auxiliary cruiser, carrying civilians and italian PoWs alongisde other stuff, that had been sunk by the aforementioned submarines) DESPITE raising the Red Cross, Admiral Dönitz ordered to don't take care of survivors of sunk ships. Not all submarine crews followed that order however. (also as a side note - When later during hte Nuremberg Trials the order was used as point against Dönitz Chester W. Nimitz basically went "We've been doing that in the pacific since Day 1.") That happened in September 1942 So a long while AFTER the timeframe of the movie. However taking on the survivors just wasn't feasible int he situation portrayed.
The last anachronism is that 1941 (up to late 1942) still was the "(Zweite) Glückliche Zeit" - the "(Second) Happy times" - of the U-Boats. When the U-Boats were truly the terror of the Atlantic. Meanwhile the movie (and iirc the novel) portray 1941 as what basically happened in 43 with the U-Boats getting more and more driven into the weaker position. Tying into this - in 1941 the Royal Air Force didn't yet have the machines capable to properly attack a position like Rochelle AS SHOWN INT HE MOVIE.
One thing at 36:12 regarding the ranks: in WWII , quite often the Skipper of a german sub had two golden Stripes (Oberleutnant) as the 1.Officer in this scene. A lot of skippers had two golden and 1 narrow golden stripe (Kapitänleutnant). But they did not have 4 golden Stripes (Kapitän). The problem in this scene is, that they do not waar their hats: White Colour = Captain. Btw: The "real" skipper in this Film is a Kapitänleutnant.
You forget these sailors did not care at the beginning because they knew they were loosing the war at this point and did not care if they got courtmarshalled.
Watched it as a kid, in form of a mini series on TV. The opening scene when the submarine just appears in front of your eyes in the murky water... Still gives me the creeps. My father was a chief engineer on river pusher boats. Travelled with him quite a lot, up and down the Danube. Yep, those 1000 HP diesel engines are loud as hell, but they are rhythmic when they are on the cruise speed, after couple of days (some times it was up to two weeks of interrupted sail up stream) I can imagine an exhausted engineer taking a nap in the engine room. Although, on those boats they usually had a small room/office connected to engine room for tools and stuff which would have doors that quite well isolated the sound.
This is one of the best war movies ever made... Depicts exactly what is the goal of all those heroic feats... absolutely nothing...
I first saw this movie because of my father when I was a teen and I hated the movie, when I got older and wiser I started to love this movie.
BTW when a movie needs english subtitles for American audiences and it is STILL regarded as a masterpiece by them.... it is a f* masterpiece!
Yeah, and you have to write "Frenssen´s feet" instead of the original "Frenssen´s fart" for american audience.
"A movie that old has no right being that good"
Oh you innocent man... Don't tell him
The reason why this film is so good is because the director of the film wanted it to be honest with the subject matter, basically the interior design for the u boat had to look like it was a submarine, dirty, smelly, crampt, the actors we're not allowed to sunbathe, or get a tan, or probably wash!
12:20 the Kaptin believed in his men and his boat, but he didn't have any faith in Hitler and the Nazis. After the Nazis were defeated, the German military got along very well with the US Forces. In fact in the Easy Company (band of brothers) memoirs they mentioned of all the peoples of Europe, they felt most similar to the Germans. They were realists, hard working and cleanly.
Although just a tad, just a teeny weeny bit murderous...
Oh my... finally a second reaction on this pearl of a movie. Very enjoyable to find out how accurate this movie actally is. Thanks for the effort. And the ending hits hard home, right?
Sure does... I might need to cry a bit more.
@@sailorvince6442 It was intentional by the director to make no happy ending. He wanted to show that in war are no winners. And even the most heroic effort will be paid by death sometime.
Exactly 10/10! The reason why this movie is so good is because it all was real.
there is one navigation scene missing, (only comes in the ultra long five installment television movie version), where the navigator makes good for the vague position a couple hours later, by shooting five stars in under a minute, through fast wandering, tiny holes in the cloud cover, to get them a dead accurate position.