It's free of nationalist ideology so that the fact that we're travelling with a German U-boat hunting and hunted by Allied convoys and destroyers becomes more or less irrelevant and, in fact, the Commander is quite scathing throughout about Hitler and German war strategies, not least the lack of flight cover. Written in a terse, plain style, this just reeks of authenticity as Buchheim channels his real life U-boat experience into a book that is described as 'a novel, but not a work of fiction'. One stab at the firing lever! I close my eyes to blot out the haunting visions, but I continue to see the sea of flames spreading out over the water and men swimming for their lives. I'm overwhelmed with horror at what we have done with our torpedoes. “All doubts are silenced by the concept of duty.” Think about that. Not recommended in any form if you have a heart condition.
#Das boot series 1 review movie#
I have seen the movie (in German) and listened to the audiobook in addition to reading the book (in English). The author served as a naval correspondent on U-Boots during the war and experienced much of what he then wrote about. This kind of fascinating information adds such verisimilitude to one of the submarine classics to come out of WW II. You will never think of submarines in quite the same way after you have read the description of their sub in the midst of a storm having to run on the surface for speed (if you could call it that) and to charge the batteries, the boat plunging and heaving through the waves. That amount of weight has to be redistributed by pumping an equivalent amount of water back to the stern in the trim tanks.
The weight has to be increased or decreased as the case may be. If the weight of the sub is 800 tons, the weight must change by 1/1000 or 1600 lbs., not an insignificant amount. (Apparently fresh water is much easier.) Now let’s assume that the specific gravity changes by 1/1000, a small enough amount. Salt water makes that extremely difficult because the specific gravity of salt water varies with depth, temperature, the amount of plankton, salinity, even the time of year. It reveals an experience most would rather not have had to live through. Probably the most existential and realistic book of submarine warfare from the point of view of a German crew that I have read.
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