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Re: Das Boot.

207.91.86.2

Posted by Bruce from DC on August 1, 2000 at 14:58:40

In Reply to: Re: Das Boot. posted by Colby on July 31, 2000 at 18:56:55:

I guess this reviewer was disappointed that the film did not demonize the captain and the crew.

I think the point the film made was that combat and submarine duty transcended politics -- hardly something unique to this film. The political officer was portrayed as a useless punk. In one instance of a ship sinking, the captain is appalled to learn after the final torpedo hits the target that the crew has not already abandoned ship.

I believe that the film depicts actual events as related in the logs of various U-Boat captains.

It is not clear that Nazi military had anything in particular to apologize for in their conduct of the war against opposing military units. With respect to U-Boats in particular, I do not believe there is any documented instance of a U-Boat crew shooting survivors in the water after their ship had been sunk. There are one or two such instances in which US submarine crews in the Pacific fired on survivors of Japanese ships they had sunk.

In fact there are some instances where U-Boat captains attempted to render some assistance to the crews of ships which they had sunk.
Certainly there is nothing in the Germans' record that compares with the actions of the Japanese army in Bataan or in Nanking.

As more modern experience (e.g. Iraq, Cuba, N. Korea), as well as the history of Nazi Germany, demonstrates it is easy to say that the military should have mutined against such a corrupt and brutal ruler. But accomplishing that is very hard, especially in a nation with no democratic tradition.

The Holocaust, of course, is the glaring exception and is without justification or excuse. But I'm not sure what the Nazi submarine crews were supposed to have done about it.

I suppose Das Boot's refusal to demonize its characters is viewed by some as an apology for the Nazi regime; but I never saw it that way.
RBB --
"Still getting the wax out of my ears."

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