opact (07/21/82)
Das Boot, yes well produced visually, a gripping story, fine acting, etc, but alas cinema does not exist divorced from a political and historical context. One leaves this film with the impression that a goodly part of the German navy officer corps during WWII were heroic anti-fascists! A distortion of history (were it only so!) that is inexecusable. -Andy Berman
doug (07/24/82)
Did anyone see a swastika anywhere in Das Boot? I didn't - even the nazi flag was never completely unfurled to keep it hidden. Did this have anything to do with German law regarding the display of nazi symbols?
tugs (07/25/82)
Das Boot struck me as a very basic, ordinary war movie which was done with a little more polish than most. The impression that I got as far as fascist-anti-fascist leanings goes is that with the reduced life expectancy, abominable conditions and seemingly hopeless challenge for the U-boat crews, coupled with the frustration of a military leadership that had no feedback from the crews coupled with the fact that, with the exception of the occasional psychotic, NOBODY likes wars when they're busy fighting and getting killed in them, there was a lot of animosity with the german government and leadership. That seems reasonable. It even seems reasonable that there were always a significant number of Germans who were not thoroughly taken with the National Socialist government, and that the number of people who felt that way grew as the war dragged on. Steve Hull
henry (07/27/82)
It is a well-documented fact that practically all front-line soldiers with more than a few days' combat experience just wish the damn war would end so they could go home. "Combat turns most infantrymen into pacifists." The same would probably apply to submariners, so the descriptions of the attitudes in Das Boot (I haven't actually seen the movie yet) sound quite reasonable.
djj (07/27/82)
Where is the quote "Combat turns most infantrymen into pacifists" from??? It sounds like Patton to me, but was it from Das Boot?
henry (08/01/82)
"Combat turns most infantrymen into pacifists" isn't from Das Boot, it just seemed relevant. It's from Bill Mauldin's book "Up Front" (which, despite being a thin frame of text wrapped around a collection of WW2 cartoons, is a vivid portrayal of what it was like to be an infantryman in Italy and France). There are similar observations in "How To Make War", an excellent book on the realities of modern warfare. I actually can't vouch for which place the exact wording came from.
laura (08/01/82)
I am reading "How to Make War". The quotation is there. laura creighton decvax!utzoo!laura