Das Boot - The Book - My Review

Subnuts · 05-22-08, 06:11 PM

Books that were later adapted into movies are a sub-genre (bad puns already!) all their own. More interesting are books that were so overshadowed by the popularity of the film version that people are absolutely shocked to learn that a book even existed at all. The famous German war novel Das Boot, written by Lothar-Günther Buchheim and published in 1973, is an excellent example. A huge hit when it was originally published, Das Boot whipped up a storm of controversy among surviving U-boat veterans, who either supported Buchheim's image of the U-boat force as a whole, or were practically demanding that he be hung from a noose for his revisionistic interpretation.

Lothar-Günther Buchheim (who died last year, leaving behind an art collection worth at least $300 million) was a member of a Kriegsmarine propaganda unit (a "Sonderführer," if you prefer the original term) during the Second World War, writing as a war correspondent on his experiences aboard minesweepers and destroyers. In Autumn of 1941, he joined the crew of U-96, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, for a single patrol in the North Atlantic. The patrol was fairly "routine" - the boat traveled to it's designated area, went back and forth for a few weeks, got trapped in a huge storm, ran into a British convoy, and sank a couple ships. As they were returning to France, U-96 received new orders to break through the Straight of Gibraltar and travel to the new submarine base at La Spezia in Northern Italy. For all their trouble, a radar-equipped British plane surprised U-96 in the dark in the Straight, severely damaging the boat. After being trapped on the bottom for some time, U-96 made it back to France on a wing and a prayer.

Except in reality...oh, never mind.

Buchheim's Das Boot follows the same sequence of events pretty closely, with elements from another one of Buchheim's patrols added in for good measure, along with certain events that were dramatized for storytelling reasons. The reason for the mass controversy surrounding it's publication can probably be summed up thusly: Buchheim himself wasn't a true submariner, and many survivors viewed him as an unwanted surface navy interloper, unprepared for the rigors of submarine life, who was nothing more than a crybaby who looked down upon the common submariner as oversexed filth from his lofty perch. Also, they took particular offense to his descriptions of sailors breaking down during combat - screaming, sobbing, and having to be hit with flashlights took keep order during depth charge attacks. These criticisms certainly aren't unwarranted, though I have a hard time imaging that real life U-boat crewmen were stoic and fearless to the last man.

On the other hand, Buchheim was praised for his relentlessly vivid and realistic depiction of what it's like to be locked away in a stinky metal tube for weeks on end, with a good chance of being suddenly drowned. Das Boot is certainly the roughest, most grueling, and most claustrophobic submarine novel ever written. He leaves almost nothing to the reader's imagination; you can almost smell the horrid stenches rising up from the bilge, feel the condensation running down the bulkheads, envision the mold slowly overtaking the food hanging from the ceiling, and grow numb from the endless hammering of the diesels. He uses flowery language to evoke the weather, whether it's a beautiful sunset on a calm sea to a raging Atlantic storm that tosses the boat around like a pendulum and reduces the world to an endless gray nothing.

Buchheim also focuses on an element that will put off many readers: the sheer boredom of spending weeks at sea without seeing any action. There are two long chapters - Frigging Around I and Frigging Around II, occupying nearly 100 pages, that depict the maddeningly repetitive nature of patrol duty. UA, as the boat is called in the book, receives radio messages that lead to nowhere, the crew talk about sex, tempers flare and morale starts to slump, and the weather gets progressively worse. It's a realistic depiction of what would have "happened" onboard a WWII submarine when nothing was actually happening, but some will find it maddening.

Others might find Buchheim's heavy extistentialism irritating. The novel is written from the vaguely first-person perspective of an unnamed war correspondent presumably based on himself, and the reader experiences everything he does - and only what he does. When he's not being wordy, as he is in his descriptions of the weather, he writes in extremely short, terse sentences that belie a certain nervousness or disgust at the present situation. He also tends to go off on some odd tangents, most of them relating to the narrator's suspicion that his French girlfriend is actually a member of the resistance, or his unpleasant time in naval boot camp. As a whole, the existentialist writing style works for the most part, but there are parts of Das Boot that are just pure padding.

Das Boot is a rough, grueling, and bleak read, and by the time the ending rolls around, you're more likely to be exhausted than to truly care about what happens. Taken from the perspective of the mid-70s, Buchheim's story embodies a vivid disgust over his home country's wartime past, something that had been brewing since 1945 but exploded in the years following this book's publication. As a condemnation of the ludicrousness of war and the generalized insanity of the Third Reich and it's propaganda, it probably has few equals in the realm of fiction. It's not an easy read by any stretch, and it's certainly a little overlong, but it's one of the finest submarine novels ever written and a classic of naval literature.

Since I have to mention the movie at some point, the uncut 5-hour Das Boot is one of the most faithful film adaptations of a novel I've ever seen. They even got the mannerisms of the characters down pat, and included tiny details like the boat's rope dog mascot, the scar on the Chief's left cheek, and the photo of Admiral Donitz hanging in the officer's mess, that were only mentioned in passing in the book. There's also a lot of great character moments that weren't even included in the Director's Cut.

Bill Nichols · 05-22-08, 10:00 PM

Excellent review of a great novel. Definitely a 'must read' for all SubSimmers.

Dowly · 05-23-08, 12:02 PM

Very good review!

The movie itself was awesome, but the book is the one I prefer.

Dan D · 05-23-08, 06:11 PM

I am just re-reading parts of the book and I have to say that your review is spot on.
Well done!

It may be of interest that Buchheim has written two "Das Boot" follow ups:
"Die Festung" (The fortress)
http://www.uboat.net/books/item/753
and
"Der Abschied" (The parting)
http://www.uboat.net/books/item/1849

I am not sure though, if those two books are available in English.

From my memory: "The Fortress" takes place after the allied landings. Brest is already trapped by American troops and the Kriegsmarine is fighting American tanks and infantry in the outskirts of what is the fortress Brest by order of Alfons Hintner. Lehmann-Willenbrock is commanding the defense of Brest. He orders Buchheim to leave Brest on last chance with the only u-boat left heading to La Pallice, southern France. Everyone on board of the overcrowded u-boat is suffering from heavy diarrhea. The snorkle does not work properly. The u-boat commander is 22 years old and suffering from a nervous break-down. Depth charges in the water! Probably the strongest scene of the book. Things can't get worse.
From La Pallice he makes his escape to Germany by using an archaic steam car which runs by burning wood. So he and his fellow travellers always need to collect woods to keep the heavy steaming thing running while the allied troops are closing in blocking roads and bridges, a true odyssey.
Part of the book is about Buchheim doing paintings of the French landscapes and people. His way of taking leave from France. He is convinced that as a German he won't be allowed to come back to France that soon, probably never.
This novel is 1500 pages strong but it is still a great read. Buchheim sure knew how to write.

"The Parting": "This novel describes the journey Buchheim and Lehmann-Willenbrock make on the nuclear research vessel Otto Hahn from Rotterdam to Cape Town. It is the last journey for the ship - which will be scrapped - as well as for the captain, der Alte, who will retire after this mission " (from u-boat net).
Never finished that one, it is a very dry read. But it is still interesting to find out what their life was after the war. And on very rare occasions the two old guys even talk about their time on U 96.

Sailor Steve · 05-23-08, 06:49 PM

Excellent review!

I loved the book.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subnuts

These criticisms certainly aren't unwarranted, though I have a hard time imaging that real life U-boat crewmen were stoic and fearless to the last man.

Reminds me of a gamer's argument I once had. One guy said that Samurai never ran from a fight. The other said "What about when they fought other Samurai?" There's a line in a film or a book somewhere about people showing a brave face, something to the effect that we hide our fear because we're more afraid of being seen to be afraid than we are of dying.

I agree the film is quite faithful. They left out a couple of characters, like the replacement chief, but I think that was for the better in the long run.

@Dan D: Thanks for mentioning the other two books; I've heard about them, but have never found copies to read. I do intend to get a copy of his 'real' book, U-Boat War, which has a great many of the photographs he took while on patrol.

nikimcbee · 05-24-08, 03:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Excellent review!

I loved the book.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subnuts

These criticisms certainly aren't unwarranted, though I have a hard time imaging that real life U-boat crewmen were stoic and fearless to the last man.

Reminds me of a gamer's argument I once had. One guy said that Samurai never ran from a fight. The other said "What about when they fought other Samurai?" There's a line in a film or a book somewhere about people showing a brave face, something to the effect that we hide our fear because we're more afraid of being seen to be afraid than we are of dying.

I agree the film is quite faithful. They left out a couple of characters, like the replacement chief, but I think that was for the better in the long run.

@Dan D: Thanks for mentioning the other two books; I've heard about them, but have never found copies to read. I do intend to get a copy of his 'real' book, U-Boat War, which has a great many of the photographs he took while on patrol.

U-Boat War is a great book, I have that one.

Kaleun Cook · 05-28-08, 05:58 AM

Quote:

...for his revisionistic interpretation

Isn't this a problematic term to use for what you mean - revisionism usually means holocaust denial etc.

Also, although not having read the parts again, I think it's the film that added the screaming crew. In a text about the film Buchheim complains about the performance of the actors/the orders of the director, emphasizing that the real soldiers he was with had to stay disciplined no matter how hard the DC-run was.

05-22-08, 06:11 PM	#1
Subnuts The Old Man Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Connecticut Posts: 1,658 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	Das Boot - The Book - My Review Books that were later adapted into movies are a sub-genre (bad puns already!) all their own. More interesting are books that were so overshadowed by the popularity of the film version that people are absolutely shocked to learn that a book even existed at all. The famous German war novel Das Boot, written by Lothar-Günther Buchheim and published in 1973, is an excellent example. A huge hit when it was originally published, Das Boot whipped up a storm of controversy among surviving U-boat veterans, who either supported Buchheim's image of the U-boat force as a whole, or were practically demanding that he be hung from a noose for his revisionistic interpretation. Lothar-Günther Buchheim (who died last year, leaving behind an art collection worth at least $300 million) was a member of a Kriegsmarine propaganda unit (a "Sonderführer," if you prefer the original term) during the Second World War, writing as a war correspondent on his experiences aboard minesweepers and destroyers. In Autumn of 1941, he joined the crew of U-96, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, for a single patrol in the North Atlantic. The patrol was fairly "routine" - the boat traveled to it's designated area, went back and forth for a few weeks, got trapped in a huge storm, ran into a British convoy, and sank a couple ships. As they were returning to France, U-96 received new orders to break through the Straight of Gibraltar and travel to the new submarine base at La Spezia in Northern Italy. For all their trouble, a radar-equipped British plane surprised U-96 in the dark in the Straight, severely damaging the boat. After being trapped on the bottom for some time, U-96 made it back to France on a wing and a prayer. Except in reality...oh, never mind. Buchheim's Das Boot follows the same sequence of events pretty closely, with elements from another one of Buchheim's patrols added in for good measure, along with certain events that were dramatized for storytelling reasons. The reason for the mass controversy surrounding it's publication can probably be summed up thusly: Buchheim himself wasn't a true submariner, and many survivors viewed him as an unwanted surface navy interloper, unprepared for the rigors of submarine life, who was nothing more than a crybaby who looked down upon the common submariner as oversexed filth from his lofty perch. Also, they took particular offense to his descriptions of sailors breaking down during combat - screaming, sobbing, and having to be hit with flashlights took keep order during depth charge attacks. These criticisms certainly aren't unwarranted, though I have a hard time imaging that real life U-boat crewmen were stoic and fearless to the last man. On the other hand, Buchheim was praised for his relentlessly vivid and realistic depiction of what it's like to be locked away in a stinky metal tube for weeks on end, with a good chance of being suddenly drowned. Das Boot is certainly the roughest, most grueling, and most claustrophobic submarine novel ever written. He leaves almost nothing to the reader's imagination; you can almost smell the horrid stenches rising up from the bilge, feel the condensation running down the bulkheads, envision the mold slowly overtaking the food hanging from the ceiling, and grow numb from the endless hammering of the diesels. He uses flowery language to evoke the weather, whether it's a beautiful sunset on a calm sea to a raging Atlantic storm that tosses the boat around like a pendulum and reduces the world to an endless gray nothing. Buchheim also focuses on an element that will put off many readers: the sheer boredom of spending weeks at sea without seeing any action. There are two long chapters - Frigging Around I and Frigging Around II, occupying nearly 100 pages, that depict the maddeningly repetitive nature of patrol duty. UA, as the boat is called in the book, receives radio messages that lead to nowhere, the crew talk about sex, tempers flare and morale starts to slump, and the weather gets progressively worse. It's a realistic depiction of what would have "happened" onboard a WWII submarine when nothing was actually happening, but some will find it maddening. Others might find Buchheim's heavy extistentialism irritating. The novel is written from the vaguely first-person perspective of an unnamed war correspondent presumably based on himself, and the reader experiences everything he does - and only what he does. When he's not being wordy, as he is in his descriptions of the weather, he writes in extremely short, terse sentences that belie a certain nervousness or disgust at the present situation. He also tends to go off on some odd tangents, most of them relating to the narrator's suspicion that his French girlfriend is actually a member of the resistance, or his unpleasant time in naval boot camp. As a whole, the existentialist writing style works for the most part, but there are parts of Das Boot that are just pure padding. Das Boot is a rough, grueling, and bleak read, and by the time the ending rolls around, you're more likely to be exhausted than to truly care about what happens. Taken from the perspective of the mid-70s, Buchheim's story embodies a vivid disgust over his home country's wartime past, something that had been brewing since 1945 but exploded in the years following this book's publication. As a condemnation of the ludicrousness of war and the generalized insanity of the Third Reich and it's propaganda, it probably has few equals in the realm of fiction. It's not an easy read by any stretch, and it's certainly a little overlong, but it's one of the finest submarine novels ever written and a classic of naval literature. Since I have to mention the movie at some point, the uncut 5-hour Das Boot is one of the most faithful film adaptations of a novel I've ever seen. They even got the mannerisms of the characters down pat, and included tiny details like the boat's rope dog mascot, the scar on the Chief's left cheek, and the photo of Admiral Donitz hanging in the officer's mess, that were only mentioned in passing in the book. There's also a lot of great character moments that weren't even included in the Director's Cut. __________________ My Amazon.com reviews

05-22-08, 10:00 PM	#2
Bill Nichols Master of Defense Join Date: Mar 2000 Posts: 1,502 Downloads: 125 Uploads: 0	Excellent review of a great novel. Definitely a 'must read' for all SubSimmers. __________________ My Dangerous Waters website:

05-23-08, 12:02 PM	#3
Dowly Lucky Jack Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Finland Posts: 25,005 Downloads: 32 Uploads: 0	Very good review! The movie itself was awesome, but the book is the one I prefer.

05-23-08, 06:11 PM	#4
Dan D Grey Wolf Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: 9th Flotilla Posts: 839 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I am just re-reading parts of the book and I have to say that your review is spot on. Well done! It may be of interest that Buchheim has written two "Das Boot" follow ups: "Die Festung" (The fortress) http://www.uboat.net/books/item/753 and "Der Abschied" (The parting) http://www.uboat.net/books/item/1849 I am not sure though, if those two books are available in English. From my memory: "The Fortress" takes place after the allied landings. Brest is already trapped by American troops and the Kriegsmarine is fighting American tanks and infantry in the outskirts of what is the fortress Brest by order of Alfons Hintner. Lehmann-Willenbrock is commanding the defense of Brest. He orders Buchheim to leave Brest on last chance with the only u-boat left heading to La Pallice, southern France. Everyone on board of the overcrowded u-boat is suffering from heavy diarrhea. The snorkle does not work properly. The u-boat commander is 22 years old and suffering from a nervous break-down. Depth charges in the water! Probably the strongest scene of the book. Things can't get worse. From La Pallice he makes his escape to Germany by using an archaic steam car which runs by burning wood. So he and his fellow travellers always need to collect woods to keep the heavy steaming thing running while the allied troops are closing in blocking roads and bridges, a true odyssey. Part of the book is about Buchheim doing paintings of the French landscapes and people. His way of taking leave from France. He is convinced that as a German he won't be allowed to come back to France that soon, probably never. This novel is 1500 pages strong but it is still a great read. Buchheim sure knew how to write. "The Parting": "This novel describes the journey Buchheim and Lehmann-Willenbrock make on the nuclear research vessel Otto Hahn from Rotterdam to Cape Town. It is the last journey for the ship - which will be scrapped - as well as for the captain, der Alte, who will retire after this mission " (from u-boat net). Never finished that one, it is a very dry read. But it is still interesting to find out what their life was after the war. And on very rare occasions the two old guys even talk about their time on U 96.