Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
But what makes it confusing to an American is that the Chief Of the Boat, or COB, is called "Chief", the translation given to the LI in Das Boot. And the 1WO is translated as "Number One" in the movie, whereas in the book that title was appropriately given to the senior enlisted man.
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Which is one reason I think I started trying to figure out what the characters were calling each other in German, rather than relying on dubbing or subtitles. Because I remember the scene where the guy who is clearly the second in command talks to the Bootsmann and addresses him as "Nummer Eins" which I knew in German meant "Number One"... and I thought, well, if
he's called "Number One" then this other guy can't be called that as well in general parlance.
That and I couldn't figure out what it was Der Alte kept calling the Chief Engineer ("Ell-ee") and it was repeated often enough that I knew it was some form of standard address and I didn't think it would be his actual name or nickname. And of course the "Herr Kaleun" which I knew couldn't be his name and had to be some reference to his rank but I had to look it up to find out.
Just another thing that makes the movie a continuing source of fascination - so many things are just "there" because that's the way it was and they don't beat you over the head with explaining those little details, you just have to figure it out from the context or look it up if you're that curious... which obviously I am, lol. I guess it might be different for someone intimately familiar with the language since there's no confusion caused by clumsy dubbing or subtitles that are a little too Anglicized.