What were they eating in Das Boot?

[Randomizer]

I also think a significant flaw exists with the First Officer character, which everyone naturally likes to make fun of because of his obvious stereotype (being a Nazi).

I actually disagree with this, for the most part and suggest that the 1WO is treated rather better in the movie than he was in the book.

Evil/incompetent Nazi naval characters is a pretty common trope found in Sink the Bismarck, The Enemy Below, The Sea Chase, 49th Parallel and others. CS Forrester's nasty characterization of Gunther Lutjens as a Nazi fanatic was carried over into the film, which was based on the novel of the same name. There are photos that can be found of the admiral greeting the fuhrer with the traditional naval salute with the hand to the cap rather than the Nazi arm raised heil Hitler. As Director of Naval Personnel at OKM he altered files to protect some Jewish naval officers from persecution, which is hardly something expected of a hard core Nazi. So the stereotype itself should be questioned.

Rather the 1WO in the movie is probably pretty accurately portrayed and his interactions with the crew bare none of the cartoonish, evil buffoonery found in the above films. A couple of observations:

- He's a volunteer and contrary to myth, a significant proportion of the U-Boot Waffe were conscripted or at least had been "voluntold" to join in previous postings. Anytime you have a mix of volunteers and conscripts, the latter often resent and privately mock the former. It's the nature of things.

- He's clearly competent. Three definite hits with four torpedoes in the convoy action demonstrates an ability to do his job and coolness under pressure.

- In the book, Buchheim goes out of his way to mock the 1WO for teaching the new junior engineering officer from Wolfgang Luth's Problems of Leadership lecture. This is done very low key in the movie, where it just shows another aspect of the real-world 1WO job; teaching subordinates. As an aside, Buchheim's use of the lecture in the book is actually bogus since the story takes place in November 1941 and Luth did not deliver his lecture until 1943.

- We know little of the rest of the U-96 officers. Kriechbaum and the Chief have been with the Captain forever and possibly the 2WO as well. As a Party member and volunteer, the 1WO seems to have risen pretty quickly. In the book he does not join the navy until after the war broke out and so he will have had probably less than two-years of service before being appointed 1WO. By definition this makes him inexperienced and you cannot escape the conclusion that he has advanced largely because of his politics. This would create tensions with the professional officers/senior NCOs in a manner similar to the volunteer-conscript divide.

It's a myth that Hitler's Navy was apolitical and the fact is that as the war progressed, Party membership became increasingly necessary for advancement. In 1943, when the minimum age for command of a U-Boat reduced to 21, pretty much everybody falling into that category would have been participants in the Hitler Youth and we know that a non-trivial number of them took their politics to sea with them.

So all in all, the 1WO is treated better and probably more realistically in the movie than in the book, where Buchheim uses him as a figure of fun to score political points and make Nazis seem ridiculous and fanatical. While this may be undoubtedly true for some and not a little satisfactory, it is certainly not the case for all.

-C