Das Boot (novel)

This article is about the novel. For the Film, see Das Boot. For the TV series, see Das Boot (TV series). For other uses, see Das Boot (disambiguation).

Das Boot (German pronunciation: [das ˈboːt], English: The Boat) is a 1973 autobiographical German novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim based on his experiences as a war correspondent on U-boat submarines. Buchheim recorded his time on submarine U-96 and submarine U-309 during World War II. The Buchheim historical drama book was published in 1973 by Piper Verlag, the book has sold millions of copies and was translated into 18 languages. The novel portrayed the harsh and difficult submarine warfare life on a German submarine.^[1][2][3]

Cover of the 1973 first edition

“I was either too hard on the Nazis or too soft on the Nazis, it merely depended on one’s attitude to Nazis” Buchheim on the Das Boot novel^[4]

Buchheim

Buchheim was a painter, author, and war correspondent for the Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Buchheim was employed by the Nazi propaganda company, Propagandakompanie (PK). As part of his work, Buchheim was a "guest" on board Kriegsmarine ships and submarines. The novel is based on Buchheim's six weeks of experiences on several U-boat trips. Buchheim also wrote the books: The Fortress and The Farewell in which he used also fictional names. In Das Boot, the main character is the commander, who is modeled after commander Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (1911-1986) of U-96, a Type VIIC U-boat. Willenbrock was given the nickname "the Old Man" and Herr Kaleun. In Das Boot the other officers are unnamed and referred to by their job on the submarine.^[5] One ensign is named Ullmann and two noncommissioned officers are named. Buchheim refers to himself as Herr Leutnant as the narrator, but not given a submarine job. In the book, the submarine is only referred to as the fictional UA. Other submarines are given fictional names: UF, UX or UY. Places and dates are not used in the book. So while the book is in part a record of Buchheim time, much of the book is fictional.^[3] Buchheim died in 2007 at the age of 89.^[6][1] Buchheim wrote a short story about his experiences in the 1960s, before he wrote Das Boot, the short story was called Die Eichenlaubfahrt, (or Oak Leaves Patrol). Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock was awarded the Knight's Cross with oak leaves, thus the title of the short story.^[7][8] In 1976 Buchheim released the book U-Boot-Krieg (U-Boat War), a story of his trip on U-96 and U-309. U-Boot-Krieg including 200 photographs Buchheim took on the trips.^[9]

Book

 

A Type VII submarine similar to U-96

Das Boot starts with the celebrations of the U-boat officers on land. The officers are enjoying life before leaving port. The crew are in a bar, Bar Royal, in northern France, near a base of the Kriegsmarine Organization. The officers talk about the dangers, Führer der Unterseeboote (leader of the U-boats), Befehlshaber der U-Boote (Commander-in-Chief of the U-boats), and Admiral Karl Dönitz. The officers talk about a U-boat hang out, a real place, the Hotel Majestic near the Saint-Nazaire submarine base. Life on the U-Boat is discussed: rules, dress code, drinking, and tight confines the submarine with 50 men. The base was under air raid attack as they depart. Das Boot described life on board in storms, idleness, attacks on ships, moral dilemmas to rescue or not and hours of destroyer depth charge. The submarine is damaged and needs to return to port, but is ordered to pass the dangerous Strait of Gibraltar and operate in the Mediterranean Sea. The submarine is attacked and damaged in the Strait. The submarine dives to the bottom and works to repair the submarine. The repairs get the submarine off the bottom and she makes it to La Rochelle, a German-occupied port in France. But at La Rochelle the submarine is sunk in an air raid, with some of the crew lost.^[1][2][3]

Reception

Being a novelization of real experiences, the book received mixed reviews. The book is a fictionalized autobiographical story.^[10]

• The portrayal of the submarine crew upset some German U-Boat veterans’ groups.^[11]
• Buchheim writes about the specs of the U-Boat and then has it dive deeper than it can in the book.^[12]
• written differently, thought differently, must not change such a judgement: Lothar-Günther Buchheim has written the best German novel from the front of the Second World War to date, the first that is valid, and objections that the war, Either way, it's no longer an issue, have been wiped off the desk, and off the beer table too.' – Peter Dubrow: Die Zeit, October 12, 1973^[13]
• In Buchheim, the submarine crew is no longer the hero. The boat, on the other hand, almost becomes a hero, which, as the whale Melville described in an almost erotic and affectionate way, becomes an almost mythical object – a "dark ferry on oily-black slick, as it glides out of the submarine bunker on enemy voyages. German Werth: Der Tagesspiegel October 7, 1973^[14]

Translations

Das Boot has been translated into 18 languages. The United Kingdom edition was translated into British English by John Brownjohn and published by HarperCollins in 1974.^[2] It was translated into American English by Denver and Helen Lindley in 1975 with editor-translator Carol Brown Janeway.^[2][15] A Dutch translation, De Boot, was published in 1974 by in den Toren.

1981 film

Main article: Das Boot

The book was the basis of the 1981 West German war film Das Boot, written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann. The film makes some changes from the novel.^[16][17]

Sequels

Buchheim subsequently published Die Festung (1995), an immediate sequel to Das Boot, and Der Abschied [de], set after the war. The three books form an autobiographical trilogy.

See also

• Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945)

References

1. L.-G. Buchheim: Der Film Das Boot Ein Journal. Goldmann Verlag, München 1981.
2. Lothar-Ggünther Buchheim's Das Bboot: Memory and the Nazi Past, by Dean Jon Guarnaschelli, St. John's University Theses and Dissertations, 2020
3. Lothar-Günther Buchheim: Das Boot. 1977
4. Buchheim to Charlie Connelly
5. Das Boot ISBN 039449105X
6. "Das Reboot". The New European. March 4, 2019.
7. "U-boat Registry of Officers", German Federal Archives, Entry: Lehmann-Willenbrock Heinrich Fkapt.01.12.44, 11.12.1911–18 April 1986 – U-5, U-96.
8. Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.
9. U-Boot-Krieg (U-Boat War),uboat.net
10. Villains, Victims, and Veterans: Buchheim's Das Boot and the Problem of the Hybrid Novel-Memoir as History by David G. Thompson, 1993, Duke University Press, jstor.org
11. Franz K. Stanzel, “Literarische und historische Anatomie eines Bestsellers: Lothar-Günther Buchheims ‘Das Boot’” [Literary and historical anatomy of a bestseller], Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 56 (2006): 204. Stanzel was referring to the 1973 reviews by Thomas Scheffel from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Peter Dubrow from Zeit. After the American English version of Das Boot was complete, The New York Times criticized the portrayal of the crew as "homogenous." Christopher LehmannHaupt, "Still Pure Hell Down There," The New York Times, May 13, 1975.
12. "Still Pure Hell Down There," The New York Times, May 13, 1975
13. Michael Salewski: Von der Wirklichkeit des Krieges Analysen und Kontroversen zu Buchheims „Boot“. 2. Auflage. dtv, Nördlingen 1985, ISBN 3-423-01213-7, S. 96.
14. M. Salewski: Von der Wirklichkeit des Krieges Analysen und Kontroversen zu Buchheims „Boot“. 2. Auflage. dtv, Nördlingen 1985, ISBN 3-423-01213-7, S. 118
15. Roberts, Sam (August 6, 2015). . New York Times. Archived from the original on September 30, 2023.
16. McCarthy, Todd (March 31, 1997). "Das Boot: The Director's Cut". Variety. Retrieved June 28, 2022.
17. McCaulay, Philip Martin (2010). World War II Movies. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-0-557-30299-4.