Das Boot Trivia

1. What is the number of the U-Boat featured in the film?

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: U-96

U-Boats are given numbers rather than names, as is the convention with surface vessels. The number of the boat is mentioned often by the Captain, when receiving reports on the positions of convoys and other U-boats.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: Thomsen

It is also Thomsen's boat that they meet on the high seas in the middle of the storm. He and "our" Commander are two of a very very few remaining "old hands". The Commander says that he is made to feel ancient by the youth of his crew, but he himself is probably only about 30. All in all 40,000 men shipped out in German U-boats during WWII. 30,000 never came back.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: La Rochelle

The opening sequence of Das Boot, including the bar scene, the 'fireboat drill', Ullmann and Francoise's farewell and the boat's departure from the dockyard, is set in La Rochelle. During the German occupation of France, La Rochelle provided an important base for the German fleet. (In the film, Vigo is where they receive supplies later on, Gibraltar is the formidable British base they fail to pass through safely and La Spezia is their destination.)

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: Werner

The name was made up by the film makers. The book from which the film was made is autobiographical, and he should therefore be named for the author, Lothar-Günther Buchheim.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: He is never named

Several of the officers remain nameless throughout the film, including the 1st and 2nd lieutenants, the 'Chief' and the captain (although I have learned from a documentary that his name is Cpt. Lt. Lehmann-Willenbrock; this is never divulged in the film).

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: The First Officer

The Commander is obviously infuriated by his First Officer's rigidity and fussiness (not to mention his sheep-like devotion to Hitler), and delights in winding him up!

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: Herbert Groenemeyer

Herbert Groenemeyer has, perhaps a little strangely, gone on to become one of Germany's most successful pop stars. You may, however, recognise Juergen Prochnow (the Captain) from the hit film 'The English Patient'.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: It's a Long Way to Tipperary

This is one of my very favourite scenes in the whole film. It makes me grin every time to see them all singing along to such a totally incongruous record.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: Three weeks, two days

The crew were forced to weather the harsh Atlantic storm for just over three weeks, according to Werner's voiceover, after the protracted storm sequence. They were rarely allowed to dive in order to escape the rolling waves - this would have been a waste of oxygen.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: He starts an alarm drill.

This scene is classic Jürgen Prochnow. He barely moves, but he practically oozes satisfaction at having scared them all.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: It's a Long Way to Tipperary

The song plays both on the journey out, when spirits are fairly high, and on the journey back, when the general mood is one of exhaustion, with hope of a safe return. This song's presence may have been one of Petersen's ways of ensuring that his audience were clear on the fact he did not support the Nazis, and that he is well aware that the Germans did not win the war in the end. It also represents the Captain's disillusionment with the ideals that he is fighting for.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: 90 metres

But as we find out, it can survive much greater depths without bursting the pressure hull.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: Johann

Johann, the Phantom, suffers a nervous breakdown during this terrifying sequence, a couple of hours into the film. However the Captain decides not to have him court-martialled, as it is his ninth voyage on a U-Boat and he deserves another chance.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: Johann the Diesel Engineer

Johann is one of the most reliable crew members, but this is one depth charge attack too many and he cracks. The Commander dives for his pistol to stop Johann opening the tower hatch and drowning everyone onboard, but the others manage to get him out of sight in time. The Commander exposes his human side when Johann later apologises and he may well not court martial him if it doesn't happen again.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: Britain

The only convoy with which U-96 manages to successfully catch up, and torpedo, is British, as are the sailors who are left onboard and subsequently torpedoed in the second attack. U-96 gets into a spot of bother with this convoy, as they are attacked by a British destroyer with an ultrasound detection system, once they have blown up four ships.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: The Chief Engineer and Lieutenant Werner

The Commander knows it is unlikely they will get through Gibraltar alive, and tried to put ashore the volunteer supernumary Lieutenant Werner and the Chief, who is supposedly on his last trip before home leave and whose wife is heavily pregnant and having a hard time of it.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: She was killed in an air raid in Cologne.

The Chief hears on the radio about an air raid in Cologne, where his wife lives, and becomes agitated and upset. When Werner mentions to the 1st lieutenant that he had thought he (1st Lt.) had relatives in Cologne, he replies that his fiancee was killed two months ago in a raid. The moment when this fact is revealed provides a moment of rare compassion for the audience, for the man who is apparently the only devout Nazi on board. Other than this, he is often difficult to sympathise with.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: The Straits of Gibraltar are very narrow and shallow and swarming with British shipping.

The Straits of Gibraltar are only seven miles wide (less than half the width of the Straits of Dover) and shallow, added to which Gibraltar is British Territory, and the natural Mediterranean base for the Royal Navy. The whole area is swarming with British shipping, and very easily patrolled. A tall order for the most competent of U-boat commanders.

From Quiz 'Das Boot' Uncut Version

Answer: It is sunk in its harbour at La Rochelle by bombers, just minutes after it has finally arrived home.

This is perhaps one of the most devastating endings to any film. We have made such connections with the characters throughout the five-hour duration of the film, and then to see the crew decimated just as they are about to taste freedom is heartbreaking.

From Quiz "Das Boot": How Much Do You Know?

Answer: Kriechbaum the Navigator

Only the Commander and Kriechbaum are on the bridge when the boat is attacked, and after the latter is brought down to be treated by Hinrich the Radio Officer in his other capacity as the medic, the Commander stays on the bridge as the boat dives in a very dramatic scene, with him clinging to the conning tower, soaked to the skin, his sou'wester flapping, roaring at the Chief to go faster "give her all she's got!" he yells and then leaps down the tower hatch as it sinks beneath the waves.

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