Movies and Films
This is the forum for Movie and Film discussions. Again, our topic is naval warfare in WWII for the most part.
Re: Did they always pee on their officers?
Posted by:
Dr. Hans-Werner Martin
()
Date: July 08, 2003 07:32AM
<HTML>Dear friends,
it's a very "interessing" discussion about a marginal topic: p.....g at the car passing by. What the sailors are doing is living out one of their smal "liberties of the 'Freicorps Dönitz'". Liberties of "morituri" - accepted and tolerated by their leaders. In literature (Suhren, Hirschfeld) there are a lot of exemples for these actings, tolerated as a "Valve" for the psychological pressures of living all days long with the fear of death .
But to my mind there's a much more interessting and strange part in the movie: The scene in which Buchheim (= Lt. Werner) gets the the tissue full of oil slaped in to his face (I love this scene ;-)) in the bow-section by one of the sailors. And nothing happens. In reallity impossible! Agression of an subalterne rank agains an officer before the eyes of other subalterne ranks, with no consequences? Such an exemple would have been absolutely fatal for the most vital "thing" on a u-boat: a very good discipline! And even an "liberal" leader as "der Alte" never, never would nor could have tolerated such an severe incident! And even in "democratic" armies of that time, an investigation an punishment would have followed, so why not in the Wehrmacht?!?
This is the scene in the movie, worth talking about. The "Sprengwagen" is slapstick, but this scene false and rediculous.
bst rgds
hwm</HTML>
it's a very "interessing" discussion about a marginal topic: p.....g at the car passing by. What the sailors are doing is living out one of their smal "liberties of the 'Freicorps Dönitz'". Liberties of "morituri" - accepted and tolerated by their leaders. In literature (Suhren, Hirschfeld) there are a lot of exemples for these actings, tolerated as a "Valve" for the psychological pressures of living all days long with the fear of death .
But to my mind there's a much more interessting and strange part in the movie: The scene in which Buchheim (= Lt. Werner) gets the the tissue full of oil slaped in to his face (I love this scene ;-)) in the bow-section by one of the sailors. And nothing happens. In reallity impossible! Agression of an subalterne rank agains an officer before the eyes of other subalterne ranks, with no consequences? Such an exemple would have been absolutely fatal for the most vital "thing" on a u-boat: a very good discipline! And even an "liberal" leader as "der Alte" never, never would nor could have tolerated such an severe incident! And even in "democratic" armies of that time, an investigation an punishment would have followed, so why not in the Wehrmacht?!?
This is the scene in the movie, worth talking about. The "Sprengwagen" is slapstick, but this scene false and rediculous.
bst rgds
hwm</HTML>
