Das Boot cover art

Das Boot

W&N Military

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Das Boot

By: Lothar Gunther Buchheim
Narrated by: Tim Bruce
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About this listen

 'Breathless, terrifying U-boat drama... a masterclass in economical, tight-space storytelling, piling the pressure on both characters and audience'
Time Out

It is autumn 1941 and a German U-boat commander and his crew set out on yet another hazardous patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Over the coming weeks they must brave the stormy waters of the Atlantic in their mission to seek out and destroy British supply ships. But the tide is beginning to turn against the Germans in the war for the North Atlantic. Their targets now travel in convoys, fiercely guarded by Royal Navy destroyers, and when contact is finally made, the hunters rapidly become the hunted.

As the U-boat is forced to hide beneath the surface of the sea, a game of cat-and-mouse begins, where the increasing claustrophobia of the submarine becomes an enemy as frightening as the depth charges that explode around it. Of the 40,000 men who served on German submarines, 30,000 never returned.

Written by a survivor of the U-boat fleet, Das Boot is a psychological, military drama merciless in its intensity, and an epic rendering of the Second World War.©1973 Lothar Gunther Buchheim (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group 20th Century Action & Adventure Engineering Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction War & Military Submarine U-Boat Military Transportation War

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All stars
Most relevant  
The delivery of narrator was outstanding, celery of actor flat interjected with pace and force when action as nd drama at it's height. Reflected the the 99 percent boredom and routine of crew life and 1 percent terror and panic. there were times I was imaging myself in the uboat. loved every chapter from start to end.

The teasing out of the conversation between the "old man" and his crew is a wonderful piece of work. Left me wanting more.

Wonderful narration and story

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The book is not complete last chapter will not play so what can you do

The last will not play

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I have marvelled at this ever since I watched the original tv series, the story is a gripping tale from start to finish.

You’re in the boat with the crew.

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I read this book many years ago and also watched the Film. I’ve been waiting for sometime for the audiobook to be produced and finally stumbled upon it on Audible.
A gripping and a very detailed account of life aboard a WW2 German U-boat during a patrol in the North Atlantic. Expertly narrated by Tim Bruce the account draws you in to the world of the German submariner and daily life during a patrol, at times an extremely tense and terrifying experience. A fantastic and enlightening insight, well worth listening to.

Superb.

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Great book with ability to try and experience the excitement terror and frustration they must of felt as the power dynamic of the Allies shifted.

Worth reading

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The convention of using “ cheeky cockney “ accent for the conversation between ranking crew is annoying

Excellent

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Great book that has a very particular way of being written and takes some getting used to. Description is great as well as the detail that goes into the story. On the downside the pace is a bit slow and takes a lot of momentum to build up (around the 5th chapter for me). The narrator is the worse and unfortunately makes the pace even slower and a bit more difficult. Funnily the movie is the same in my opinion.As for the storyline is great and well detailed from the "MAN" that lived throug it. If you are interested in this period and the descriptions therein on the lighter side you can try the Harry Gilmour series by David Black that have a bit more pace and tell the story from the other side of the "trade".

Good book/narrator not so much

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This isn't what I expected. That was my initial feeling regarding this long awaited audio book. I'd seen Das Boot for the first time way back around the mid 80's when it was a mini series on the BBC. I've since watched this several times, now on DVD and am very familiar with the tone and content of the television adaptation of the book. I knew Das boot originated in book form way back and this is, of course, what the television movie was based on. More often than not, the book is the definitive incarnation and the movie version is the poor relative.

Das Boot is perhaps a rather strange mix of the two. The books prose style is one I've never come across before. The writer literally describes every thought as he experiences the world around him. This can both be a terribly verbose and largely unnecessary drag on the narrative and at other times, such as during depth charging and other dire situations, is an asset as we are brought right inside the mind of the terrified author.

The author's writing style is akin to poetry at times as he describes many things using poetic metaphor. One might read a passage describing the mountainous waves during a storm and imagine it coming from a verse of poetry. As alluded to above, this style can both be good and bad. the bad being that the narrative can be slowed to a crawl and prove rather difficult to read, especially when it's new to you at the start of the book, and yet be so engaging at others.

The story closely follows that depicted in the television movies apart from a couple of incidents toward the end of the book completely skipped for television. Probably this was due to the length of the movie version, I'm not entirely sure. The first incident involving the stopping of an ocean liner could possibly be something to cut from the movie, but the final attack on and sinking of a fellow U-boat in close proximity to U-96 would've been a powerful reminder of the price of war.

In many respects, the television movie is perhaps the better version as it removes the unnecessary elements and leaves us with the key plot points as well as faithfully reproducing many of the characters and situations. however, if you want to know how terrifying experiencing a depth charge attack is, then the written word is king when described in such verbose prose in this book.

On the whole the narration is fine. However, the narrator didn't really attempt to come up with distinct character voices, so in the early stages it's hard to know whose talking at times. In addition, the narrator tends to make many speakers sound slightly Cockney, something that sounds a little odd given the characters are German. This is rather odd as the narrator appears to be able to produce excellent accents when needed. Also, he sings the lyrics of some of the songs heard and this isn't pretty listening. However, he does manage to do an amazing impression of an ASDIC ping in one instance.

This book is a translation from what, I presume, was the original German. I wonder if the original translation to the English book format done, likely many years ago, was the reason why all the measurements given were in Imperial and not in the original Metric system as would be used by the German U-boat arm during the second World war. After seeing the television version, the reference to depth etc in feet feels somewhat out of place. other likely points where translation has come up with oddities is the reference to "cells". I would imagine that cells really ought to be tanks, even though ballast tanks are mentioned. I'd never heard the term "diving cells" or "buoyancy cells" being used as terms on submarines, so I suspect the translation may be the culprit. Similarly, the word "plugs" is used when I believe vents or valves may be more appropriate. The author's description of the u-boat interior spaces is accurately portrayed in the television movie. In fact, the television movie had a completely faithful reproduction tube built with the type 7C submarine interior recreated with painstaking accuracy.

If you've seen the television version of this seminal depiction of war, then the book might be hard going to begin with. Once the author is underway in U-96 (interestingly, the U-boat number and others referenced was never mentioned and instead some lettering system was used, such as UA and UW etc) then you'll start to enjoy this highly detailed telling of the story.

Not Quite What I Was Expecting At First

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While listening I could see and feel claustrophobic atmosphere and the description of the rolling and pitching in the storm made me feel queasy!
I was there on Das Boot.
Excellent!

Outstanding story

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This is a great story and well told. Its pace and length aren’t issues, the translation is good.

A great book

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