Is Das Boot a true story?

Answer 1

As best as movies can be - especially from a German point of view, it was detrimental to the people of Germany. There were a few minor inaccuracies, but overall the format and plot was as true to form as could be.

So unlike many Hollywood "blockbusters".

Overall, it was as true to life as could be captured within the time frame (They tried to film the movie as soon as possible to ensure the characters didn't age between frames)

From my point of view, this has to be one of the best WW II movies around - go for the subtitled rather than the dubbed version.

In fact, try and get the six hour series, far better than the shortened movie. It gives a better understanding of what life was really like for a U boat crew.

From Wikipedia:

During 1941, a war correspondent named Lothar-Günther Buchheim joined U-96 for a single patrol. His orders were to photograph and describe the U-boat in action for Propaganda purposes. From his experiences, he wrote a short story, "Die Eichenlaubfahrt" ("The Oak-Leaves Patrol") and a 1975 novel which was to become an international best-seller, Das Boot, followed in 1976 by U-Boot-krieg ("U-Boat War"), a nonfiction chronicle of the voyage. In 1981 Wolfgang Petersen brought the novel to the big screen with the most expensive German film to that date, Das Boot, critically acclaimed by many as the best submarine films of all time