Das Boot, the 1981 TV series and/or film.
I remember watching it, being utterly gripped by the drama, yet (though I didn’t understand it then), conflicted by my sympathy with the German crew of the submarine, the enemy in this majestic anti-war film.
The conflict possibly came to a head in the dramatic ending, where I know I was shocked and saddened by the death and destruction at the hands of the Allied bombers. Hang on, these are the good guys. Ummm… who are? The film helped me see (though probably not at the time)how there are two sides to these events, and they both can be right, or even Right to a degree. The U-Boat’s were killing sailors, merchant sailors at that, but this was their necessary job as part of their war machine.
In Das Boot, we learn to love and identify with the crew, most particularly the reporter (who grew into the person who wrote the book on which this production is based), and the captain, played by the wonderful Jürgen Prochnow (later in Lynch’s flawed masterpiece “Dune”). Spoiler alert. Bad news. The captain dies. Good news. The person on whom he’s based was the captain of U-96, and he survived the war, finally dying in 1986. Bad news. He really was part of the war machine, and is credited with sinking 24 merchant and troop ships, killing hundreds of allied sailors and troops, mostly in the British Merchant Navy, but also Norwegians, Americans and so on.
How is it that I feel relief that such a killer survived the war?
Probably because in the film he’s portrayed with such humanity, as a man who cares for and loves his crew and his country, but not the war itself, and certainly not Nazism. Compare with Field Marshal Rommel, a soldier who was committed to his job and his country, but not to the sick ideals of Nazism.
Is there a point to all of this?
I suppose the message is that while “I was following orders” is not a sufficient excuse for the gross barbarity committed in the name of Nazism, there were many people who simply were doing their jobs as soldiers, killing because that that was what needed to happen. This is war. Is this naïve?