⌊Remmidemmi on board⌋

by Monika Bauert

Memories of the preparations for filming of "Das Boot" in the summer of 1980

"Looking for original submarine clothing for filming"

Research work in times without internet

A corridor leads to the studio. Long and narrow. All along the corridor: clothes rack after clothes rack. And on them? Costume after costume. There they dangle, the clothes for the 43 men. You just have to grab them and put them on. The film can begin!
How did they get there? Pixies perhaps?

Just over a year ago, Monika, a post-war child unaffected by the submarine war, had started researching the film. Buchheim's [Lothar-Günther Buchheim, editor's note] photos are black and white - we're shooting in colour. They capture the atmosphere marvellously - and here and there, there are useful details. But as a template for tailoring workshops? No exact cut, no material specification. Colour? Number of buttons? When was what worn and why? At first, the matter seems to clear up quickly. Every submarine boy has a leather and a drill uniform. Plus weather protection clothing for their watch on the tower. So 43 leather suits, 43 drill suits, plus four to a maximum of six weather protection covers. A few jumpers, gloves and boots. The guys on board had a 20 x 30 cm mini locker, so they had to stuff everything in there. So that's all we need for the film? No way!

The longer Monika researches, the more unclear things become. There are tones of clothing regulations in museums and archives. Everything navy! Drawings of where the stamp "Kriegsmarine" is stamped on the pants. It's all there. But not a trace of submarine clothing. Just terse words that there was special clothing for special cases. A visit to Buchheim sheds some light on the matter. But he firmly claims, for example, that a black, short leather jacket – as a photo from the historical archives of the Bundeswehr actually proves – never existed. (He doesn't remember everything either!) Or: In his novel, he describes the lovingly hand-knitted jumper of a certain Simone in very flowery terms. Enthusiastically (in times of scarce materials), he culminates in the assertion that the jumper was not an "arse cheat"! But the photos he took himself prove it: The thing went up to his waist and not an inch further! Perhaps he saw the jumper through rose-tinted glasses? All possible discussions must be abandoned – originals must be found.

Difficult, when most of them are lying at the bottom of the Atlantic and the rest of the surviving clothes have been worn. An advert was placed in the newspaper of the Comradeship association of former submariners and in various antique magazines: "Looking for original submarine clothing for the purpose of filming". There were 30,000. 10,000 survived. Of these, 5,000 were still alive, and they called Monika. All of them. Partly out of curiosity, partly because they still had something old. Collectors who ran a private uniform museum in their garage in Westphalia.

One has a scarf, the other a jacket. A pair of trousers turns up...

For every piece of uniform needed, a pattern comes from adventurous climes. Colour, shape and material can be read and now also understood. The orders are placed. Leather is dyed, twill is woven and the colour is determined. A set of 5 pieces per man. Because you can't get by with just one leather suit: First, the rotting phases from leakage to destruction during the bombardment and then the wetness, the water. You constantly need dry clothes again. You can't keep an expensive team waiting for a costume like this to dry. 5 x 43 = 215 leather uniforms. Also 215 in canvas. The customised stuff arrives in Munich brand new. The leather uniforms: brand new, a Sunday afternoon going-out uniform.

Rotting tactics in the witch's kitchen

A rotting crew gets to work with chemicals and mechanical tools. Acetone destroys the leather colour. So the first step is to remove the beautiful leather colour from all the exposed areas – knees, elbows, butt and pocket flaps – until the natural leather comes out. Carola and Renate, experienced theatre artists, rub the paint off with cloths and sponges. Slightly high in the acetone vapour, with ice-cold fingers because of the evaporation cold. For weeks. Outdoors. In closed rooms, they would pass out after a quarter of an hour. It's not summer. It's raining and cold. A makeshift plastic tent (tarpaulin between two coat racks) is the workshop.
Karin treats the colourless surfaces with all kinds of strange chemicals. Even toilet cleaner with added chlorine is brought out. With wire brushes, sandpaper and chlorine bleach and and ... the three ladies scrape and brush and scrub in a race. Phase I, phase II and so on. 215 outfits through. And then Sigi, the garment master, steps onto the stage. With a practised grip he manoeuvres all the clothes into the salt water brine to get the creases out and give the new uniforms their final touch. He lets the clothes soak and drags the lead-heavy uniforms into the non-existent sun – hopefully they will dry by the start of filming.

"Awkwardly please, as if the boys had done it themselves."

The summer: shitty - it pours and pours. Charly, the costumer, is put to a different use. He teaches the 150 pairs of boarding shoes how to play the flute. And scrapes the leather caps for signs of wear. A witch's kitchen! A single person: Lilo has been applying Verdigris and grime to the shiny brass anchor buttons for days. The expensive gold embroidered emblems are destroyed, artificially oxidised. Caps deformed, arses expanded. Another special squad cuts holes in the brand-new jumpers with razor blades and stuffs them back up with various yarns after nights of homework. Awkwardly, please, as if the boys had done it themselves. Wire brushes everywhere.

Karin dyes and bleaches. It smells terribly of rotten eggs. But that's "only" the bleach solution, so that the twill stuff looks washed ten times over. Chlorine and acetone, bleach and paint, trichloroethylene, nitro thinner, petrol, turpentine, hydrochloric acid. The rubber gloves dissolve by the dozen. Grey, black, rotten. Roughened edges, "dust bunnies" on the jumpers.

Eight weeks of chaos! 50 different shades of grey in the poison kitchen. Epaulettes, career badges, rank insignia, golden braids, braids, stars, punched or embroidered vultures, large, small and tiny medals. Hated but necessary military accessories. Listen....! No matter. The important thing is that the whole pile of clothes looks worn. The devil is in the detail. Oil, grease, dirt and grime are used on the corners of the collar. Beautifully organic - just like in life. Sea boots with cork soles and felt insulation against the cold - they are custom-made in England.

Behind the beautiful surface, something completely different is needed ...

What happens when our performers are exposed to water for 10 hours a day? Is there a risk of someone catching pneumonia or just a cold? A kind of diving suit is specially made for each submarine occupant exposed to the water. Especially thin, so that it doesn't show under the costume and the actors don't look like padded rugby players. Test shots. Monika is satisfied. Now the stuff hangs there. Neatly organised, but dirty. Name by name. A 50 metre long corridor full of clothes. We can finally get started!

Fattened giant flies and blow-dried bananas | About the props

How does an elephant go through the eye of a needle? A simple story. But what on earth do you do with the fly on board, the dear little animal that has smuggled itself on board as a stowaway and is watched by the lieutenant for hours? And finally, to his delight, crawls into the nostril of Dönitz, or rather his photographic likeness? Are there trained flies, like a flea circus, that crawl on command to where you want them – into your nostril? The 14 days that the cameraman would have to sit in the starting hole ... until ... Rubbish! Maybe try a jam trail? Or something else to attract flies? A Harz cheese trail? Discarded. You could see the trail. But first: the fly itself must be found!

Peter, the prop master – who usually has all sorts of critters stored in his "Know Where" card index – from shaky deer pinschers to motorbike-riding elephants – sets his nose on the trail of flies and – he's already got it: a zoological institute is breeding extra fat buzzers to be fed to a rare species of reptile. Twenty noble specimens, fattened up with baby food, big and round, are now sitting in a jam jar with a perforated lid, waiting for their film debut.

In general, Peter has a few special problems with this submarine material. He has supplemented the interior of the boat with original equipment from back then. Some from collectors, some from museums – god knows where he found them. He travelled a total of 40,000 km, personally negotiating with the concerned owners, begging and pleading, enticing them with payment, haggling and talking. But talk to a collector who 10 years ago bought a real soup plate with a porcelain stamp – swastika and "bankruptcy vulture" – for an apple and an egg. "Won't it break", "How much is it insured for?", "And if it breaks – financial compensation???". But the collector doesn't want DM 150 for the plate – he wants the plate. The real one. And all this just to prove to the last survivors: We are authentic down to the last detail? Certainly not. "Don't be a pig!" could be the motto – but it also has to do with professional ambition. Anyone can buy a few plates at Karstadt. But when the disgusting kipper plate is brought to the mouth to be licked and the underside of the plate is in the picture and the swastika and bankruptcy vulture are still sitting under the plate, then it's true. It goes on like this with every fork, every spoon.

"These are the moments when otherwise harmonious film teams have thoughts of murder."

The thing with the binoculars is bad. Special night glasses. An important factor for all the scenes on the bridge. Collectors and museums actually hand over their pieces. And then an actor treats such a valuable piece of equipment like an old shoe during filming - not with malicious intent either - because he's been filming for 10 hours, is wet to the bone, has had the binoculars around him every day for 8 months - so for him it's a seemingly everyday piece of equipment. And then it breaks!
For Peter, who is a collector at heart – its the end of the world! These are the moments when otherwise harmonious film crews have murder on their minds. Cameras, compasses, flashing lights, diaries, nautical charts, pencils, fountain pens & inkwells, wristwatches, even a cuddly toy mascot - and even an ATA on the corner of the loo - and an authentic 1941 IMI tin!

"All you need is mould experience: the bread is placed in a warm, damp plastic bag and in a few days it is ripe".

At some point there's a rumble on board. The old man allows 1/2 bottle of beer per man. That was Beck's beer back then. The avalanche of problems is already rolling again: the wooden crates have given way to plastic crates, the 0.63 litre bottle format no longer exists. The labels are different today. Even Beck's historical archive doesn't have this rarity. The tradition-conscious archivist of the Beck company takes our enquiry as an opportunity and commissions a glassblower to produce the old bottle shape, has labels reprinted, weaves straw sleeves and stamps "Beck's" on the specially made wooden crate. The crate of beer is delivered to the boat free of charge. The poor fee payer doesn't have to pay for everything.

The costs for the mouldy bread on board are also low: all you need is mould experience. After a week, the prop masters get the hang of it: the bread is placed in a warm, damp plastic bag and in a few days it is "ripe". According to Buchheim and Petersen, covered in bluish, milky mould. And then you infect the next ones with the "mother mould bread". The fact that the loaves of bread are specially baked in his bakery according to the moulds of the time is as natural as the text for actors.

In general: the provisions on board.
The potato crate is in the centre of the control room. Initially with fresh potatoes. Later, they will sprout. And right away, because a scene with the potatoes will be filmed in a week's time! In a seed breeding institute, a few professors are already circling around our problem. What old Heinrich Heine used as a "high-maker" when writing - rotten apples are the solution!
They develop ethylene gas and promote the ripening process. Peter mixes his potatoes with rotten apples and the beasts germinate happily. The ethylene gas thing also applies to the banana problem. Peter needs bananas at different stages of ripeness: Fresh to brown in the shop in Gibraltar. They are green in the cold stores before they are "coloured" yellow for the German consumer. They are ripened in chambers using ethylene gas. Every week, Peter orders his bananas in the right shade of yellow - he then adds the finishing touches himself: He treats the bananas with a hairdryer until they turn black. A nice activity for a grown-up family man: "Blow-drying bananas until they turn black!"

But Peter doesn't just have to deal with such "rubbish". The "Draeger-Tauchretter" [a historical breathing apparatus, editor's note] is impossible to find except for an original sample. But he needs 30 of them for one scene. He has been searching for them for two months. Now he has things rebuilt. 108 individual parts are needed; rivets, seals, screws, levers. Partly moulded in resin. An insane job. And Sigi, the head tailor from the costume department, supplies 30 toilet seat-like fabric structures. For a fortnight, he produces nothing but these diving saviours according to the most difficult patterns.

Peter then brings in weapons, cars and aeroplanes for La Rochelle. No problem at all. If only it weren't for the mud, the slime, the shit, the snot, the mould and the streaks!

Excerpt from the extensive notes of costume and production designer Monika Bauert about the work on the movie "Das Boot" by Wolfgang Petersen. In 2023, Monika WAS APPOINTED AN HONOURARY MEMBER OF THE VSK. WE ARE HAPPY TO HONOUR HER LONG COMMITMENT TO OUR ASSOCIATION.