Question: Help me find that World War II u-boat newsreels

ouke — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:47:18 -0800

Help me find that World War II u-boat newsreels

My darling niece is interning at one of our local cinemas. For her father's birthday she arranged the most awesome present in the known history of mankind: a private screening of Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot".
The running gag in our family is that he is always watching this movie by himself, so whenever somebody asks where he's at, the standard answer is: "In the attic, watching Das Boot". Tomorrow the whole family shows up at the cinema, while he thinks he's coming to town to carry his wife's shopping bags all day.
To make this a complete nostalgic cinematic experience, I would like to see if it is possible to start the screening with an old German War newsreel. I would like to faux subtitle that with a text about his Das Boot obsession. I am looking for footage of the building or launch of a german submarine, preferably similar to the tormented star of the movie: the u-96. Of course u-boat related parades are also what I'm looking for, but at the same time I wonder how the hell you parade around with a u-boat.
A quick tour yesterday to find a related DVD in the shops in town resulted into nothing. Online I was more succesful at archive.org. I found some appropriate footage in their archives of German UFA ton-woche newsreels. And while archive.org is usually very generous in offering different formats, these movies come with a compression that renders into something so impressionist, it has to be considered entartet.
So my question is: where could I find such German newsreels or documentary footage in good quality? And remember short is good, because director's cut of this movie already makes us hold our breath for three and a half hours.

By: Ljubljana

Ljubljana — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:26:42 -0800

For German wartime newsreels, you want "Die Deutsche Wochenschau." There are a ton of them on YouTube, including plenty of u-boot clips. (The linked one is available in "HQ" -- don't know if that's good enough for you. It is short, though.)

They do have DVDs of the show here... otherwise they seem to be hard to track down.

Good luck!

By: ouke

ouke — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:16:09 -0800

Ljubljana, you suggestion is spot on and the quality is great! Thanks so much, this was exactly what I was looking for! You gotta love the metafilter: for all your u-boat needs

Comments on: Help me find that World War II u-boat newsreels

Question: Help me find that World War II u-boat newsreels

By: Ljubljana

By: ouke