Der magische Gürtel/ The Log of the U-35 (1917/1920)

Posted on May 22, 2011
Filed Under films, silent films

U-35 was the deadliest of Germany’s U-boats in the First World War. From her commissioning in November 1914 to her surrender in November 1918 she sank 224 ships, 194 of them under the command of the magnificently named Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, the most successful submarine commander of all time. In 1917 Arnauld and his crew were made the subjects of a 45-minute propaganda film, Der magische Gürtel (The Enchanted Circle), which was shot over the course of U-35’s five-week Mediterranean patrol in April/May of that year. U-35 destroyed 23 targets totaling more than 60,000 tons during the patrol. Der magische Gürtel depicts 10 of the sinkings. It’s lasting image is a ship slipping out of sight below the surface of the sea.

Der magische Gürtel fell into Allied hands with Germany’s defeat. After the war, altered, shorter versions with English subtitles were released in Great Britain and the United States. The 26-minute version available from Image Entertainment, The Log of the U-35, is said to be a mash-up of the British and American films. It’s an interesting example of German wartime propaganda repurposed by the Allies for postwar commercial exhibition.  Der magische Gürtel was intended to be inspiring, The Log of the U-35 was intended to be sensational. The altered film isn’t much different from the original (although it includes only eight of the sinkings). What was originally produced as a thrilling celebration of Germany’s submarine prowess has been recut into a… gobsmacked acknowledgement of Germany’s submarine prowess.

All of the footage from Der magische Gürtel and The Log of the U-35 was shot by a cameraman identified on IMDb only as “Loeser.” All of it was shot from the deck or the conning tower while the boat is on the surface. (It’s likely there was insufficient light to film belowdecks.) Arnauld, like many other successful submarine commanders of the time, preferred to work on the surface. He was frugal with his torpedoes and sank most of his targets with U-35’s deck gun. It is nonetheless curious that neither  Der magische Gürtel or The Log of the U-35 contains any reference whatever to U-35 operating submerged, which leaves the impression the entire patrol was conducted on the surface.

Loeser’s raw footage was transformed into Der magische Gürtel by writer-director Hans Brennert. The Log of the U-35 includes translations of most of the original title cards, along with some admonitory victor’s titles. Both films open with the submarine departing on patrol, and almost immediately cut to a series of sinking merchantmen. The victims are typically steamers of about 4,000 tons (although U-35 also bagged a two-masted sailing schooner that was transporting a cargo of live sea turtles). Interestingly,  Der magische Gürtel does not identify the submarine or even Arnauld—Germany’s best U-boat captain—until we see a radiogram from the boat to its base late in the film. The Log of the U-35, on the other hand, identifies Arnauld almost immediately. Neither film makes any effort to establish individual personalities or humanize the crew. Titles in both films refer to extended gun battles between U-35 and armed merchantmen—and in later years Arnauld recalled Loeser filming such encounters—but there’s nothing like that in the finished films.

There are some interesting propaganda games being played in both The Log of the U-35 and  Der Magische Gurtel . The victor’s re-edit includes an opening title card reminding the viewer of Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, a controversial decision that added to the popular image of the “frightful Hun” and helped propel the United States into the war. The placement of the title card seems to make sense, as U-35‘s patrol began only a few weeks after Germany’s declaration, and strongly implies that The Log of the U-35 will be an account of unrestricted submarine warfare–but it isn’t. A large part of Arnauld’s continuing fame rests upon the fact that he did not practice unrestricted submarine warfare, even when it was his government’s policy to do so. Arnauld was scrupulously correct about permitting the crews of the merchant ships he chased down to take to their lifeboats before he destroyed the vessels, taking care that the men had maps, sufficient water and supplies to make it safely to shore  The titles in Der magische Gürtel repeatedly cite Arnauld’s adherence to prize rules. Those titles have been excised from The Log of the U-35, but the viewer can’t help but note that the ships Arnauld is sinking with such mechanical regularity appear to be unmanned. Of course Germany did resume unrestricted submarine warfare only weeks before U-35‘s spring 1917 patrol. From that moment U-boat captains were permitted to sink enemy shipping on sight, and most of them did, so the German government was being equally disingenuous in the first place in presenting Arnauld and U-35 as a representative of U-boat tactics.

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