This season could be called “the Hunt for Reich October.” U-boat captain Johannes von Reinhartz is sick of collecting medals for torpedoing civilian passenger ships. He wants to end the war and if that also ends National Socialism, so much the better. He is supposed to ferry Gestapo saboteurs to the New England coast, but instead, he intends to pop up in the middle of Manhattan’s harbor, where he will turn over his U-boat and its Enigma machine to the American authorities. However, the Kriegsmarine’s most psychotic U-boat captain has been ordered to stop him in season two of creators Johannes W. Betz & Tony Saint’s Das Boot, which premieres today on MHz Choice.
It has been over seven years since Hulu streamed season one and only season one (out of four total). That is a long time in between seasons (for Americans), but it is surprisingly easy to pick up the flow of the next batch of episodes. Inexperienced Captain Klaus Hoffman was cast adrift, presumed to his death, after deranged Captain Ulrich Wrangel rallied his crew to mutiny. Instead, Hoffman managed to reach shore, finding his way to the office of Samuel Greenwood, the son of an American industrialist trying to keep his business ties to Germany under wraps. The junior Greenwood represented half of the highly classified prisoner swap Hoffman’s U-boat conducted. Now, the American hopes to extract information to help his father bid for defense contracts.
Although briefly imprisoned for leading the insurrection, Wrangel is reinstated to hunt down von Reinhartz, once his betrayal is exposed. Wrangel assumes von Reinhartz’s honor will be his undoing. Conversely, von Reinhartz expects Wrangel’s recklessness will eventually lead him to overplay his hand. While von Reinhartz initially hopes to keep his crew in the dark, he recruits radio operator Frank Strasser as an ally. Strasser yearns to reunite with the daughter he sent to safety abroad. His sister Simone, a translator for the SS and a secret resistance member, is more idealistic, but it will cost her dearly.
Like season one, the action shifts back and forth between the aquatic warfare in the Atlantic, land-based intrigue—either the Resistance’s tragic drama in France or the espionage-saboteur thriller that develops in New York. Fittingly for a series titled Das Boot, the submarine-based storyline is the tightest, tensest, and grabbiest, while the Resistance arc is the weakest. Yet, it still has its merits. It also features Vicky Krieps (whose stature has grown considerably since the series originally aired in Germany), as Simone Strasser.
Arguably, the New York sections happen to be a surprisingly smart and engaging departure from season one. Although sick of war, Hoffman feels compelled to return to Germany. To that end, he falls in with German spy Friedrich Berger, who has forged an alliance with the German Bund and anti-British Irish officials in the police and local government. At one point, writer Colin Teevan clearly implies Tammany Hall was treasonously sympathetic to Germany. That would sound inconceivable, but a Mamdani appointee was just caught trying to forge an alliance with the Iranian regime, so apparently history repeats itself.
Regardless, Clemens Schick is terrific as the disillusioned but still crafty von Reinhartz. Likewise, Stefan Konarske makes a worthy rival as the sweaty, unhinged Wrangel. Similarly, Pit Bukowski is spectacularly twitchy as Pips Luders, a U-boat engineer imploding from the guilt resulting from his crimes during the mutiny.
Still, the U-boat versus U-boat action remains the main attraction, especially for fans of 1981 film (to which, season one is considered a loose sequel, based on Lothar-Gunther Buchheim’s same source novel and its follow-up). In many respects, it surpasses the submarine cat-and-mouse games of the previous season. Its depiction of wartime turncoats and saboteurs is also the kind of gripping stuff most American productions won’t touch. Frankly, every episode delivers quite a bit of great television. Highly recommended, season two of Das Boot starts streaming today (8/4) on MHz Choice.
