Fanspot
Submarine base
“We are soldiers of the sea. This forces us to face not only the elements but also the enemy. At sea, we are left to ourselves. Gentlemen, this submarine is new. We are going to test it. But it is above all he who will test us. Pay attention to the comrades at your side. There’s only one way to get out of this alive: together.”
Kapitänleutnant Klaus Hoffmann (Rick Okon)
Like Steven Spielberg’s Lost Ark Adventurers or Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot, from which the series is derived, Das Boot made extensive use of the scenery of the La Pallice submarine base in La Rochelle.
In season 1, Simone Strasser (Vicky Krieps) meets up with her brother Frank (Leonard Scheicher) when she arrives in town to take up her new job as secretary at the kommandantur. The young man frequently goes to sea in one of the German army’s U-boats.
The place is again visible during the return of a submarine commanded by Schulz (Pierre Kiwitt). While the crowd waits impatiently for the boat to drop anchor, a director films its arrival with a black and white camera. But a blast stops the festivities. A bomb of the resistance makes many damages of which Simone, on the ground. But she comes out of it, just stunned.
The submarine base of La Pallice was built by the German authorities during the Second World War. It houses six U-Boats. After the conflict, it was used by the French Navy before being closed to the public. Wolfgang Petersen uses it for his film and talks about it to his friend Steven Spielberg for the first opus of the Indiana Jones saga. The submarine built by the teams of the first director is used for the seconds. It is just repainted.
In the series, the surroundings of the base, the mooring places in the interior and the docks of the port are at the heart of the plot.
Today, the series Das Boot has 3 seasons.
Quai de l'Entrepôt
Huge bunker dating from the Second World War, the submarine base of La Rochelle sheltered German U-Boats during the conflict. It is located Quai de l’entrepôt in the city of Charente-Maritime.
This submarine base was built between 1941 and 1943 by the Todt Organization, a German company.
It was part of the famous Atlantic Wall that the Germans built during the Second World War to protect the coast. This bunker, then called the La Pallice submarine base, after the district of the city where it is located, housed the submarines (U-boats) of the Kriegsmarine. It could accommodate up to six of them.
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By Damien Canteau
Passionné par l'Histoire, les animés, les Arts et la bande dessinée en particulier, Damien est le rédacteur en chef du site spécialisé dans le 9e art, Comixtrip.