On the evening of February 24, 1985, the tube TVs of the Federal Republic dwell in a gaudy wet room, as cold as death. Then the "Ping!" a sonar, metallic, boring; the dull sound of a gritty keyboard theme that mills your brain. And then a shadow from the deep, massive, black: "The boat". A piece of German television history on underwater travel.

33 years before the current update on Sky held Wolfgang Petersen's mini-series the Republic in breath. A trilogy that descended deep into collectively repressed war atrocities, symbolically boosting the claustrophobic tightness of submarine U-96, made the stage for a lesson on the insanity and futility of war. The "Süddeutsche Zeitung" called "Das Boot" in the same breath as anti-war classics like "nothing new in the West".

Artistically dissolved the production version of "The Boat", what the eponymous movie from 1981 had only hinted at. The reviled the author of the novel, Lothar-Günther Buchheim, as "saltwater western". Nevertheless, with a budget of more than 25 million marks, the most expensive German movie was internationally successful, especially in the USA. But only the five-hour "Journey to the end of the mind" (advertising slogan) with the "Kaleu" (Jürgen Prochnow as commander) and Lieutenant Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) were the real deal .

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"The Boat" 1985: The Street Sweeper

Only now could the handheld camera develop this peculiar pull and really make the viewer feel the tightness of the boat. Put him in the narrow corridors between torpedo tubes, galley and bunks. Make him believe that he could smell the diesel and the sweat. Let him hear the ominous detonations of the depth charges and the hair-raising crack of the steel skeleton as U 96 dives deeper and deeper.

60 percent of television viewers turned on "The Boat"

Distance was not possible, "the boat" an immersive experience. Last but not least, because one with the first milchububigen, then increasingly spiked team mitfieberte. With the chief engineer, who was only called "The Ghost"; with the fervently played by Klaus Wennemann "LI" (Chief Engineer), who was almost crazy with concern for his bomb-threatened family. Few had names of these characters, but their destinies burned as if they were family members.

Of course, there was also a tremendous dramaturgical problem in the rousing style, for "The Boat" cultivated the legend ten years before the first Wehrmacht exhibition, according to which the German soldiers went innocently into the war. A staunch Nazi aboard U 96 is just the greasy "one wo" (first watch officer, Hubertus Bengsch), even the "Kaleun" is openly criticizing the military leadership.

An aspect that was viewed and discussed critically in public at that time. The makers referred to Buchheim's novel, which was based on his experiences during the submarine war and described the events just like that.

"The boat" became a street sweeper. That was the name of a television era in which announcers told the audience what they would like to see. In the private television was in its infancy, Karl-Heinz Köpcke chief spokesman of the "Tagesschau" was and at night closing with test pattern. 60 percent of the television viewers came on "The Boat", the third and final episode on March 4 saw 23.9 million.

In the video: Christian Buß on the Sky reissue of "Das Boot"

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Bavaria Fiction / Spiegel Online

And yet, this mini-series was not at the time a solitaire in a otherwise dull television landscape. On the contrary, the eighties turn out to be a first golden age of the German series, on closer inspection, "The boat" was only one of the highlights among many. The great directors of the New German Cinema just discovered the possibilities of the artistically designed television series and pushed projects that were even absurdly ambitious by today's standards.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder caused a stir at the beginning of the decade with his 930-minute version of Alfred Döblin's novel "Berlin, Alexanderplatz". Some spectators surmised that the cameraman had probably forgotten the lighting, but of course the pictures were intentionally so bleak. In 1984, the first part of Edgar Reitz '"Heimat" saga, shot partly in black and white and in Hunsrücker Platt, appeared in its deliberately distanced staging as it were the counterpart to Petersen's "boat".

Helmut Dietl was in absolute high form with his laconic-sympathetic present-day survey "Monaco Franze" and his cynical-bright counterpart "Kir Royal". And even in an eve detective series such as "Der Fahnder" - again with Klaus Wennemann in the lead role - director Dominik Graf was able to explore what was possible narrative in format television.

So whoever is constantly talking about the "Golden Age of the TV Series", which has finally arrived in Germany, should once dive with U-96 into a not-so-distant past, in which German TV series already shone.

"The Boat - Director's Cut": Friday, 10 pm, ARD