Haie und kleine Fische (1957)

mini|Logo / The film poster above is by Helmuth Ellgaard. The film is set in Germany during the Second World War. In 1940, the minesweeper Albatros takes aboard four “new” cadets who had previously worked together as friends on a herring trawler: Hans Teichmann, Gerd Heyne, Emil Stollenberg, and Vögele. The crew becomes involved in heavy fighting. Vögele is killed. Teichmann saves the life of Wegener, the badly wounded flotilla commander, with whose wife, Edith, he is unhappily in love. But now, blinded, Wegener is entirely dependent on his wife’s help. Disillusioned by his hopeless love, Teichmann volunteers for submarine duty after recovering in the military hospital. The submarine is commanded by Jochen Lüttke, a childhood friend of Wegener’s. Wegener had put in a good word for Teichmann so he could join the crew. Lüttke suspects that Teichmann is in love with Edith, and so Teichmann, who has since been promoted to ensign, has to endure all manner of harassment. Lüttke also completely misjudges Teichmann because of an incident aboard the minesweeper. There, Teichmann had knocked down the incompetent and overwhelmed Lieutenant Pauli, who repeatedly reported him and had ultimately tried, without compelling reason, to leave him to drown. Teichmann’s friend Gerd Heyne commits suicide when he learns that his Jewish father, a critic of the regime, has died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shortly before, he had said to Teichmann: “The two of us, we’re just little fish, and we’ll all be eaten by the sharks, one sooner, the other later—those masters who obey a giant shark that lives only to kill.” In another engagement, the submarine is detected by the British using radar, attacked, and sinks. Stollenberg is killed; Teichmann and other comrades who were in another part of the submarine still have a chance. The men struggle desperately to reach the surface alive. Everything is prepared for their escape. The next day, only eight of them are spotted by a German ship and pulled from the water, Teichmann among them.