With no memories of his past the puppet Fredelius awakes in the film workshop of his creator. Fredelius - innocent and kind-hearted - soon has to realize that he was only built to play the role of a super villain. Will his new consciousness help him change the course of things?

Based on an autobiographical novel by German World War II photographer Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, Das Boot follows the lives of a fearless U-Boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow) and his inexperienced crew as they patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean in search of Allied vessels, taking turns as hunter and prey.

A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.