Thoughts and research from Larus.

 From the moment I saw the Swastika on my screen, I was torn between being excited because Germany played a role in it (even if it was just the Nazis), being annoyed because it was undoubtedly accompagnied by another thing: bad German. And French, for that matter. But, since there are enough reviews of the episode to come and this is a time travel episode, I’ve done a bit of research on the historical background and the language:

• Befehlsleiter Gumprecht
The bald German commander who is „killed“ by Delphine didn’t actually exist. However, there is a German football player, who got in a lot of trouble because he turned up to an Australian party dressed up as Hitler, although I believe that this is rather a coincidence
A thing about his character that I don’t understand is, why he isn’t portrayed by a German actor. I am very glad though, that they casted Weronika Rosati as Delphine, who has lived in France as a child and speaks fluent French.

• The „Ahnenerbe“
After the title vanishes, we see Dean on the search for coffee, being annoyed by Sam who talks about Nazis. In his explanation how the Germans discovered the „Hand of God“, he mentions an organisation called „Ahnenerbe“ (although it took me multiple times to figure out what he said). That organisation existed, even though they never discovered any supernatural artifacts. FYI: „Ahnen“ = ancestors; „Erbe“ = „legacy“

• The Men of Letters and gender equality
While reading about Delphine, Dean makes a remark about how he disn’t think that the Men of Letters had some sort of gender equality, looking at their name. The organisation must have been quite modern in that direction though, because not only is Delphine adressed as a Woman of Letters in the report, she is also sent on a mission that could decide the whole war. How different gender views were back in 1943 also becomes clearer when one of the submarine crew members is quite uncomfortable about her wearing pants.

• The Henshaw report
During their research, Sam and Dean translate a French transcription of an exchange with Delphine back in 1943. The report talks about Befehlsleiter Gumprecht and how he was know as „The Butcher“. It also mentions a French guy named Jean-Claude Boulin who was one of the hofhest-ranking members of the French resistance. He is totally made up.

• The USS Bluefin
The submarine on which Delphine tries to escape to America is called USS Bluefin. I found no evidence of there actually being a submarine of that name, there is, however, a USS Bluefish that was used from 1943 to 1945 and a USS Blueback, another name for salmon.
Behind it’s name it reads SS-850, which is supposed to be the ships „license plate“, as you could say. However, it is also stated that it is a Gato-class submarine which had number ranging somewhere in the lower hundreds. When they are „silent running“’ one of the crew members informs the commander that they’re now about 300 feet (=90m) under the surface. That’s the deepest a Gato-submarine can go.

• Dean’s predictions
Not only does Dean distract a crew member with a coin from 1996, when they search him, they find his mobile phone. It must almost seem like witchcraft to them, considering the fact that Dean landed in times of rotary phones. The forst transatlantic call was made only in 1956! Later, the crew member that is supposed to guard him, Petey, asks him multiple questions about the future. The first one is, who is going to win the Baseball world series in 1944. Dean, who has no idea what to answer says „Rangers“, completely confusing Petey, since the Rangers were only founded in 1972. The winners of the World Series were in fact the St. Louis Cardinals. The next question is about the next president of the US. After saying Eisenhower, Dean corrects himself to say Truman, which is of course, correct. Everything else would have been embarassing for an American TV show.

• Z35
The German ship attacking the USS Bluefin is identified as a „’36B German destroyer“, a type of boat of which only three were ever created. At the time of the attack (November 1943), only one of them was already comissioned: Z35. The other two, Z35 and Z43 were used from early 1944 on. Therefore, it is odd that the crew member is referring to it as „a ’36B destroyer“ because it is the only one of his kind that the Americans might (or might have not) known of. The commander of the USS Bluefin refers to it as a 3.000 ton war ship which is right, since it weighs about 3.600 metric tons.

• „I read a lot of Flash Gordon“
„Flash Gordon“ is a comic series first published in 1934 about a guy named Gordon Ferrao who travels to another planet and fights monsters.

• The Thule
The Thule actually existed, as anti-semitic organisation founded after WWI in Munich. It could loosely be called the predecessor of the NSDAP, the party that was the base for the Nazi regime. There are conspiracy theories about the Thule having practiced occult or satanic rituals to bring Hitler under their control.

That’s all that I found on historical and language background. There are, however, two things I just have to comment.

• Das Boot
It was even leaked before the episode aired that it was inspired by the German movie „Das Boot“ (which translated to „The Vessel“), based on a book written by a guy who had served on a German submarine. It also gets a nice double meaning with Cas, Lucifer’s vessel, making an appearance again. There was one point in the story where they attacked and sank a ship and the surivors jumped into the water and tried to get to the German submarine, but the commander turned and left them to die. There is undoubtedly a parallel between the experiences of the author of that book and Dean, after he left all the people on the submarine to die. He says that it „ is a story for another day“, just like the author of „Das Boot“ needed 25 years to find the strenght and transform his journal into a novel.

• Non, je ne regrette rien
The song that plays at the end is basically representive of the lie that Dean tells himself all the time. But other than that, it is in French. How many people did we have in that episode that were French? Just Delphine. I think that it also is about her and that she doesn’t regret having used the Hand of God and how she was immediately ready to sacrifice herself for Dean to escape and win his own war.

This was my first ever post of that kind so I’d be very glad about feedback. I’m still really unsure about it ^^“

Larus

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Witten By: Larus

Published By: Bella

Photographs: Courtesy and Property of ‘The CW’