In Count Not the Dead Michael Hadley explores the complex relationships between political reality and cultural myth, and draws important conclusions about the way Germans have interpreted their past and how present concerns are changing these views.

Basing his study on some two-hundred-and-fifty German novels, memoirs, fictionalized histories, and films (including Das Boot), Hadley examines the popular image of the German submarine and weights the values, purposes, and perceptions of German writers and film makers. He considers the idea of the submarine as a war-winning weapon and the exploits of the "band of brothers" who made up the U-boat crews.

He also describes the perceptions of the German public about the role of the U-boat in the war effort and the hopes that it carried for victory in two world wars against the Allied forces. In this fascinating look at nearly one hundred years of propaganda and literature, the U-boat emerges as a central factor and metaphor in Germany's ongoing struggle with its political and military past.