Re-Interpreting the Infamous Lifeboat Scene

Forget, for a moment, all of the "all Germans weren't Nazis" arguments and let's approach this scene from the "historical fiction" standpoint. As has been stated many times the Kriegsmarine weren't all goosestepping Nazis. These fictional Kriegsmarine crewmen, however, are.

Now then. They have orders not to take on survivors from ships they've sunk. When confronted with the lifeboat, they're in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation, in their minds. They can't take those people aboard. But at the same time, simply leaving them adrift is essentially consigning them to death. Given the way Nazis stereotypically think, it's entirely possible that by just shooting them they were sparing them a slower death by starvation at sea. Cold and methodical, yes, but potentially, from their viewpoint, a merciful means of carrying out a necessary evil.

Besides. Given that prior to the arrival of the Americans they mostly would just otherwise be farting around on their sub, from a storytelling standpoint it's obvious the writer(s) wanted Wassner and his guys to do something that established them firmly as bad guys beyond the simplistic "they're Nazis so they're bad" approach. Although usually being a Nazi does automatically guarantee your evilness, sometimes, in films, "they're Nazis so they're bad" is a bit cartoonish (see the Indiana Jones films), so a graphic depiction of WHY Nazis are bad is called for in a more serious story.

And machine gunning a lifeboat of people is a surefire way to get across who you're supposed to be rooting against.

So, while on some level I find this stereotyping of WWII Germans simplistic, I at least get that these are made up Germans and understand what it was the filmmakers were going for with this scene, and why it was needed, and have to admit that actually showing them doing something bad rather than simply asserting their badness without any evidence is the right way to go about this.

So I don't get why people bicker about it so much. On either side.

"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"