Wolfgang Petersen has said in the past that Das Boot was intended to be a six-part miniseries right from the start, and the scenes for both the 2 1/2 and 5 hour versions were filmed in the same shoot. He even said that the original script was for a mini-series, but was written so scenes could be cut out for the theatrical version.
Considering how faithful the mini-series was to the novel, and how well most of the "new" scenes blend in, it seems kind of disingenuous to say that it was edited together from "scraps and leftovers." Personally, I view the theatrical version as an action movie, the director's cut as a more atmospheric and "artsier" piece, and the mini-series as a character-based drama.
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