Looping is SOP-- they did it for the whole thing because the ambient noise on-set made it a necessity. The actors were still speaking German when it was originally filmed. The chronology goes [ol][]Filmed with a German crew, from a German script[]Six hours of German dialogue recorded for German miniseries version[]Pared down to 2 1/2-hour version and subtitled for North American theatrical release the same year[]Dubbed into English featuring the voices of many of the original cast and rereleased a year later.[/ol]If you have the opportunity to check out the DVD, you’ll notice that the dub (although a better effort than usual) is at variance with the subtitled lines, because the English dialogue had to be massaged to closer match the mouth-movements of the original German-- this artificial constraint gives many of the lines an awkward, stilted feeling, apart from never quite matching up with the visuals.