Inglourious Basterds goofs

The Gestapo officer in the tavern is depicted wearing an M1932 Allgemeine-SS uniform, a style the SS popularised during the 1930s. A Gestapo operative would not have worn that, particularly by 1944, as its use had been discontinued in 1942. Such personnel would more commonly have appeared either in civilian clothes or in an SS-style grey field uniform akin to Landa's.

Lieut. Archie Hicox utters the line "Paris, when it sizzles," which actually stems from a lyric in Cole Porter's musical Can-Can (the song "I Love Paris"), not written until the 1950s. Porter coined the expression; he did not simply adopt it from common usage.

In the interrogation scene, the Austrian Hans Landa is shown smoking a high-quality Austrian calabash pipe — a Strambach — whereas Perrier LaPadite uses a much smaller, cheaper corn‑cob pipe, an instrument primarily associated with rural pipe‑smokers in the United States. However, corn‑cob pipes were not known or used in France during the 1940s; a modest‑income farmer would more likely possess a simple clay pipe or a second‑hand Jacob clay pipe.

At the opening sequence set in France, Landa refers to Reinhard Heydrich as "the Hangman" according to the populace of Prague. The exchange is dated to May 1941, but Heydrich did not assume the post of Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (which encompassed Prague) until 27 September 1941. It is therefore improbable that many Czechs would have been familiar with Heydrich in May 1941.

In the opening scene the small convoy winds up the lane to the farmhouse; all the fields are clearly modern arable crops — not pasture as the plot suggests — with 'tramlines' from contemporary sprayers running through the wheat plainly visible.

Throughout the film the distinctive enamel‑adorned Perrier‑Jouët cuvée Belle Epoque champagne bottle appears on several occasions. Although Émile Gallé designed this bottle in 1902, it soon fell into obscurity. In 1964 Pierre Ernst unearthed four examples, and the design was reissued two years later to mark the seventieth birthday of Duke Ellington.

Several times the subtitles translating the French into English leave the word "oui" unchanged as "oui". I realised that most people will know this is the French for "yes", though at other times it is correctly rendered as "yes".

During Adolf Hitler's first on-screen appearance a map of Europe is shown, and in the spot where Turkey ought to be the map is labelled 'Osmanien' (set in Fraktur, which makes the letter 's' look like a 't'). The Ottoman Empire fell in 1923 and the Republic of Turkey was founded in that region roughly twenty years before the period in which the film is set.

Hugo Stiglitz is depicted gradually honing his knife. At the end of each stroke there is an ominous "shhhlick" as he twists the blade with a flick. In fact, that action would strip away the very edge he is trying to sharpen, leaving the blade dulled.

When Lt. Archie Hicox, a British soldier, is presented to his commanding officers, he is told to "stand at ease," a still-formal posture; Hicox instead "stands easy," allowing him to loosen his arms and shift his feet.

Upon Landa's arrival at Lapadite's farm, one of his men addresses him as "Herr Oberst". However, as an SS officer he would not be styled with an army rank; his proper title would be "Standartenführer".

When Lt. Hicox says "And seeing as I might be rapping on the door momentarily", he is employing "momentarily" in the sense of 'in a moment'. In British English of that era, however, 'momentarily' would have been taken exclusively to mean 'for a moment', so it would not have been used to mean 'shortly'.

When Lt. Raine speaks to his general over the radio, the general concludes the transmission with "Over and out." This is not correct radio procedure in the US military. The correct practice is for the person ending the transmission to say only "Out."

When the lieutenant is introduced to the General and Sir Winston Churchill, cords hang from his beret, identifying it as the French style rather than the American or British pattern — unless the director intended to suggest the character's lack of military bearing.

Lt Aldo Raine is wearing the 1st Special Service Force unit insignia, yet later he is referred to as a "Secret Service" officer. Raine could be described as a "Special Service" or a "Strategic Service" (OSS) officer, but not "Secret Service", which is the organisation founded in 1865 and responsible for protecting the President of the United States since 1894.

Landa tells Lapadite that Hitler fetched him from Austria. However, at that time Austria formed part of the German Reich and was referred to as "Ostmark".

Her name is pronounced Shoshanna throughout the film, though onscreen it's misspelt as Shosanna.

At the end of the film, Colonel Landa asks for the "Congressional Medal of Honor" for himself and the surviving members of the "Inglorious Basterds", but no such decoration exists; the official name is simply the "Medal of Honor". The confusion likely arises because it is conferred by the President "in the name of Congress", yet the correct designation remains the "Medal of Honor".

Landa's register at the start of the film lists "Shoshanna" Dreyfus. However, in every other on-screen instance her name is misspelt as "Shosanna", even though it is pronounced like the former.

After Shoshanna shoots Zoller in the back, he turns and fires his service pistol at her. However, he is wearing full dress uniform and is never shown to be armed earlier in the sequence. Furthermore, nothing in the preceding scenes gives him any reason to be carrying a weapon, given the security surrounding the occasion.

Before Wilhelm opens fire on everyone in the tavern scene with a submachine gun, there is a brief cut to the waitress standing against the wall with bullet holes in her blouse, long before she is actually shot.

La Padite lights his pipe, which ought to have sent a respectable plume of smoke into the air, yet he soon sets it down and there is not a trace of smoke anywhere in the small farmhouse.

In the tavern cellar scene, on the first occasion Hickox's firearm is shown aimed at the SS officer with the hammer cocked; on the second occasion the hammer is lowered.

When Lt Raine addresses the Basterds and says "We're into one thing", he is positioned on the right-hand side (by Samm Levine) of the formation. A moment later, when he says "Killin' Nazis", he is at the opposite end.

Near the start of the film, as Hans Landa speaks with Perrier LaPadite, a moth is clearly seen landing on Landa's glass and making its way up to the rim; when the camera angle shifts, the moth has disappeared.

The level of beer in the boot-shaped glass held by the Nazi officer in the pub's cellar differs from shot to shot.

At the beginning of the film, Landa arrives at the farm accompanied by a driver and two armed escorts. A few minutes later, as the interrogation draws to a close, three armed escorts enter the house.

In the pub scene, the German soldiers are playing a guessing game and one of them misidentifies Mata Hari. In that shot the publican and his daughter are plainly seated with them at the table, yet when the film returns to Von Hammersmark's table they have suddenly appeared at the bar behind them.

In the ditch scene, while Lt. Aldo Raine questions the first of his three German prisoners, Sgt. Werner Rachtmann's Close Combat clasp, worn above his left breast pocket, appears and vanishes between shots.

(at around the 1-hour mark) The cigarette Col Landa extinguishes on top of the strudel is noticeably shorter than the one he had lit only moments before.

When Shosanna is back on the ladder for a second time, before the Germans arrive to take her, she is wiping at black lettering. She removes grime from two distinct letters — one is a 'u', the other an unspecified letter — while the 'l' is left uncleaned. In the following shot, however, only the 'l' appears to have been cleaned.

When Shosanna first encounters Zoller, she is removing the red lettering from the cinema's display and tossing the letters onto a canvas sheet spread on the floor. The letters shift across the canvas during the sequence whilst the camera adopts an overhead angle on Zoller.

In the opening scene, as Perrier's daughter hangs a sheet on the washing line, a clothes peg appears on the sheet between cuts.

During the increasingly tense exchange between Hicox and Hellstrom in the cellar bar, there are moments when Hicox's right hand is arched on the table; in the following shot it's lying flat and out of view. This continuity lapse occurs a couple of times.

When Gen. Ed Fenech and Lt. Archie Hicox are toasting "down with Hitler", Fenech has a folder tucked under his right arm. After the cut he clasps his hands over his glass and the folder has vanished. In the next cut the folder is once again visible beneath his arm.

The Brigitte Horney card affixed to Archie Hilcox's forehead reverses its orientation between takes.

In the pub scene, Master Sergeant Wilhelm was seated next to Hicox. His comrades pulled the sergeant away, and Major Hellstrom moved to take the seat, but he had to order Stiglitz to vacate it.

At roughly 24 minutes 50 seconds, when Hitler first appears, the studio lights and other lighting rigs are reflected in the large brass buttons of his white coat.

On the map behind Adolf Hitler, Turkey is labelled "Ottomanien", the German term for the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire ceased to exist in 1923 and was succeeded by the Republic of Turkey.

After the cellar bar fight, Landa singles out one of the Basterds as Cpl. Wicki, suggesting he was a German Jew who emigrated to the US before the war. However, Wicki is neither a 'typical' Jewish name nor a German one; in fact it is a common surname in Central Switzerland. If he had been a Swiss Jew, Wicki would most likely have fled to Switzerland, yet Landa makes no mention of Wicki's surname or fate — an omission that seems improbable, given that Wicki would sound foreign to Germans and Landa is keen to show off his military intelligence.

A female Nazi sergeant can be seen in the pub scene. The Third Reich did not have women serving as soldiers, apart from auxiliaries on anti-aircraft batteries, medical orderlies and aircraft mechanics in the Luftwaffe.

In the card-game scene, Bridget's card reads "Genghis Khan". Since all the participants are German, however, the card would realistically show the German spelling, "Dschingis Khan". Additionally, as she leaves the table Bridget remarks that she never would have guessed it and uses the English pronunciation, despite speaking German.

The Paris theatre is depicted brightly illuminated at night, with the street lamps still on. However, all occupied cities within the range of Allied bombers were subject to strict night-time blackouts. The cinema is also shown with its interior lights on during the afternoon, despite Paris having endured stringent power rationing from January 1942 until after the war.

Except for a small number of essential occupations, a civilian in Paris would not have been working outside after nightfall. A strict curfew remained in force from September 1940 until some time after the Liberation of Paris.

At the première, Private Zoller is attired in his full dress uniform displaying all his awards. He wears the Knight's Cross with oak leaves, swords and cut diamonds around his neck, and the Iron Cross 2nd Class on his tunic. Noticeably absent, however, is the Iron Cross 1st Class — an insignia he would almost certainly have worn to such an occasion (see where Adolf Hitler wears his) and which is required before one can be awarded the Knight's Cross. Without the 1st Class, he could not have legitimately been presented with a Knight's Cross, let alone one further distinguished by oak leaves, swords and cut diamonds.

Throughout the film the character played by Diane Kruger is labelled "fraulein" in the subtitles that render the German into English. Grammatically it should be "Fraulein", the first letter capitalised, as it is a noun like Herr or Frau (Mister or Mistress).

The large map on the wall behind Hitler shows several countries marked with swastikas that were not under German control by 1944, as other contributors have already pointed out. However, there is another conspicuous error on the map — Finland is shown with a swastika. Germany never invaded Finland; its only enemy in the war was the Soviet Union, which couldn't subdue it entirely, although it did gain control of some areas.

At the première, Pte. Zoller wears his Knight's Cross suspended from his neck, yet in every other scene in which he appears in uniform he is not wearing it. The Knight's Cross was among the highest decorations the Third Reich awarded to soldiers, and a recipient in uniform would customarily have worn it at the neck.

Hans Landa, presented as an Austro‑German SS officer, is shown wearing the Germanic Proficiency Runes — an award he could not have legitimately obtained. Those runes were intended exclusively for the Germanic‑SS, the collaborationist organisations established in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway to mirror the Allgemeine‑SS in Germany. They were exceedingly rare and were only issued to a handful of foreign SS collaborators towards the end of 1944. Members of the regular SS in Austria and Germany were never recipients of the Germanic Proficiency Runes.

When General Ed Fenech briefs Lieutenant Archie Hicox, he points to the map and indicates where Hicox will be dropped in France, but he gives the distance in kilometres rather than miles. The British used the imperial system, so saying "kilometres" would be incorrect as they would have used miles.

In the cellar bar, when Major Hellstrom asserts he is pointing his Walther pistol at Lieutenant Hicox, he is in fact holding a Luger. Lieutenant Hicox and Sergeant Stiglitz are armed with Walther pistols.

In the scene where Shosanna is shown putting the reel back into a shipping container, it should be noted that 35 mm film was transported on shipping reels in cases like the one depicted. Before a screening, the projectionist would transfer the print onto the theatre’s house reels and inspect it for breaks and poor splices during the process. If the film were due to be shown that evening, Shosanna would not have returned the reel to its shipping container.

When Fredrik Zoller meets Shosanna again in the café, a Wehrmacht major greets Private Zoller, while Zoller addresses the officer as Hauptmann (Captain). It's evident from the epaulettes that the man is a Wehrmacht major.

When Aldo speaks into the radio to his superior in England, he utters "OVER AND OUT". This is incorrect. To terminate a transmission one should say only "OUT". Using "OVER" signals that it is the other person's turn to reply.

By the time the Allies had landed in Normandy, Hitler's paranoia was so pronounced that no officer was permitted to carry a sidearm in his presence. Consequently, Zoller could not plausibly have been armed with the pistol he uses to shoot Shosanna. That said, this is a convention of the film — it is not intended as a strict historical record. Moreover, Hitler would not have attended the cinema accompanied by only two guards.

Colonel Hans Landa asserts that the bubonic plague was caused by rats. In truth, the disease was spread by fleas that lived on those rodents rather than by the rats themselves. In the 1940s many people believed rats were to blame, so Landa’s mistake reflects the prevailing understanding of the time.

Archie addresses Aldo as "lootenant." In Britain, an officer would ordinarily pronounce it "leftenant" when speaking to fellow British officers. Out of professional courtesy, though, British officers often adopt the American pronunciation when dealing with their American counterparts.

Until after the Second World War, modern foreign languages were seldom taught in Germany. Consequently, very few German servicemen, if any, would have spoken English — and American English in particular. Indeed, fluency in English would almost certainly have signalled intelligence training, which ordinary soldiers and policemen would not have undergone. Nevertheless, the film is not intended to be a documentary.

While the German soldiers watch the on-screen film "Nation's Pride" in the cinema, a Wilhelm scream can be heard as part of its soundscape. The Wilhelm scream was not recorded and first used until the 1953 picture "The Charge at Feather River", which was released nine years after the supposed 'release' of "Nation's Pride", so it would not have existed at the time. Its appearance, however, was almost certainly a deliberate in-joke.

At the film’s première he is shown wearing his swastika armband. In real life, Hitler ceased wearing the armband once the war began in 1939. However, the film is not intended as a documentary and portrays Hitler as a parody.

Colonel Landa is shown in uniform and wearing a Nazi Party badge. The German armed forces were explicitly barred from holding Party membership.

Colonel Landa is an SS officer. Whereas members of the Wehrmacht were expected to remain politically neutral, the SS functioned as the Nazi Party’s military arm and were distinct from the Wehrmacht.

The film shown in the cinema during the opening Paris scene is The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929). It seems improbable that, in 1944, a silent picture from 1929 would have been readily available or held much appeal for the troops.

At that point in the Second World War, film distribution across Europe was limited, so it is quite plausible that older silent films were among the few titles actually obtainable.

At the start of the film, when Lieutenant Raine is addressing the Basterds, they are all gathered outdoors and each Basterd is holding a rifle. Raine is wearing his hat — the military term for this is a "cover" — yet none of the Basterds have a cover on. Military protocol requires personnel to wear a cover whenever they are outdoors, removing it only upon going indoors. In addition, when armed, service personnel are required to wear a cover at all times, whether indoors or outdoors.

Stiglitz turns up at the rendezvous with von Hammersmark despite being, effectively, a fugitive from Nazi justice after escaping custody, killing the guards and having his likeness splashed across the papers. The Gestapo officer in the cellar ought to have recognised him at a glance.

When Hitler inspects Private Butz's mark, it appears as a fully healed scar that has darkened with skin pigmentation — a change that would normally take years. Yet the debriefing and the injunction forbidding disclosure of what actually occurred would have taken place within days, by which time the wound ought still to have been sutured, bandaged and likely bleeding, given the brutality of the cuts.

When Landa captures Raine in the theatre, he lightly pokes him in the eye. Raine then retaliates with a vicious head-butt on Landa, yet a few minutes later, when they negotiate Landa's surrender at the restaurant, there are no marks on Landa's face.

It is never explained how Shosanna came into possession of the theatre. She claims she inherited it from an aunt and uncle, and a discussion with Marcel at least confirms that an "aunt" existed. However, given her religion and where she resides, it is unlikely they were actually related.

Shosanna and Zoller converse outside the theatre. Although the scene is set in June in Paris, you can see their breath as if it were mid‑winter.

It's evident that Hicox's eyes continue to move even after he's been killed, as Hans Landa looks over his body.