Goofs for
Der Untergang (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• Anachronisms: When the drug for the Goebbels children is mixed, the Erlenmeyer flask is postwar as you can clearly see from the logo (Schott Mainz). The company moved there in 1951/2.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the "corpses" of Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler are paced in their grave outside the bunker in preparation for cremation, the bodies clearly move their legs in an attempt to lie flat in the hole.
  
  
• Continuity: When Göring's telegram is received in the bunker, a closeup shows the teletype machine printing the message in lowercase letters with German umlauts converted to ae, oe, ue and the closing note "heil hitler, h. goering, reichsfeldmarschall" aligned to the left. When the communication officer removes the paper from the machine, the text is mixed uppercase/lowercase with umlauts and the closing note is right aligned.
  
  

• Anachronisms: The soap dispensers in the bunker's restrooms were, despite their classic looks, not invented until 1950 in France. They are called "Savon rotatif" (rotary soap) and were - more or less a piece of soap on a wall-mounted stick - a standard issue in French schools and magisterial buildings for many years.
  
  
• Continuity: After Magda Goebbels poisons her children, she comes out of their room and immediately crouches against the doorframe. In the next shot she's considerably further away from the doorframe than in the previous shot, with no time to have moved.
  
  
• Continuity: During the flight from the bunker, Müller (Schenck's adjutant) is shot. When the camera cuts to his body on the ground there is a bullet wound in his right cheek. But no wound is seen on his face in the previous frames as we hear the shot and see him falling.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the document Gen. Krebs hands over to Gen. Zhukov when they first meet for peace negotiations, the term "Nachfolge Regierung" appears. But in German, writing two nouns as isolated words with no visible connection is wrong (the correct writing would be either "Nachfolgeregierung" or "Nachfolge-Regierung"). While this is in itself a factual mistake, it is also an anachronism, since this mistake was not common before the English language started to influence German. Back in 1945, this was certainly not the case.
  
  
• Continuity: When SS-Obersturmbannführer Schenke wants to speak to the fat SS-Obergruppenführer about breaking apart his administration, on the yard of the supply department, at the first shots, SS-Obergruppenführer's foreface is intact; at the sudden, at the next shot, there is a small bandage at SS-Obergruppenführer's foreface.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: Götz Otto is credited with portraying SS Hauptsturmführer Otto Günsche, when in reality Günsche was a SS Sturmbannführer. Wardrobe got it right however as his uniform has the correct collar and shoulder insignia.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: Thomas Kretschmann portrayed SS Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, but his collar insignia is that of an SS Brigadeführer.
  
  
• Continuity: When Magda Goebbels is laying the playing-cards on the table, there is a cut which makes her repeat placing the last card in the row.
  
  
• Factual errors: After Hitler's conference on 22 April, when it was announced that Steiner's assault did not happen, Hitler and his entourage exited to the corridor where all kinds of people were waiting. Amongst them a Großadmiral (the equivalent of a 5-Star or Grand Admiral). The only two Grand Admirals during the Third Reich were Eric Raeder, who had resigned from his command post earlier and was not in the Führerbunker during the last days, and Karl Dönitz, who had his headquarters in Flensburg in Northern Germany, far away from Berlin.
  
  
• Continuity: When the teletype prints the incoming message from Göring, his name and title appear at bottom left; but when the operator tears off the sheet, it appears at bottom right.
  
  
• Factual errors: Traudl did not simply walk past the line of Russians and bike off to safety after escaping the Bunker. She was raped several times by the soldiers and was held as a "special prisoner of a high-ranking Soviet officer" after the war.
  
  
• Factual errors: In his memoirs, Albert Speer stated that when he went to say goodbye to Magda Goebbels he could barely get more than a few words out, as Joseph was in the room with them. This renders the lengthy conversation between them factually inaccurate.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Immediately when Chapter 7/Fall of the Third Reich begins, there are two German soldiers driving a motorcycle with side car. On the right side is a fresh pile of dirt that is covering an explosive underground, supposedly to look like an artillery shell instead.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The last day of the war, Weidling's speech to the German soldiers is transmitted via car with loud speakers. This car is actually a Soviet car GAZ-63 and its production has begun 3 years later - in 1948. There's Russian text visible on the hood of the car: "Avtozavod imeni Molotova" - Molotov's car factory.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: About 17th minute of the movie. A one-armed war veteran has found his son Peter Kranz near an air defense gun on the street of Berlin. It's supposed to be a German 8,8-cm-Flugabwehrkanone (88 FLAK) - these cannons have been often used as anti-tank guns. But in the movie shown is a Soviet air defense gun 52-K (caliber of 85 mm). This part of movie has been made in St.Peterburg in Russia.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When he first sees her, Hitler refers to Hanna Reitsch as "Fraulein". However, the subtitles refer to Reitsch as "Frau", even though she never married.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: General Karl Koller can be seen in the first shot of Hitler's first strategy conference. However in the next shot of all the generals (after Hitler orders to have Walther Wenck attack with the 12th Army) he has disappeared. In a deleted scene, Hitler orders Koller to mobilize the remaining air force to support Steiner's attack and Koller leaves. This exchange occurred prior to Goebbels' opening line.
  
  
• Factual errors: The epilogue proclaims that Werner Haase (Hitler's personal physician) died in 1945. However, Haase died in 1950.
  
  
• Factual errors: SS-Doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck speaks to a German officer near a tank before his way to an abandoned hospital. That tank is supposed to be a T-VI (Tiger-I) according to the shape of its turret. But the width of tracks corresponds to the soviet tank T-34, not T-VI (550 mm for T-34 and 725 mm for T-VI). It is clearly visible that a tank cannon (especially its blast reducer) is a fake and almost all small details of the turret are inaccurate. The front turret armor plate is a painted wooden board. The movie maker most likely used the T-34 as a basis for that camouflage.
  
  
• Factual errors: Toward the end of the film when SS Doctors Ernst-Günter Schenck and Werner Haase are walking through the bunker on their way to see Hitler, an SS officer is seen wearing a Wehrmacht Officers hat.
  
  
• Factual errors: According to Traudl Junge's memoirs and several other sources, Magda Goebbels was not present when Hitler said his goodbyes before committing suicide. She had locked herself in her room at the time.
  
  
• Factual errors: Hitler is going to award the young soldiers with an Iron Cross in a Reich Chancellery garden, just behind the bunker's entrance. There is the two storey Reich Chancellery building visible behind the bunker and a ventilation shaft. But actually this part of Chancellery was one storey building with round windows in the attic.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The room where Fegelein has being arrested. Just before SS officers entered the room a camera showed a desk with money, drug, cognac and alarm clock. There is a logo visible on the clock-face. Those Cyrillic letters are the logo of a soviet Orlov Clock Factory.
  
  

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