2nd Jan 2016
What Time Does the Balloon Go Up? - S3-E24
Plot hole: Hogan has the men fly kites to get wind data and build a hot air balloon for a man to escape in. In reality, kites and hot air balloons are pretty much mutually exclusive - if there's enough wind to fly kites, one can't launch a hot air balloon, and vice versa.
11th Nov 2015
Factual error: Throughout the series, the SS and the Gestapo are often used interchangeably, as if the two organisations were basically the same. The most notorious example is "Major" Hochstetter, who sometimes claims to be Gestapo, sometimes SS, most of the time wearing an SS uniform. This is historically incorrect. The SS was a paramilitary and military organisation, while the Gestapo was a secret police force and since 1939 part of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. The Gestapo, being essentially a plain clothes police, never had any uniform of their own.
9th Nov 2015
Other mistake: As Schultz tries to find Flensheim on the wall map, what he's checking isn't a road map, but a city plan with a harbor on it.
1st Sep 2015
Factual error: Towards the end of the episode, Burkhalter gets a call from a General Seidenbaum. Anybody with such a "Jewish" name would have been weeded out of the officer corps by the Nazis. In fact, anyone of that name would have had great trouble even getting his Ariernachweis (proof or aryan ancestry), and without carrying a copy with him he could not have opened a charge account at the local bakery. Most people with such names (those who managed to pass the Nazi board of racial review) had them changed to more "German" ones like Müller or Schmidt to escape the constant bullying. A little bit of background on "jewish" names: At some time during the medieval period, Jews in the German Reich who traditionally didn't use last names were forced to have them. Many selected names like Gruenbaum, Cornfield, etc. Which over time were perceived as "typical Jewish" names, even though many bearers weren't even of Jewish faith any more.
21st Jul 2015
Six Lessons from Madame LaGrange - S5-E22
Factual error: Hilda is writing with her left hand. At the time of the Third Reich, it was still the practice in Germany to force left-handed children to learn to write with their right hand.
6th Jul 2015
Factual error: In several episodes, German hand grenades, the famous "potato mashers" are seen. In (almost) all cases the Stielhandgranate 43, easily identified by its pull pin through the base of the head, was used. If the series is set in 42, the grenades should be the 24 or the 39 model, because the Stielhandgranate 43 - as the name suggests - was introduced in 1943 and didn't see widespread deployment until 1944. The earlier models didn't have a pull pin but used a pull cord that ran through the handle and was hidden by a screw cap at the end.
11th Apr 2015
Factual error: Throughout the show, German officers talk about "Nazi" this, "Nazi" that, even in official capacity. In fact, the mere mention of the diminutive "Nazi" could get you in serious hot water for the disrespect and dissent it implied. Correct would be either "National Socialist" or some reference to the Reich: e.g. "Officer of the Third Reich" instead of "Nazi officer."
10th Apr 2015
Trivia: In the show, Klink is depicted as thoroughly unmusical and an atrocious violinist. In real life, Werner Klemperer was a proficient violinist and also a piano player. After the show was canceled, he worked as a classical musician.
10th Apr 2015
Kommandant of the Year - S1-E3
Continuity mistake: The missile sitting on the trailer is thin and yellow, the missile actually seen flying is a fat, pointy, silver Atlas missile - which is an American intercontinental missile by the way, not a German tactical missile.
9th Apr 2015
The Sergeant's Analyst - S5-E23
Factual error: In this episode, the running gag is that Schultz keeps flattening Col. Hogan's pumpernickel loaves. In reality, pumpernickel is a very compact bread that contains virtually no air at all and is impossible to flatten in this way. The shape is also wrong: pumpernickel is almost always baked in rectangular baking pans. To avoid confusion: the original, German pumpernickel is quite different from what's sometimes referred to as pumpernickel in England and America.
8th Apr 2015
Hogan Gives a Birthday Party - S2-E1
Factual error: When the crew in the plane gets ready to drop the bombs on the refinery, Hogan (in the pilot seat) tells Carter (who is looking through the bomb sight) exactly when to push the button. In fact, the pilot of a WW2 bomber had no way of even knowing when exactly to release the bombs - it was the job of the bombardier, looking through his targeting optics, to know that. Carter at the bomb sight should be telling Hogan how exactly to steer to get the bombs onto the target.
2nd Apr 2015
Factual error: When the safe doors blow, we have another case of a fuse still burning after the charge blows. Since the charge blows when the fuse is burnt up, that's literally impossible. (00:20:00)
2nd Apr 2015
Will the Blue Baron Strike Again? - S4-E12
Factual error: The "Blue Baron" tells the dancer that the Kaiser gave him a certain medal. In fact, the medal he points to (and the girl fondles) is a WW2 repeat badge to the Iron Cross first class, instituted in 1939 to denote presentations of the Iron Cross first class to personnel who had already received it in WW1. He may have received the original Iron Cross from the Kaiser, but by the time he had a chance to receive that repeat badge, the Kaiser was long through handing out medals. (00:15:10)
24th Mar 2015
Factual error: When the farmer sticks his pitchfork into the haystack, a scream is heard, but then everybody emerges unscathed. Wounds from pitchforks aren't like sitting on a brass tack - even a quick jab usually earns you a trip to the surgeon (I've seen such wounds), a vigorous stab like the one in the scene would go through limbs and could easily kill a man. There's no way anybody would walk away from such a hit.
12th Mar 2015
Factual error: Klink usually wears an EK1 (EK= Eisernes Kreuz = Iron Cross first/second class) chest cross with a WW1 EK1 repeat badge, but he neither wears an EK2 ribbon nor a WW1 EK2 repeat badge. This is not a legal combination, he either has to wear both or none at all. The EK1 and EK2 repeat badges were awarded to soldiers who were awarded an EK1 in WW1 and another in WW2. To be awarded an EK1, you had to have the EK2 already. The Legal combinations would be: EK2 ribbon in the button hole with or without EK1 chest cross, EK2 ribbon in the button hole with repeat badge with or without EK1 chest cross, again with or without repeat badge. One legal way of wearing it is seen in S5E3, "The Klink Commandos", where Hogan wears a black-and-white WW1 EK2 ribbon with repeat badge and an EK1 chest cross with repeat badge. It doesn't make any sense for him to wear that (separate mistake), but the way of wearing it is correct.
11th Mar 2015
Continuity mistake: When Klink is "taken hostage" in the barracks, he is in his tunic only. Later in the car he has his overcoat on. He was supposed to be kidnapped, he could hardly ask Hogan to let him slip into his office for his coat.
10th Mar 2015
Anchors Aweigh, Men of Stalag 13 - S1-E16
Revealing mistake: When the "Boat" is loaded on a "trailer", you can see that it has very little ground clearance. The wheels of the "trailer" actually are hidden behind the boards like on a parade wagon. The boat has no keel and no hull below its freeboard. Besides the question of how the boat got onto the trailer if it is practically built around it, there remains the question of how it is supposed to stay afloat without a keel or a bottom.
9th Mar 2015
Factual error: In many episodes, SS members of all ranks appear - the most notorious recurring character being Major Hochstetter. Curiously enough, Hochstetter couldn't have been a Major in the SS, simply because that rank didn't exist there. The SS used the SA rank system, not the Wehrmacht one. Hochstetter for example would have to be a Sturmbannführer. Colonel Feldkamp would have to be a Standartenführer. To avoid confusion: Hochstetter sometimes claims he is Gestapo, even when he's wearing an SS uniform (different mistake). However, he couldn't be a major there either - he'd have to be a Kriminalrat or Kriminaldirektor, because the Gestapo, which was in principle a civilian police organisation and wasn't half as closely integrated with the SS or the military as the series would have us believe, didn't use military ranks at all.
9th Mar 2015
The Rise and Fall of Sergeant Schultz - S2-E6
Factual error: General Kamler awards Schultz what he calls "The Iron Cross Fourth Grade." There never was a version of the Iron cross called that. The Iron cross came in two ranks, called 2nd class ("zweiter Klasse") and 1st class ("erster Klasse"). The ranks higher than that were called the Knight's Cross ("Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes") and were never pinned to the chest but worn around the neck.
5th Mar 2015
Color the Luftwaffe Red - S4-E8
Factual error: The medal Newkirk steals from the German officer in the pub is a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. There were a total of 148 presentations, most of them 1943-45. By 1942 (where the series is apparently set), less than 25 had been presented. That Newkirk should actually stumble across a wearer by pure chance is highly unlikely, that the wearer should actually "never miss it" as Newkirk states, is plainly impossible. Being the fourth highest ranking military decoration of the Wehrmacht, it would have been missed almost immediately - if not by the wearer himself, then by his fellow officers. (00:22:35)