Goofs for
Cross of Iron (1977) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: When Steiner and his men are waiting to cross the road, the Russian soldiers on the tanks are singing "Oy Kozaro", a Yugoslav fighting song, which Russian soldiers would not know. The Yugoslav extras probably didn't know any Russian songs and figured nobody would know the difference.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When the Russian woman bathing in the washtub stands up, bikini tan lines are visible.
  
  
• Factual errors: In an already described scene, where Russian soldiers are singing Yugoslav song "Oy Kozaro", there are some more mistakes. The Russian soldiers are all wearing regular Yugoslav People's Army uniforms from the mid '70s, the trucks are model TAM (made in Slovenia for YU army between 1960-75), the registration plates on the trucks are regular registration plates of YU Army.
  
  

• Factual errors: The Soviet planes that bomb the German trench system are actually U.S. Navy Vought F4U Corsairs. You can even see the U.S. military markings on them.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Russian tanks used in this movie are T34s with the 85 mm gun which were not in production at the time of the movie. T34s with the 76 mm gun would be the right choice, but there were not many left and quite a few countries still had T34/85s when the movie was made, so the wrong tank was used.
  
  
• Factual errors: One of the members of Steiner's squad is wearing a captured Russian knit cap, complete with a Soviet red star/hammer and sickle badge on the front. Since the Nazi party and the German armed forces hated communism, the wearing of such an insignia by a German soldier would have been forbidden.
  
  
• Factual errors: Lieutenant Triebig and Captain Stransky have an enlisted orderly to assist them. However, lieutenants and captains, because of their relatively low rank, were not authorized to have orderlies.
  
  
• Factual errors: During Sgt Steiner's hospitalization for wounds, he yells from the hospital balcony to a driver below, "Corporal, hold that truck!" However, the rank insignia on the driver's shoulder straps clearly indicates that he is a Senior Sergeant.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Although dozens of rifles, submachine guns, and machine guns are fired during the movie, in only one instance are spent cartridge cases shown to be ejecting during firing (this occurs near the end of the film, as Sgt Steiner is firing a captured Russian submachine gun at Lieutenant Treibig).
  
  
• Anachronisms: Many Russian infantrymen in the film are carrying Mosin-Nagant (M-N) M44 Carbines, some with extended bayonets. However, the M44 did not enter service until the year 1944, and the battle depicted in the movie took place in 1943. The standard Russian rifles during that year were the older M-N M1891/30 rifle and the M-N M38 carbine.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the scene where a dance party is held for the patients at the hospital, the visiting general's adjutant gives order to "bring meats and wines" on the buffet table "to the private room," supposedly to be consumed by the general and his entourage in privacy. However, such thing could never have happened in the German army of the second world war. Hitler had tried very hard to eradicate officer/enlisted man and class difference within the army, and any general attempting such thing would have been court-martialled.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Steiner brings in a Russian boy as prisoner-of-war, Stransky yells "There are standing orders not to take prisoners!" In reality, there were no such standing orders in the German Army. Hitler's so-called "Commissar Order" prohibited taking of commissars as prisoners only, not ordinary Russian soldiers, even though the treatment of Russian prisoners thus taken was horrible.
  
  
• Factual errors: Oberst Brandt is wearing the Krim shield on his right arm. It is worn on the left arm only.
  
  
• Continuity: The way Kiesel holds his glass changes (early in movie).
  
  
• Factual errors: In the scene where a dance party is held for the patients at the hospital, the visiting general's adjutant gives order to "bring meat and wine" on the buffet table "to the private room," supposedly to be consumed by the general and his entourage in privacy. However, such thing could never have happened in the German army of the second world war. Hitler had tried very hard to eradicate officer/enlisted man and class difference within the army, and any general attempting such thing would have been court-martialled.
  
  

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