Goofs for
Leben der Anderen, Das (2006)

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• Anachronisms: When Dreyman finds Wiesler in the end, the cars in the background are current, not from 1991.
  
  
• Continuity: When Grubitz talks to Wiesler in the cafeteria, the amount of liquid in their glasses falls and rises over the course of the scene.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the first scene in the theater, a program clearly states the birthdate of Georg as 1939, but just a few scenes later he says he is preparing for his 40th birthday. As the action is said to take place in 1984, there is a five-year discrepancy. [Possibility: Georg says that he is 40 in an attempt to shake off the impression that he might be 50. Hence, he could very well be 45. That age would also be the same as that of the actor who plays him]
  
  

• Continuity: When Dreymann is putting on his tie before his birthday party with the assistance of his neighbor, Frau Meineke, he finishes the job by folding down and adjusting his shirt collar. In the next shot, his shirt collar is "up" once again and needs to be folded back down.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When uncle Hauser is calling from Berlin (West) you can see a bus from the public transportation service that was not introduced until the mid or late 1990s, passing the phone booth.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dreyman is playing the sonata that Jerska gave him, he looks only at his fingers, and never at the music that's on the stand, even though he's playing it for the first time.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Christa-Maria and Georg's apartment is in Wedekind street in Friedrichshain, as confirmed in the DVD commentary. The buildings in the entire quarter surrounding Wedekindstr were part of a massive rebuilding project in the GDR, and were completed in the early 1950s. All of the balconies that can be seen while Georg is playing football with the children on the street, along with the ceramic work illustrate the particular Soviet style really clearly. However, the interior of the apartment and most of what we see of the building interior is what would be called 'alt bau', effectively 'old style' - the apartment has high ceilings, the stairwells have carved wooden balustrades and doors which clearly predate the 50s. When the Stasi men come through the front doors for the first time, you can see the interior of these buildings as they really look, in the next shot the style has gone back at least 40 years.
  
  
• Continuity: When Grubitz is talking to Wiesler in his office, he takes a fresh cigar out of a Humidor. After the next cut, only three seconds later, he is smoking and the cigar looks like it has been smoked for a longer time.
  
  
• Continuity: Secretary Hempf's car is a 1980s stretch version of a Volvo 264. But all the interior scenes are shot using a Mercedes Benz S-Class Pullmann from the time of the film production. In a short clip the Mercedes is also used for an exterior shot, when Grubitz enters the car outside the ministry building.
  
  
• Continuity: When Wiesler and Grubitz are having lunch with some Stasi-members, there isn't anything on their plates.
  
  
• Continuity: The font generated by Wiesler's typewriter is sans-serifed, whereas the font on the 'same' reports read by Dreyman towards the end of the movie is quite different, this time serifed.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: On several occasions, when the main door of the flat is unlocked by the remote control in Dreyman's apartment, a sound of the door lock being electronically released is heard in the room, whereas that should only occur at the door itself, several floors down.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Wiesler's car -- a Wartburg -- is in fact a model which wasn't produced until the end of the '80s (the rear lights revealed it).
  
  
• Continuity: In the final interrogation of Sieland by Wiesler, he sketches the floor plan in about 5 seconds, and definitely doesn't have time to make the double thickness lines, markers for windows, and door swing arcs. It in fact looks like at least two different pencils were used in the final sketch. His final stroke before showing her the sketch is circular in motion, with no circles to be found in the final.
  
  

• Anachronisms: SPOILER: When Dreymann hides in the staircase watching his girlfriend coming out of the minister's car, he stands by an electronic switch of a design which is too new to fit with the time period of the movie. The same thing happens when Wiesler hides himself the same place after he has removed the typewriter. The switch is new.
  
  

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