Goofs

When Lt. Stokes turns around from viewing the slide of the map of France, he has a pencil in his hand and the clip board is on the table. In the next shot from over his shoulder, the clip board is in his hand and he then places it back on the table.

At the beginning, When German Marshal drivers through the city with his convoy, it is clearly seen his Audi car with no blackouted headlight. In the next scene, arriving to museum, headlights were covered with blackout material.

The Madonna was mentioned several times as having been stolen from the cathedral in Bruges. In reality, the Madonna is on display in the Church of Our Lady, not the cathedral of St. Saviours.

The "Nero Decree" issued by Adolf Hitler on 19 March 1945, never mentioned "archives and art". In the movie, however, when Stokes reads the decree aloud, he lists "archives and art" among the things set to be destroyed.

Just-liberated Paris would still have been under blackout, as would Bruges, about to be evacuated by German forces.

When US Army Lieutenant James Granger visits the apartment of Claire Simon, he is not wearing his uniform but is wearing a casual, short-sleeve shirt instead. During World War II, it was a strict rule that members of the military had to wear their uniforms at all times, on and off base, even while home on leave. Liberated Paris in 1944 was still considered a war zone, making his disregard for uniform especially egregious.

When Sgt. Garfield and Lt. Clermont are shot at by a Nazi Youth, Sgt. Garfield lays down covering fire from his M1 Carbine, but fires over 20 rounds without reloading from a 15 round magazine.

When the German asks the French assistant for a champagne glass, the woman gets a champagne coupe style glass. Some people incorrectly assume that this is an error in the movie and that a champagne flute should have been used. However, champagne flutes did not become popular until later in the twentieth century and during the World War II era the champagne coupe was the style of glass commonly used to serve champagne.

Frank Stokes comments on Adolf Hitler that he was a "failed Vienna art student" during the briefing to his team. However, Hitler was never an "art student" at all. Both his attempts to enter the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna failed. The director of the academy suggested that Hitler study architecture instead, but Hitler lacked the academic background to do so as well. Frank Stokes simply means Hitler failed to become an art student.

The word 'teenagers' was first used in the 1935-40 time frame according to the Random House Dictionary, NOT by musician Bill Haley in 1957, so its use would not have been anachronistic during WW2.

As with so many WW II films, The Monuments Men (2014) depicts Germany in April as having foliage more typical of summer. Large trees are not in full leaf in northern Europe in April.

When Lt. James Granger flies over Paris in the biplane in the evening, the Eiffel Tower is illuminated. However, the lighting of the Tower and its illumination system date from no earlier than 1985. Originally the Eiffel Tower's lighting spelled out the French Car brand 'Citroen' vertically.

The map of Germany and the Low Countries that Stokes and his men look at shows a map with modern day coastlines, including the Dutch province of Flevoland. However, the 1,000 square kilometer insular province only came into being when it was reclaimed from the sea in 1968, well after the Second World War. Also, the "Afsluitdijk" (a 32km long dam sealing off the Zuiderzee) is not shown on the map, despite having been completed in 1933.

The version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is sung with the lyrics "'Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.'' These lines were not added to the song until 1957.

The turntable playing the "record from home" is shown rotating at too slow a speed. A phonograph record at that time would be rotating at a much faster rate of 78 rpm. Additionally, all discs of that era were issued in ten inch size not the seven inch shown from several years post war.

While photo colorization wasn't entirely unknown in the 1940s, most of Stokes' film slides (during his post-war lecture/debriefing) would have been in black-and-white. Or the slide was Kodachrome which was available in 1935 and thus no colorization would have been required. Side note: Kodachrome pictures of the 1939 German invasion of Poland, the start of WWII, were taken by American photographer Julien Bryan.

During live fire training, the location of the World War I memorial is attributed to Saint Louis, Missouri. The sculptor upon whom Walter Garfield is based designed sculptures for St. Louis' World War I memorial, which is called the Soldiers Memorial and should not be confused with the National World War I Memorial located in Kansas City, Missouri.

Althausee is actually in Austria, not Bavaria. Although it was close enough to the sector divisions that the Monuments Men thought it may fall to the Soviets, it never actually did.

One of the Monuments Men is taken for a ride on a biplane that has been hidden in a French barn. The aircraft registration number starts with a G, indicating that it was not registered in France, but in Great Britain.

The rural and beach scenes for the film were shot in the UK. Consequently the architecture for buildings such as farm houses and barns are of an incorrect style for continental Europe. The building designs, style of brickwork and even the size of the bricks are unmistakably English.

When Donald Jeffries enters Bruges to save the Madonna while the Germans still occupy the city, he finds himself at the bottom of a street staircase. This scene cannot be shot in Bruges, since there are no such street staircases in Bruges, which has a flat urban cityscape.

During Lt. Frank Stokes' briefing to President Harry S. Truman, while referring to a map of Europe, he notes that the Russian are proceeding from the East and the "Allies" were proceeding toward Germany via the U.K. and Italy. The Soviets were also "Allies" at that time and his statement thus excluded the Soviets from the alliance. This was similar to the faux pas made by American General George S. Patton that landed him in hot water, as famously depicted in Patton (1970).

When Donald Jeffries is writing a letter to his father in the church where the Madonna of Bruges is located, he mentions "her porcelain hand holding a small boy". The statue is made of marble, not porcelain.