This is a great movie but it has its flaws.

Rating: 7/10 (13 November 2008)

One glaring flaw of this movie is its portrayal of the "privileged" officer/nobility class in the German army of WWII. Hitler was himself a gefreiter in the Reichswehr of WWI and, to give the devil his due, during the inter-war period he had tried very hard to eradicate the class- and rank- inequality in the Wehrmacht. Not only that, Hitler actually HATED the German officer/nobility class and did his best to screw them given half the chance. For example, in the movie, during the dance party for the patients in the military hospital where Steiner recuperates, the adjutant for a visiting general gives order to "take meat and wine" from the buffet table "to private room" (so that the general and his entourage may consume it in privacy). Such thing could never happen in Hitler's army. Had there been any general attempting such thing, he would almost certainly have been court-martialled.