Gaffes

At the beginning of the film, when the woman is writing to the German embassy about her premonition, the caption introducing this scene says "April 17, 1937", but the date she has written at the top of the letter is April 8.

When Ritter discovers Boerth being tortured by Vogel, Boerth has been beaten and his face is bruised and one eye is swollen shut. When we see him on the catwalk a few seconds later, he only has a small amount of blood on his lip and all the swollen bruises are gone.

When the radio man receives the telegram regarding the death of Freda Halle, he puts it in an envelope, licks and seals it. When the message is handed to Col Ritter, he simply flips it open - it was not sealed at all.

When Valerie Breslau leaps from the window to save herself, she knocks the hat off the Navy MP when he catches her. A second later as she runs off the hat is back on his head.

The incident depicting the Hindenburg's crew repairing the tear in the Zeppelin's cover as it drifts lower and lower over the Atlantic is factual; however, the event occurred on the Graf Zeppelin, not the Hindenburg.

In the film, the characters of Ernest Lehmann and Hugo Eckener are portrayed as very wary of the Nazi party. In reality, while Eckener hated the Nazis and spoke against them openly, Lehman was very accommodating to the powers in Berlin in order to advance his career and the fortunes of the Zeppelin Company. In fact, while the movie shows Lehman protesting using the ship in the previous year to drop propaganda leaflets, in reality Lehman was eager and glad to oblige in this undertaking, to the extent that he launched the ship in a dangerous wind condition, bashing in the tail. In real life Eckener lashed out at Lehman for endangering the ship to please the Nazis, resulting in Propaganda Minister Goebbels blacklisting Eckener in the press forever after, despite his being a national (and international) hero.

When the two Luftwaffe officers meet Col. Ritter at the airfield to brief him about his mission, they refer to the possibility of him being awarded the Knights Cross to his Iron Cross. As this takes place in 1937 immediately after the Spanish Civil War and before the outbreak of WW2 in September 1939, it would have been impossible because the Knights Cross did not exist until the world war started when new awards of the Iron Cross were instituted and the Knights Cross was also introduced as a higher grade.

Although a military band played the German national anthem of The Hindenburg, no male spectator removed his hat and no military personnel saluted, which would have been simply inconceivable in the Nazi era.

On the Hindenburg's final voyage, its famous baby grand piano was not aboard. Nonetheless, halfway into the movie, there is a very funny scene with Joseph Spah performing while it is being played.

As the passengers cross the tarmac from the hangar to board the Hindenburg, we can see the lower part of the gondola and the lowered staircases. However, the sunlight covers the whole ground and shines off the tops of everybody's heads. There is no shadow or any other indication of the large airship balloon which should be over their heads and shadowing the entire area.

When the FBI men come to interview Mrs Raesch about her letter to the German ambassador the caption reads that they arrive at her home at 6:45 AM. However during the interview inside her home a wall clock in the back ground reads 1:50 PM. PM since it is clearly daylight outside.

The film is set in 1937. Edward Douglas refers to the fact that the German car manufacturer Opel is to be taken over by General Motors "the next day". In fact, Opel had already been taken over completely by 1931.

The large map in the Hindenburg's lobby seen throughout the film is not a period 1937 map, but a modern 1975 map. As the steward adjusts the little magnetic model of the Hindenburg, 40 minutes in, Germany can be clearly seen in the foreground on the map, divided into East and West Germany.

At two of the airports (Berlin and Frankfurt) there are Citroën delivery cars which were built in the 1950s.

The countess is reading "Vom Winde verweht", the German translation of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind". However, the German edition only came out in October 1937, five months after the events. Moreover, the book in the movie is clearly a 1960s-vintage "rororo" paperback, whereas only a hardcover of "Vom Winde verweht" was available in Germany initially, and until well after the war. Paperback books in general were introduced in Germany not earlier than 1948.

When Ritter takes the pen and soaks it in the sink, the faucets are obviously of mid 1970's design and of American origin.

When the riggers are repairing the tear in the port horizontal stabilizer, one of them begins to climb on the framework, and then loses his grip, almost falling through the bottom skin. As he is caught by the other riggers, and turns around, the wire (and harness it is attached to) holding him up can clearly be seen.

Near the start of the film there is an interior shot of men working inside the framework. This is a matte painting on glass. The section towards the lower left where you can see the men is an irregular shape with a warmer color than the rest of the image.

When Ritter find the bomb, it would have been more logical to just drop it through the bottom of the ship (especially after the movie points out several times how things can simply slip through the bottom) and let it detonate, since it would not explode in a huge fireball but simply spark or make a small fire. He also simply could have reset the hands of the clock or the detonator timer, moving the hands away from the 7:30 detonation. Instead he blankly studies the wiring and connectors until the device detonates.

The passenger list that Mildred Breslau looks at before takeoff has many errors. Errors include Franz Ritter listed as Franz Kessler, Martin Vogel as Otto Vogel, Valerie Breslau as Irene Breslau, and Ursula von Reugen as Ursula von Scharnwitz. Additionally, there are 51 passengers; when in reality there were only 36 passengers aboard on the Hindenburg's last flight. This list appears to be from an earlier version of the screenplay.