Goofs

When Paul and Alfred are in the Catholic hospital talking to Hammacher, Paul's hands jump from pulling up the sheets to by his side between shots.

During the attack in the cemetery, a large piece of masonry hits Paul's helmet, denting it. Later, when he retreats and jumps into the shell hole, there is no dent.

During the attack on the town and the cemetery, for a brief shot, the Germans are all retreating. In the next shot, they are attacking again and running forward.

When Paul is with the dead soldier in the pit, the arms move on the dead body between night and day.

When going to their first battle, while the young soldier is talking to Kat, the young soldier's bag switches from being across his chest with his hands by his side to his bag not being there and his right arm holding his scarf between shots.

When the young recruits go out on their first patrol, to string the barbed wire, the veteran uses a mallet to drive the post into the ground. While the movie went to the trouble to have the right kind of post, they used it completely wrong. That post was developed by the Germans to allow them to put up barbed wire much more quietly then the Allies. The bottom portion of each post is twisted into an auger; this allowed the soldiers to simply put the post on the ground, put a rod through one of the holes in the post, and screw it into the ground. This was one of innovations that the Allies copied. Both sides had listening posts near the wire on their sides to listen for infiltrators and wire crews; once detected, they would be cut to pieces by machines gun or mortar fire.

Paul, Kat, and the other troops are seen in their bunker during an enemy bombardment, while their part of the trench is devoid of other soldiers. The trenches never were devoid of troops, and even if it was dangerous, all soldiers took turns firing at the enemy or being on sentry duty in the event of enemy attacks.

When Paul visits his mother while she's sitting up in bed, three or four rather large spiders can be seen crawling atop the blankets. Neither actor seems to notice them. The spiders likely were intentional, referring to the disintegration of the family.

When Paul talks to the dead soldier in the pit, the soldier is breathing visibly and at one point his eyes blink.

As men are seen being shot by a German machine gun, they just fall down dead. In reality, the power from such weapons was so great that the fire blew large chunks of the target's body away. For example, it is reported that a single volley at Passchendale ripped a soldier's left leg and arm completely off, although he miraculously survived.

When the young recruits go out on their first patrol, a dead soldier is still breathing and blinking his eyes.

During the first daytime trench scene, two explosions go off in just the right circumstances as to cause the springs suspending the microphone to ring, sounding like two single rings of a bell.