“Hadn't Been Built”: Inglourious Basterds’ Historical Accuracy Graded By Bemused WW2 Expert (2024)

James Holland, a World War II historian, grades the historical accuracy of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Released in 2009, Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt and Christopher Waltz, the latter of whom plays a Nazi commander charged with hunting down Jewish people throughout Europe. The film, which serves very much as an alternate history of real events, begins with a standout sequence in which Waltz's Hanz Landa interrogates a French farmer suspected of harboring a Jewish family.

In a new video from Penguin Books UK, Holland breaks down how historically accurate Inglourious Basterds' is by looking at the film's iconic opening farm house sequence. The bemused expert admits that while it is a very entertaining film, many elements are pure fiction. Check out Holland's full comment or watch the video below (section starts at 12:26):

“A friend of mine, another historian called Peter Caddick-Adams, he was asked to be a historical advisor on Inglourious Basterds. The first thing they showed him was sort of a big map board that they had set up and which they were going to film, and he said, ‘I’m afraid the M25 hadn’t been built during the Second World War.’

“I mean this whole film is sort of like a cartoon, but it’s not obviously. I mean it’s like a lot of Quentin Tarantino films – everything’s exaggerated, everything’s over the top. You know Germans did come and do searches of houses, but they didn’t sit there and have nice conversations with people. They just stormed in, ripped everything up, got everyone out. And if they found someone, they’d just shoot everybody. You wouldn’t have this whole sort of preamble of sitting down and quietly smoking your pipe. It just wouldn’t be like that.

“And, you know, pantomime villains, lots of leather. It’s what you expect from Nazis. I mean, how much leather can you fit in a squad of Gemans? Submachine guns. They’re absolutely conforming to every pantomime villain Nazi.

“The idea of trying to even take aim with a pistol at a hundred yards is just ridiculous. Pistol range is, you know, five, 10 yards, something like that.

“In the West you didn’t have Einstazgruppen [Nazi mobile killing units], you just had secret intelligence services. You were very dependent on informers, and in the case of France, most of the rounding up of Jews was done by the French themselves at the behest of the Germans, but not in Vichy. The first anti-Semitic laws in France during the war were actually issued by the Vichy government rather than the Germans. Eight out of 10 for a good, entertaining film. Three out of 10 for historical accuracy.”

It's Good That Inglourious Basterds Isn't Historically Accurate

With a filmmaker like Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds was never going to be an accurate portrayal of World War II history, and the film is likely all the better for it. There are other filmmakers who have already tackled the Second World War through a more serious lens, such as Steven Spielberg with Saving Private Ryan, but Tarantino has always excelled at creating his own unique version of reality in his movies. As Holland says, Inglourious Basterds may present a highly fictionalized version of the war, but it's also very entertaining.

Tarantino is known for his complex, flawed, and compelling characters, and Landa is one of the filmmaker's most memorable creations. There are liberties taken with Landa and his mobile killing unit of over-the-top Nazi villains, but it's in service of creating a villain that is truly despicable but also hard to look away from. The opening French farmhouse scene, as well, may not be an accurate portrayal of how Einsatzgruppen squads operated, but it's one of the most memorable scenes of Tarantino's career, with tension being slowly ratcheted up to excruciating levels as more about Landa is revealed.

Inglourious Basterds' farmhouse scene also features some classic Tarantino dialogue, with Landa and farmer Perrier LaPadite (Denis Ménochet) playing a verbal game of cat and mouse as the Nazi villain slowly gains the upper hand. Like the farmhouse scene, the rest of the film undoubtedly features a number of similarly inaccurate scenes, with Tarantino even imagining an alternate history in which the Allies successfully kill Hitler. Inglourious Basterds may be over-the-top and not at all true to real-life events, but that's all part of what makes it such a unique, compelling, and highly entertaining entry in Tarantino's filmography.

Source: Penguin Books UK/ YouTube