A vivid depiction of the realities faced by men at war.

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2002)

Cross Of Iron is a brutal war film set in 1943 during the German-Soviet war. Directed by Sam Peckinpah (his only war film), it gives many incites into Nazi Germany's domestic and foreign policies, and some into the Soviet Union's too.
Cross Of Iron is based upon Willi Heinrich's book 'Das geduldige Fleisch' (or Willing Flesh), 1956. The main storyline concerns the activities of a German reconnaissance platoon, part of Army Group South, who are retreating from advancing Soviet forces on the Taman Peninsula in The Crimea. The principal character featured is Corporal, later Sergeant, Steiner, a vociferously anti-Nazi soldier who fights not to serve the Fatherland or even his officers, but simply to protect the lives of his comrades. His new commanding officer, Captain Stransky, a Prussian aristocrat, is desperate to win the Iron Cross gallantry medal that his family expects of him. When Steiner refuses to lie to conceal Stranky's cowardice in battle, a clash of wills ensues.
The film begins by showing a newsreel montage (like the use of newsreel footage at the end of Elem Klimov's Come and See) depicting Hitler variously addressing a rally, amiably chatting with schoolchildren and inspecting soldiers. This is cut in with images of the German army advancing and blond Aryan children climbing mountains while carrying a huge Swastika flag. This propaganda footage is then vividly contrasted with the sickening opening of the action, where the reality of war on the Eastern Front is shown when a German reconnaissance patrol, trying to make their way back to their base silently through Soviet lines, literally slit the throats of their enemies. The end credits of the film, are a direct opposite of the opening credits, they show photographs of German officers hanging civilians and distressed stick thin children against the background of burnt out buildings. Finally, as a warning about, and a judgement on, both the Nazi party and Hitler, a quote from German Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht is shown: `Do not rejoice in his defeat you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the b****rd, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.'
There is an exploration of the Prussian tradition in Cross Of Iron. When Steiner refuses to lie to conceal Stranky's cowardice in battle, a clash of wills ensues. The aloof Stransky, who has volunteered for duty on the Eastern Front from a safe staff posting in France, is, like Steiner, actually very anti-Nazi. He considers them, particularly Hitler, to be inferior to himself, and views himself to be a projection of the old Prussian values of self sacrifice and military dominance. Prussia was an area of eastern Germany that no longer exists, having been annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II; it still belongs to Russia today. However, Prussia, in the 19th century, became the most powerful of the then divided German states. Under the government of Otto von Bismarck, known as the Iron Chancellor, it was militarily very aggressive and effective, and won a series of minor victories that enabled it to build up its size, wealth and strength. Long-term antagonism with France then resulted in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, in which Prussia stormed over the borders and eventually besieged Paris. The French, forced to sue for a humiliating peace, ceded Alsace-Lorraine and paid huge reparations. Prussia's victory facilitated a united German Empire, whose first Emperor, William I, was the King of Prussia. The Prussians then effectively dominated Germany until the 1918 World War I defeat. The military, even in World War II, were very Prussian dominated, as many of the army's senior leaders belonged to Prussian families. Hitler, who never trusted Prussians, had an aversion towards the existing aristocracy whose inherited privileges were at variance with his desire for a new meritocratic and racial elite. Hitler was probably right not to trust them, as the senior army figures, led by Claus von Stauffenberg, who unsuccessfully plotted to assassinate him, were almost exclusively Prussian. When the Soviet's drove into Germany in 1945, they had there own plans for the Prussian elite: Unlike any of its predecessors, the advancing Soviet army was intent on eradicating the Germanity of East Prussia once and for all. In a perverse twist, Prussians, also known as Junkers, many of whom were dead, were also fingered as being uniquely responsible for Nazism; large landed estates were broken up for the benefit of landless peasant farmers and jobless workers from the bombed-out cities.
In Cross Of Iron we learn something of the Nazi Party's attitude and policy towards homosexuality. When two characters: an officer and his orderly are tricked into admitting they are gay, they are blackmailed. They are informed that: `if you get caught you will be hanged.' SS leader Heinrich Himmler, in typically illogical fashion, believed that male homosexuality was an Asiatic vice, inflicted upon innocent Nordic races by the Catholic Church. The Nazi's, desperate to create large families to increase the German population, were particularly hostile to homosexuality, and after they came to power, in January 1933, repressions began. The Gestapo then decimated Berlin's large gay community prior to the 1936 Olympic games, destroying the flamboyant scene so vividly brought to life in the work of English novelist Christopher Ishelwood. Consequently, this ultimately led to homosexuals, forced to wear pink triangles, being interned and murdered in concentration camps. However, given human nature a strong gay presence remained in the German military forces throughout Europe, particularly in occupied France: Parisian homosexuals apparently had a field day with their uniformed German counterparts, engaging in activities which would have put them in a concentration camp had they been living in Germany.
Women in Nazi Germany were viewed primarily as functionaries for the facilitation of producing millions of children to fulfil the numerical, military and economic expansion planned by Hitler, who wished to fill the army and send out colonisers to populate captured territories in eastern Europe, especially the Ukraine. Divorce laws were tightened and farmers collected marriage loans to stop excessive migration to urban areas. The Nazi party formulated policies (following the French tradition) rewarding fatherhood: prolific paternity was rewarded with automatic representation on various committees, while childless bachelors were discriminated against. Women found themselves not required for military service and not really wanted in the general workforce, they: were expelled from certain professions and given an educational diet of cooking and housekeeping. In the film, the only female Germans shown are the nurses at the hospital, and even here they are only shown dancing with wounded men, or pushing them around in wheelchairs. This is shown to be a great contrast in the film with the Soviet's, who had no compunction in using women as frontline soldiers. The German soldier was presented with the clear differences in the political systems and social attitudes of life under the Nazi's national socialism and the Soviet's Stalinesque communism regarding women. The German attitudes, which were simultaneously both chivalrous and condescending, changed somewhat when faced with reality of how the enemy used women. In Germany, this situation only changed from late 1944 onwards, when impending defeat caused many ideological taboos to be cast aside, and civilians, including many women, were conscripted to assist the defence of the nation: women were drafted into operating searchlights or non-combatant duties. They still were not used as combat soldiers, unlike the Soviet's, as the Nazi leadership claimed that only sub-human Slavs and Bolsheviks would use women in this way.
Cross Of Iron was released in 1977, which makes it a contemporary of three other famed World War II films: A Bridge Too Far (1977), Midway (1976), and MacArthur (1977). Unlike these three films, the director, Sam Peckinpah, clearly makes an effort to effort to demythologise World War II, and its perspective, the events are shown through German soldiers, makes it interesting and singular. A Bridge Too Far retells the story of operation Market Garden, where American, Polish and British soldiers tried to capture key bridges behind German lines, on the river Rhine, in a complicated parachute and armoured assault. Midway recalls the Battle of Midway; a naval confrontation between America and Japan. This film is largely historically accurate in revealing how the previously unbeaten Japanese fleet was defeated in a battle where the damage inflicted was all done by aircraft: the opposing fleets never saw each other. MacArthur is a semi-documentary biography recalling the exploits of American General Douglas MacArthur. This film focuses upon MacArthur's recall from the Philippines by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942; his return to free the country from the Japanese and his often fraught relationship with American President Harry Truman, which led to his dismissal from the army during the Korean war. Perhaps the film that can be closest linked to Cross Of Iron is Apocalypse Now (1979), set during the Vietnam War, and based upon Joseph Conrad's novel Heart Of Darkness. As with Cross Of Iron, the action focuses mainly upon one soldier, Captain Willard, who is sent into the jungle with orders to find and kill renegade Colonel Kurtz. The further Willard travels into the jungle the more he becomes disturbed by the battles that envelope him, and his companions are slowly killed off one by one, again as is the case in Cross Of Iron. Both Apocalypse Now and Peckinpah's film are laden with tragedy, every major character is guilty of heinous acts and all of them have their own motivations. These films have a skewed moral morality, where individual quests for redemption are undertaken by confused outcasts. The thin line between internal conflict and external action, and the laying-bare of fake code of honour make these films in many ways ideological twins.
After viewing Cross Of Iron it becomes apparent that this film gives us numerous insights into both Nazi foreign and domestic policies, as well as demythologising German soldiers. The way women were viewed and used by the Nazi's, here as nurses remote from the theatre of war, is apparent; largely because of the very obvious contrast with the Soviet women combat soldiers. The treatment of the film's homosexual characters gives out an accurate picture too. They are easily blackmailed, because they realise that if they are exposed as gay they will not merely be punished, but will be hung until dead. The Prussian military tradition is conveyed, through Stransky, who defines this to be sacrifice for country above self and vociferous ant-Nazism. There are orders in the film that `no Russian prisoners are to be taken.' The overriding impression left by the film is that ordinary soldiers in the German army by 1943 realised that the glory days were long gone, and that they were now fighting merely for their own survival rather than for Fatherland or glory. When Hallenbach, an SS Special Action Squad soldier and party member, is drafted into the unit he is referred to by the ordinary soldiers as `Nazi pig***t,' and is ostracised, reflecting the new feeling on the ground. There is an impression of historical accuracy in the film, particularly in the battle scenes, a Soviet assault is led by their T34 tanks, the T34 - called `the best tank in any army up to 1943' by Colonel General Heinz Guderian, one time Chief of the German Army General Staff - was a tank that is credited as having had a large part to play in the Soviet triumph over Germany, and adds to the air of authenticity that the film presents.