One of the best war movies ever!

Rating: 9/10 (4 March 2003)

Cross of Iron is not like your typical WW2, where German soldiers are portrayed as robots, or clones with no personalities or thoughts.
Sam Peckinpah does a great job in letting the viewer see how these German soldiers thought. How they worried about their buddies, how they disliked they superior officers, how, they fought for their comrades, as opposed to fighting for Hitler, as historians would have you believe.
Stg. Steiner, played by the late James Coburn, is a very disillusioned German soldier, who doesn't care about moving in the ranks. He is concerned with the safety of his platoon. When Captain Stransky, played by Maximillian Schell, takes over as their commanding officer, Steiner is quick to dislike him. Stransky is seen by Steiner as an iron-cross-seeking jackal, who cares only about obtain said medal, even if it cost the lives of the men.
The war scenes are awesome...chaotic ...just like real war. Both sides take casualties equally. The book, by Willi Heinrich, who he himself fought in the Eastern Front, is well written and I highly recommended it to any one who likes movies of this material.