Cross of Iron

by Willi Heinrich

CROSS OF IRON is the thrilling story of a German platoon cut off far behind Russian lines in the second half of World War II. A resourceful and cynical commander somehow manages to coax his men through the bitter hand-to-hand fighting in forests, trenches and city streets until eventually they regain the German lines. But safety is only temporary. After the tension of waiting for the last overwhelming Russian advance the platoon is forced into futile counter-attacks and murderous house-to-house fighting until its final decimation becomes inevitable. A modern classic of war fiction both as a book and a film, this is a strikingly realistic story of action on the Eastern Front, where the grimness of combat seems to have neither pity nor end.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, War, World War II, Military Fiction, Germany, German Literature

437 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Willi Heinrich was born in Heidelberg, and during the Second World War he experienced heavy fighting on the Eastern Front with the 1st Battalion 228th Jäger Regiment of the 101st Jäger Division. The same infantry unit featured in Das Geduldige Fleisch (The Willing Flesh; Cross of Iron).
During the war the 101st Jäger Division sustained a seven hundred per cent casualty rate; Heinrich himself was wounded five times.

After the war, Heinrich became a writer. His first novel, In Einem Schloss zu Wohnen, was written over a two year period (1950–1952). It was unpublished until 1976, after Heinrich was an established novelist. His first commercial novel, Das Geduldige Fleisch (The Willing Flesh), was published in 1955, and almost immediately was translated into English and published as The Willing Flesh (1956), by Weidenfield & Nicolson in the United Kingdom, and as Cross of Iron (1957), by Bobbs-Merrill in the U.S. To date, the novel remains in print, and is his most well known outside of Germany.

Though he began his writing career writing about the German experience in World War II, Heinrich later concentrated on writing melodramatic romances in the 1970s and 1980s. Willi Heinrich passed-away in 2005.

Reviews

[Li'l Vishnu]

Well, a couple days ago my 80-year-old German neighbor gave me a shredded old hardback copy of this book. This guy fought with the Nazis when he was seventeen. His distaste for the Poles is still palpable, as they acquired his hometown. Now he sells stamps on eBay. His wife was living just outside Dresden when the city was bombed.

Anyway, he riffled through his shelves and brought out this book and said, "You want to know what it was like? Read this. It's all in there. The things humans will do to each uzza."

I doubt it'll strike me in the same way as it did with him, but I thought his review was relevant.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

“We’re all the same here, he told himself; a handful of life trying to preserve itself like the candle light in the bunkers, a bundle of duties in uniform, feeling and thinking like human beings, but trained to act like automatons.”

Well, I honestly don’t know what to say about this book.
To say reading it was a bit of a slog would be doing it a great disservice and one that would be unfair.
So, because I’m a crazy kid and whatnot, I’m going to split this book into two.
Not the review.
No no.
The actual book.

And the first book I will be reviewing will be known as Cross of Iron: The Book Jo Disliked. (TBJD)
The second book I will be reviewing will be known as Cross of Iron: The Book Jo Liked. (TBJL)

Because this book made me feel conflicted something rotten.
I’m going to start with TBJD.
I remember this conversation I had with my friend about protagonists and how I didn’t mind if they were a bit… unsavoury. Some of my favourite protagonists are, in fact, mental psychopaths.
And I stand by my decision. I like my main characters with a bit of edge, I like them to have flaws and I like them to be a bit prickly.
But this book really took that to a whole new level though. I think out of all the men in this book I liked about three of them. And they were hardly in it or at least not for long!
Steiner was a really interesting and complex character but I found him often to be too callous, too calculating and unnecessarily cruel. Saying that though, I did like the parts where this book was told from his perspective the best.
Also, and this isn’t really fair because it has nothing to do with the story itself, but my gosh whoever translated this book needs to pull up their socks.
Unless it’s just the fact that Mr Heinrich really wanted stilted dialogue and I’m just not with it. Then I apologise.
And the word “grinned” often used where I have the feeling Mr Heinrich probably meant “grimanced”. Or at least I hope so. It makes an alarming difference when men are grinning when they are being insulted and/or seeing their comrades being killed next to them.
And while I’m having a bit of a rant... when another person starts talking in a conversation you start a new paragraph.
For the love of all things literary!
There were huge chunks of this book where I didn’t have the foggiest as to who was saying what because all of the dialogue was shoved into one paragraph and they were all grinning and gah.

Moving on to my next review for TBJL.
The beginning of this book was infinitely better than the second half. As Steiner and his men journey through the depths of the Russian forests the setting is so impeccably realised that you can almost hear every single pine cone being trodden on.
I really loved the conversations and banter between the men. It felt silly, yet frighteningly honest. I’m still laughing about Funder and his cologne.
And even though I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, I loved them as a whole. Their relationships, petty arguments and their intelligent, almost philosophical, conversations about their life all felt extremely authentic.
Also, I can completely see how Mr Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds was influenced by this story (or the film at least) because Stranksy and Landa are definitely cut from the same evil-man cloth.
I have to admit that my notes (and my attention span) dwindled at around page 300 and I ended up skimming the last 100 pages or so.
Until, that is, the end chapter which blew my mind, broke my heart, and other metaphors that haven’t even been invented yet. Wow, just wow. Extremely haunting.

So, my rating for TBJD would have been a 2 and my rating for TBJL would have been a 4.
I’m settling on 3.

This review is part of my Poppies & Prose feature. You can find out more here.

[Grant Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say, in a way, that this book eventually led to me getting German citizenship. When I was a kid, a mobile library would visit the army estate I lived on, and I was allowed to check out up to six books each week. One time, I crossed the invisible boundary separating the YA books from the adult fiction, and I found Cross of Iron. I'd just started taking German at school, so what caught my attention when I cracked it open was the names. I remember looking them up in my Collins Gem German-English dictionary: Obergefreite Schnurrbart (Sergeant Moustache), Kern (core or nucleus), Pasternack (similar to ‘Pastinak’, or parsnip), Maag (from ‘Magen’, or stomach), Dorn (thorn), the evil Zoll (customs or inch). Steiner, the protagonist, came from ‘Stein’, meaning stone or rock. I also looked up the places the soldiers hailed from: the Sudetenland, the Schwarzwald, the Ruhrgebiet and Prussia, last refuge of the German nobility. Basically, it fed my desire to keep learning German.

I found Cross of Iron again when I was studying German at university. There was a guy who came to campus with boxes of books, and while digging through them I spied the green jacket with the iron cross on the front. I stayed up most of the night reading it, and was pleased to find it held up just as well to my cynical young adult mind. It also helped me recall why I’d decided to study German in the first place. I hadn’t been doing well in my classes; one professor actually took me aside and asked if I wouldn’t feel more comfortable switching to a different degree. But remembering how I’d felt at age 12, looking up Schnurrbart, Zoll and the rest in the dictionary and poring over maps of Germany, proved to be a turning point. I focused, read more German literature, watched more German films, and managed to graduate.

Now I've been living in Germany for ten years. Brexit led me to apply for German citizenship, which I received in 2018. I never thought I'd reach the stage where I’d be carrying around an ID card that lists my nationality as DEUTSCH, but I'm glad I have it - and it all started with this book. It's not a novel that ever gets mentioned in best-of lists or one you'll probably find in a bookstore, and most people are more familiar with the film starring James Coburn. But it'll always be super important to me.

[carl theaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some embrace 'Catcher in the Rye' for their rite of passage novel, others, Willi Heinrich's 'Cross of Iron'.

Reeling on the Russian front the German Army relies on the NCO to hold the fighting unit together. Protagonist Steiner is everything that it takes, resourceful, courageous, reliable, except he has
this rebellious streak in which he possesses this certain dislike of authority, especially for those officers who will get you killedfor their false glory.

Although Heinrich followed this work up with other very good novels, I think he put all he had in this one and it is an excellent read, a mix of philosophies, combat, motivations, and the drudgery of soldiering.

When I read this in my twenties it enthused me to get others to follow up. My good buddy Bob read it and afterward we always thought of ourselves as Steiner and his comrade Schnurrbart. ( I'm sure each of us figured we wereSteiner and the other Schnurrbart).

At the time I also coaxed a pair of female friends to read it and somewhat to my surprise they both liked it.

One time I re-read it I was practically on the Russian front myself; I was trapped in my old Chevy station wagon on the Dixie Highway south of Toledo with another car and a Greyhound bus during a blizzard. The state patrol told us plows were on the way, but might take awhile. The only
entertainment was the radio, the grinding of the struggling motor, and I happened to have 'Cross of Iron' with me, which I paged through for four hours of howling winter winds, till reinforcements arrived.

Several years later the movie came out, which Bob and I went to see, thankful that a director like Peckinpah was in charge. The flic has some great actors and is above average. Notably they use real T-34s as it was filmed in Czechoslovakia.

[Paul Gaya Ochieng Simeon Juma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The german, second platoon, fighting in russia is fighting a loosing battle. The platoon is led by corporal Steinner, who is later promoted to senior sergeant.

This is the second world war and Germany is loosing. Dozens against the world is the term used.

Russian tanks are attacking from every angle. The men are afraid, but they have to fight. They are fighting, not for what the believe in but because that is what they have been ordered to do.

To save tbeir skins they have to protect themselves. A group of eleven, which forms tbe second platoon form the subject of the novel. They are left behind by the battalion and they have to fight their way to reach the it.

Steinner, the leader is an able soldier with a troubled history. He has nothing to live for apart from the responsibility placed on him br the demands of war. He leads a group of ten men who dont have the experience required during war.

He is brave and is able to lead as expected. He carries on his shouldres the dreams and hopes of his platoon members.

He symbolises the brutality of world war two. He symbolises the determination of the german troops. He symbolises their ignorance and fears.

This novel will give you a glimpse of what happened during world war two.

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cross of Iron is considered one of the classic combat novels about the Eastern Front in World War Two. First published in 1955 (German) and translated in 1956, it is written by Willi Heinrich, who served with the 101st Jäger Division from 1941-45 and was wounded five times. The 101st Jäger Division took part in the Battle for Kharkov and Caucasus campaign, then after the defeat at Stalingrad retreated along the Kuban peninsula toward Crimea, up into Ukraine, through Slovakia, Hungary and ending the war in Austria, suffering seven hundred per cent casualties. Heinrich’s intimate knowledge of warfare and the terrain of battle, the personal dynamics between comrades, and the politics and ambitions of military leaders are clearly evident in narrative. The story follows Corporal Rolf Steiner, a classic anti-hero, and members of his platoon and their immediate superiors. The setup is very nicely done, tracing Steiner’s personal and collective battles, especially his relationship with his platoon members and Captain Stransky, his aristocratic battalion commander who desires the coveted cross of iron but does not want to earn it. Rather than glorifying the war action, Heinrich instead delivers gritty social realism -- the daily grind of staying alive, everyday encounters with wounds and death, petty and class politics and personal rivalries, the formation of bonds between men who would never otherwise associate with one another, and the brutality of close quarter fighting. The result is a compelling, sometimes harrowing, read, with a strong storyline and characterisation.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Translated from the German, Cross of Iron is a stimulating novel. It isn’t merely about military action on the Eastern Front of WWII. It also has the humanity of the famous WWI novel All Quiet on the Western Front and, though fictional, some of the feel of Band of Brothers. It mixes some of the existential angst one would associate with that war along with a bit of pathos that one wouldn’t expect to feel for Nazi soldiers.

The story is about the Second Company of the Second Battalion on one of the German fronts where an incessant retreat is underway. Cross of Iron begins with an error in judgment from a commanding officer and well-justifies the later comment: “The men consider every new commander a candidate for the Ritterkreuz who wants to earn his medal with their blood.” (p. 50) If that seems overly cynical, it is much deserved. One captain, a rival to the captain who wouldn’t listen to reason in The Caine Mutiny, even draws up an elaborate plan to kill one of the non-commissioned officers that he doesn’t like, tantamount to King David ordering the troops to pull back from Bathsheba’s husband Uriah in the Old Testament. But we only read of Uriah in the Old Testament in an off-stage recounting where Cross of Iron puts the reader in the steel helmet of the plot’s intended victim.

Cross of Iron, unexpectedly, is a very philosophical book. Sometimes, the philosophy is presented in clever homespun sayings like this one about regret: “There are certain people who go on for so long hankering for a pail of water that’s disappeared that they die of thirst, when all the while a brook is flowing past them a few feet away.” (p. 162) Later, in a rather bleak dialogue between two soldiers, one comments that human beings are the only creatures on “Mother Earth” that know what they are about. The other replies: “So we are, and how proud we are of it. But the earth endures our pride just as she endures our laughter and our tears. Not that anyone thinks about her; we have so much more important things to do. We dig holes and fill them up again; we build cities and burn them to ashes; we create life and kill it; and we talk about God and think of ourselves.” (p. 221)

Early in the book, there is a mixture of bleak philosophy and homespun metaphor when one soldier thinks of survival and his role in the army: “We’re all the same here, he told himself; a handful of life trying to preserve itself like candlelight in the bunkers; a bundle of duties in uniform, feeling and thinking like human beings, but trained to act like automatons.” (p. 34) I particularly liked this turn of phrase about forgiveness that one of the soldiers recalls: “that the person who could not forgive carried his unhappiness across his own shadow.” (p. 249)

I laughed when I read one soldier accuse another of talking in riddles and the other define riddles as “the inadequacies of our minds.” (p. 262). On the other hand, I found myself thinking that one clever axiom could be just as true in reverse as it was in its initial statement: “You mean that the present is real and the future is illusory, and if we take it the other way around we pass life by.” (p. 331) Of course, it is also true that if one doesn’t consider the future when making decisions in the present, one may spoil it.

In addition to the overarching plot where one non-commissioned officer defies the odds (but not without consequences) and is rewarded with the treachery of
a jealous officer, there are many poignant and emotional moments (not all, as one might expect, having to do with the loss of friends). Early in the book, a soldier remembers a woman crying in church who says: “Other people leave an offering in the box; I have nothing to leave but tears.” (pp. 72-73) And for those people who think that humans care more about animals than humans, there is a touching scene of a whimpering, wounded dog lying at the front door of an abandoned house after its owner has been evacuated (p. 368).

Cross of Iron is a gut-wrenching experience. It was too fascinating to stop reading, but at times, it was too real to be entertaining. When it was given to me, I thought it was just another bit of historical fiction. Instead, I believe Cross of Iron is a significant book and I have rated it as such.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book 3X and it is one of my top 10 favorite books! This is an Anti-war novel based upon the author's actual experiences fighting in the German Wermacht on the Russian Front during the waning days of WWII. Cpl Steiner (busted from sgt) is a tough, seasoned non-com known for his insubordination (and hatred of officers), but also for his fighting prowess and ability to keep himself and his men alive on even the most dangerous reconaissance missions.
He leads a platoon that has been given rear guard duties for their batallion's retreat only to find that the Russians have progressed faster than the German retreat. They are soon trapped behind Russian Lines. Steiner throws the book away and relies on his own prowess to bring his platoon safely back to the German lines all the while fighting the elements, the Russians, and treachery from his own Company Commander. The aristocratic Captain Stransky comes from a military family. He transfers to the Russian Front in order to obtain the coveted Iron Cross, the German Medal of Honor. Steiner is the one person who stands in his way. Stransky will do anything to get it.... lie, cheat, steal the glory from the dead, and if necessary, kill.
This book plants you in the center of what was arguably the worst fighting in WWII.
Certainly the best novel from the German perspective of WWII and I think the best novel from any perspective. This was made into a movie directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn. While the movie was good, the book is far better!

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Sobre los hechos imperan las personas que los protagonizan y sus actitudes.-

Género. Novela (con una ambientación histórica clara pero sin poder ser denominada Novela Histórica bajo ningún concepto).

Lo que nos cuenta. En la Segunda Guerra Mundial y en el Ostfront, el sargento Steiner está al mando de un pelotón alemán al que se le asigna la misión de permanecer en las posiciones que ocupaba el regimiento mientras este se retira a Krimskaia bajo la presión del avance soviético. Steiner hará lo necesario para cumplir su misión sin convertirse en pasto de las balas del enemigo, llegando al nuevo lugar de despliegue. Lo iremos conociendo a él, a sus hombres y a varios de los oficiales superiores, todos con personalidades y comportamientos muy diferentes, entre los que destacará el capitán Stransky por su animadversión hacia Steiner.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

🇩🇪 A powerful book about a veteran’s experience in the Germany army (Heer) on the Eastern Front in WW2. It is rendered as a work of fiction.

I almost gave up after the first 100 pages. It was so slow as the author meticulously built the framework for his novel.

However the next 100 pages were far more interesting.

The next 100 were even better. And so until the dramatic ending.

🇩🇪 It is honest. Realistic. And gradually you come to care about each man in the platoon.

Five stars

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The basis of Sam Peckinpah's movie of the same name, which Orson Welles said was one of the best anti-war movies he ever saw and the only war movie Peckinpah ever made because he felt it said everything he needed to say about war, this was written by a German veteran of the Russian front. So for an American reader it's interesting to find yourself dealing with such a protagonist. However, this is not about Nazism, but about survival in combat and the bonds within a platoon.

The translation was great, the battle scenes are intense, and this is one of the best war-related novels I've ever read. Unfortunately, this may be a difficult book to find.

[Kym Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up as a child watching the film which was inspired by this book, so I immediately fell into the trap while reading this book years later as a teen attempting to over lap the two stories. I am a fan of both the film and the book and while they are in some ways the same story they certainly differ.

The story feels authentic, perhaps in part due to the authors own experiences in the Hell that was the Eastern Front.

The book is a strong narrative and really allows you to slip into the helpless world which the characters find themselves. I think that Guy Sajers 'Forgotten Soldier' and this book stand perfectly besides one another on the book shelf.

84 %

[Brian Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A depleted German platoon in Russia during WWII under their Sergeant Steiner.
A new captain arrives, thinking the Eastern Front will be his chance to get an Iron Cross.
The rest of the troops are described well, and their interactions are about the small things that play on their minds, rather than the larger picture.

Similar to Das Boot this is a fairly gloomy, introspective look at the war, not concerning itself with the high ideals of the Party but more on the effect on the men at the receiving end of the orders.

There are lots of tense moments but it never gets bogged down.

[Chris Zamor · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can find this book, it is worth your time. Excellent war fiction from an entirely different perspective and it is a real page-turner. I've read it several times and will likely read a couple more times.

[Jesse Kraai · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been so much better.

It took me about three weeks to get the book from Germany, that's how bad I wanted it. Inspired by Das Boot, I wanted fiction to be the place where we need to examine our traumas and most formative experiences. If we push it, if we're gruendlich, something amazing will find its way to the page. And I wanted the Eastern Front.

Many other reviewers have noted how awful Heinrich's luandry-list style is: 'he moved his leg, then he touched his lip, then he looked at x, then he farted'. To that I want to add grammatical obfuscation: 'Dude x and Dude y marched down the path. He then said:' Wait! which he? And the descriptions of place and war zone are impossible to follow. Help the reader follow.

Ok, I know, grammar isn't what a review is supposed to focus on. But I want to stress it, because all that lack of clarity prevents Steiner from getting to his most interesting questions and themes.

For example, here is something amazing: The hero of Das Boot and Fleisch is basically the same guy! a) absurdly competent b) frustrated by the higher-ups c) not really into the war d) not really a nazi e) fulfills 'duty' only through the inertia of his body f) spiritually wounded g) not comfortable back in civilization h) has to die in a spot that is not especially dangerous, on the way home.

It feels like the subconscious of Heinrich and Buchheim both reach for the same hero. Steiner/Der Alte absolves the authors and their fellow soldiers of their crimes.

But Steiner has the potential to be even more interesting than 'der Alte', because Steiner is truly fucked up. But we never really get to him, we're only given vague suggestions as to how dude thinks and how he got that way. [Rant: Heinrich, dude, you had the chance to truly explore one of the most fucked experiences of humanity, that you lived through, instead you write your character as if he were a noir detective in 1950s Los Angeles.]

Der Alte doesn't have to be as fucked. And that is because Buchheim makes an elegant argument that technology is what is pushing the experience, which seems a lot more plausible in a U-Boot. But the Eastern Front and Steiner don't have that easy escape from responsibility.

Concerning the title, The Patient Flesh, and Steiner's dogged use of the informal address (Du) with just about everyone: Heinrich seems like he is pursuing an interesting vestige of Lutheran thought. Ie. Steiner is already dead and he addresses his fellow man like God does. Another interesting theme that is not developed.

I saw the movie while I was waiting for the book. What a mistake! In the same way that Heinrich gets away from his subject material Peckinpah escapes into Western-style blowing up of shit.

[Patrick Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Willi Heinrich's "Cross of Iron" reads like a hard-boiled update of "All's Quiet on the Western Front," and that WW1 masterpiece was plenty tough to begin with. Both books follow a small group of German soldiers through battle, life in the trenches, and the insanity of war. But "Cross of Iron" substitutes the innocent, youthful protagonist of the earlier work with the steely, iconic Sergeant Steiner and that makes it a superior work, in my estimation.

Originally published as "Das Geduldige Fleisch" (The Willing Flesh), "Cross of Iron" is set in the waning days of World War 2, as the collapsing German Army retreats across the Taman peninsula in the Russian Front. At the opening, Steiner's platoon is left as a rearguard while the rest of the battalion pulls back to a more defensible position. Steiner leads the platoon back through enemy lines to rejoin their unit, where he finds he has a new commanding officer, a preening martinet named Stransky. Most of the rest of the novel alternates between Steiner's battle of wills with Stransky and the platoon's struggle to survive the deterioriating situation. Throughout it all, Steiner drives and berates his men, defies his superiors, and above all survives. He's no superhero or superman; he bleeds and doubts and is gripped with terror as much as any soldier. And yet, he towers above the story.

Steiner is complex figure, nearly friendless but not completely alienated. He fits into the classic "non-com defying the commissioned officer class" type and yet he seems a few degrees further off the rails than the irascible stereotype. At various points throughout, characters wonder or fear that Steiner is on the verge of fratricide. And yet, only Stransky, the fool, seriously challenges him.

[Darren Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent blend of fact and fiction written by a man who experienced the war on the Eastern Front from the German perspective. Willi Heinrich fought in the unit he writes about in this exploration of the German soldier's experience.
Sergeant Steiner leads his rag tag platoon from rear guard action to rear guard action as the German army retreats in the wake of the Russian counter offensive that would ultimately end in Berlin itself. Facing death every day from his Russian foes, his greatest challenge is the threat from his commander, Stransky, a glory hungry aristocrat with no regard for his fellow men.
Most German units faced a mortality rate of 700%, experienced soldiers replaced on a daily basis with fresh faces, unprepared for life on the front and on the run. This novel clearly emphasizes the deadly experience in a novel that is sparkling with character development. The two main protagonists are well written and despite long periods of exposition, the novel keeps moving along at a great pace and you'll not be bored.
A great anti war novel from a solider wounded more than seven times in the course of duty.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. Other war sttories such as ´Birdsong´by Sebastian Faulks and of course All Queit on the Western Front. For me this is as good as any. It is unusual in being written by a German author and fro ma German perspective. The morals ans the sympathies portrayed are way ahead of their time, whether it be regarding freedom, sexuality or politics. This is a fascinating book in so many respects. The battle scenes themselves seem very realistic and the story is ver engaging. Steiner is a great hero.
I read this book in German which was a challenge but well worth it!

[Ian L. Straus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic which I first read when I was so young that my parents worried that it was too "adult" . 50 years later it is still a good read.. And note that Heinrich was a veteran of the war he wrote about and felt no need to pretty it up. This classic should be preserved in every library. Put it in yours..

This will always be my image of the eastern front, a doomed army ground down in a bad cause. Facing an enemy they cannot surrender to.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another military story from Heinrich. An excellent book, told from the perspective of the German soldier in World War II. Heinrich fought in Russia during that war and writes with superb authenticity.

[Steven Vaughan-Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid book about life and death in the German army in Russia as the tide turns against them. The hero fights on for his fellow solders even as he knows the war itself is pointless. This is a great military novel.

[WILLIAM KINNEY · Rating 5 out of 5]

36 Years ago.

I first read this book 36 years ago. I learn more and get more out of this book every time I read it. I believe that this book should be required reading in all high schools in the US.

[Julian Schwarzenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful WW2 novel told from the perspective of a German infantry platoon. It also details the conflicts and different attitudes of the various officers and the impact of their actions on the front line troops.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un grande libro di guerra, un grande personaggio, il sergente Steiner, coraggioso e leale, adorato dai suoi uomini, che porta in guerra una ferita nell'anima che non guarirà mai

[E.P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit that I read this book a long time ago, so perhaps it isn't as good as I remember. But as I remember, it is incredible, a true classic of combat writing, so I thought I'd write a review of it for German Literature Month 2017.

It follows a platoon of German soldiers trying to get out from behind enemy (Russian) lines in 1943, when the war is already starting to look not so good from the German perspective. Harrowing episode follows harrowing episode as the platoon is picked off one by one. That sounds grim, and it is--obviously you're not going to have any uplifting, happy stories about German soldiers in the latter part of WWII--but it's a riveting saga, and the characters are all fascinating and in their own way sympathetic, even for--

I was going to say even for a Western reader, but that would be wrong. Germany is not just *a* Western country, it is in some ways the quintessential Western country, embodying the triumphs and achievements of Western art, culture, science, and civilization, especially in late-19th/early-20th century, more than any other country in the world other than perhaps Britain.

And look where that led them. One suspects that part of the deep discomfort the rest of the West feels over Nazism is that it could have been us, any of us, and still could be. So "The Cross of Iron" (originally titled "The Willing Flesh," but the English title has been changed to fit the movie that was made from the book in 1977) is a more disturbing read for the English-speaking reader than your average war novel: the characters are all fully alive, and that plus the way the action is handled means we can't help but want them to make it back alive, even though they're fighting for an unjust cause most of them don't believe in, and have to hurt and kill Allies in order to achieve their aim and be able to hurt and kill more Allies. And yet somehow, the way good literature makes possible, the personal and concrete outweighs the political and abstract, and it's hard not to root for the Germans here because they're the ones you're with, not just seeing things through their eyes but feeling things with their hearts and their skins.

That this is not just a matter of historical trivia, but a matter of current interest is highlighted by two recent kerfuffles in the news of former Allied countries, the US and Russia. Increasingly uneasy over its relationship with white supremacy and (Neo)Nazism, both overt and covert, US society, at least of of a certain stratum, has lashed out against a recent New York Times article profiling members of the US Neo-nazi movement. How, people demand, can we justify making people like this seem in any way human? Meanwhile, an even bigger backlash has been sparked in Russia by a speech given by a Russian high schooler at the Bundestag: as part of an international day of remembrance, German high schoolers read about Russian victims of the war, and Russian high schoolers read about German casualties, and then spoke to the Bundestag about what they'd learned. The "Boy from Urengoi" has become infamous for saying that after reading about a German soldier who fought at Stalingrad, was taken prisoner, and died in captivity, he understood that the Germans suffered too, and many of them didn't even want to fight in the first place. Loud and vociferous denunciations of supposedly pro-fascist sentiments immediately followed from all over the country, and the boy has (oh irony of ironies!) had to remain in Germany for his own safety.

All this is made more toxic by the fact that the American-backed, anti-Russian government in Kiev sports a goodly number of Neo-nazis. Not all of them, of course, but it does beg the question that has been asked repeatedly about the Trump campaign and administration but somehow not about our foreign allies: how many Neo-nazis is too many? Is there some threshold below which it's okay? Is making a deal with Neo-nazis in order to achieve shared goals ever okay? Is there such a thing as innocent Nazis?

Two of Russia's leading war writers, Arkady Babchenko and Zakhar Prilepin, have weighed in on the topic in response to the persecution of the "Boy from Urengoi." Both have spoken out against his persecution, but both have come to the conclusion--which his speech in no way denied--that there are no innocent Nazis, or at least, not in the way that matters in a life-or-death struggle. Babchenko, who served two tours of duty in Chechnya before becoming an outspoken critic of the Russian government and Russian military actions, has said that there is no such thing as an innocent occupying soldier--if you're there shooting at the occupied populace, even if you're doing it against your will, you're still culpable for what your army is doing. Prilepin, who also served two tours of duty in the North Caucasus in the 1990s and who is currently an officer in a separatist battalion in Donetsk, while sharply disagreeing with Babchenko on most things (the former friends have become enemies and snipe at each other frequently on social media), agrees with him in that, although he comes at it from the opposite angle: if someone is invading your country and attacking you, you have to fight back, no matter how human and sympathetic your enemy might be under other circumstances.

Which brings us back to "The Cross of Iron" and the stark struggle for existence it chronicles, as well as a truth of human nature that it reveals: you can't help but root for the person you're with, just because you're with them, even if you don't like or agree with them. The bonds of standing side by side, either literally or literarily, are often the strongest bonds of all. Scholars of human behavior, take note. And while you're at it, read the book, because it's a corker.

[Graeme Shimmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot.

It's a long novel and fairly slow in places. The opening section of the novel, where Steiner and his platoon are trapped behind enemy lines and sneak back, encountering an all-female Russian unit on the way, is probably the strongest of the novel and could even have been a a stand-alone novella.

The description of the action feels very true to real life:
- There are a lot of characters, some of which appear and disappear again very quickly. In a less realistic novel they would have been turned into a composite character.
- The initial characters are killed one by one in well described, but chaotic, military action scenes until the protagonist, Steiner, and the antagonist, Stransky, are practically the only people left.
- There are several loose ends and plot threads that go nowhere, such as one character being homosexual.
- Random events and 'deus ex machina' like stray shells kill characters, bringing their part of the narrative to a sudden halt.

Although the author has an annoying, to me at least, tendency to tell the reader the outcome of an event and then go back and show what happened, what holds this rather diary-like account of combat at the front together as a story is the feud between Steiner and Stransky which builds throughout the novel until a confrontation at the end.

Battle scenes are interspersed with scenes of the various characters discussing their philosophies of life and the fact that Germany is doomed and they personally are unlikely to survive the war (the real unit the story is based on and that the author served in had 700% casualties during WW2, i.e. it was wiped out and rebuilt seven times).

In places I thought the translation wasn't perhaps doing full justice to the text, seeming a bit stilted. Some of the technical word choices such as translating "sub-machine gun" as "Tommy Gun" were questionable too.

I found the very end of the novel a little unsatisfying, I won't spoil it but suffice to say the ending is left open and there are not really any answers.

For those who have seen the classic film, staring James Coburn, the novel is quite similar, or at least the first two thirds of the novel are. The ending is thematically similar to the film, leading up to a confrontation between Steiner and Stransky, but in detail it is quite different. The film is well known as having a rather bizarre and ridiculous end sequence, as the production company ran out of money forcing them to cobble something together. The novel covers similar ground but in a much more extended sequence where the company fights the Russians, and each other, in an abandoned factory.

Overall, a gripping and realistic account of war. In the end the novel is a large scale vignette of life at the front - the war was going on before the start of the story and it will continue after the end - the heroism or cowardice of the characters is futile. Which is perhaps the point.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is a re-read but the first reading was a long time ago.

Another one that's been hanging around the 'to read' pile with intent. So I decided it was to come on holiday with me. I didn't read half as much whilst away as I meant to but I did get into this book.

As well as having read the book I'd also seen the film. My incredible sieve of a memory had left me with only a vague memory of events. I found the writing style took a little time to get into but not enough to put me off. It's a fascinating look at life on the other side of WWII. I have no idea how accurate the tale is but as the author fought for Germany on the Eastern Front, in the division described in the novel, I'm assuming it's pretty close to the truth. It tells the same story as other books on war that I've read. War is a horrible experience. The interesting thing is the similarities to be found in people the world over. No matter what 'side' they are on.

I can't say the book is enjoyable but that's solely the fault of the subject matter. I'll be keeping the book and will probably come back to it in the future at some point.

3.5 pawprints out of 5.

[Wilkin Beall · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not the classic it is sometimes made out to be but it is well written and solidly plotted. The reader may find it mildly curious to be reading from the German point of view in a novel about the second world war but as the antagonists are Russians, it is almost as if the action exists apart from the war as it is normally imagined by a Western reader. Most of us are completely unfamiliar with the war in the Crimean theatre. If I had not read this book, I would not be aware of it at all.
The characters are sympathetic. Most of us no doubt come to the book after having seen the Peckinpah directed film based on the novel. There are unsurprisingly a number of differences from the film. Far from being a grizzled middle aged James Coburn the reader is introduced to a jaded but still very young Steiner of 21. The passages where Steiner is being treated behind the lines suffer as, interestingly, they do in the film and there are certain other disparities.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

CROSS OF IRON is the thrilling story of a German platoon cut off far behind Russian lines in the second half of World War II. A resourceful and cynical commander somehow manages to coax his men through the bitter hand-to-hand fighting in forests, trenches and city streets until eventually they regain the German lines. But safety is only temporary. After the tension of waiting for the last overwhelming Russian advance the platoon is forced into futile counter-attacks and murderous house-to-house fighting until its final decimation becomes inevitable. A modern classic of war fiction both as a book and a film, this is a strikingly realistic story of action on the Eastern Front, where the grimness of combat seems to have neither pity nor end.

[Curt Lorde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Millions, serving opposing blood mad sociopaths, slaughtered each other in a war that has left its mark for good and ill, on this planet. The Naked and the Dead, From Here To Eternity,and The Thin Red Line deglorified the American effort. But winners can tell any story they want. The author endured the actuality of the running joke on 'Hogan's Heroes. The German officers like von Manstein who wrote their autobiographys about their experiences in Russia belonged to the class the protagonist Steiner came to hate. This and the some what dubious 'autobiography' The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer tell an infantryman's tale of trying to earn the greatest medal of all; surviving in one piece.