The Good Germans

In 1977 I was attending the University of Lethbridge. That summer there was the release of three movies dealing with WWII; A Bridge Too Far, The Eagle Has Landed,and cross of iron

Of the three the Cross of Iron was subject to the most critical attacks and vilifications by film critics. And it was not only the best war film of the three it is also one of the best anti-war films to depict WWII.

I am also partial to the anti-war film; Kelly's Hero's as well, however that was farce and a good tongue in cheek depiction of American values (using the war as an excuse to profit by stealing gold from a bank) , this is deafeningly realistic as only Sam Peckinpah can do.

Through out the movie the Russian howitzers continually boom in the background, the only blessed silence is when Steiner is injured and is sent to recover. When I walked out of the theatre my ears were still ringing.

Mired in controversy some critics accused this Anglo-German co-production of attempting to belittle the importance of the holocaust to the war , which the movie does not address since it is about the Russian Front, by portraying German soldiers as unwilling participants in the Nazi's war.

Which many were. A good friend of mines father survived the Russian front, he was drafted his choice a concentration camp or the Russian front, for he was an active trade unionist. After the war he remained a committed anti-Nazi and anti-fascist.

There were good germans forced to fight in Hitlers war. Just as there were Russians and Ukrainians who fought not for Stalin but for their homelands and in the case of the Ukraine many were not members of Ukrainian fascist patriot groups like upa

This movie is about working class German soldiers drafted to fight in the Russian Front, and all they care about is each other and survival. They are cynical and both antiNazi and anti wehr macht the officer corps they know they are just meat for bullets.

James Coburn plays Steiner whose reconnaissance team faces the Russians daily and know they have a limited life span. He refuses to differentiate himself from his men, comrades all, when offered a commission as a Sargent. Shades of the Spanish Civil War.

There is a great deal of tenderness shown amongst the men in Steiners unit, especially when they capture a young boy who is a Russian soldier. They keep him alive and protect him from the Nazi political officer assigned to them and from their military commanders. When the Russians launch a counter assault he is killed trying to return to his lines.

Amongst the men in the unit there is a strong undercurrent of homoeroticism unusual for peckinpah in the relationships of this group of dead men walking. They not only rely on each other for their mutual survival they love each other as well. It is the brotherhood of war

There is a telling scene where they capture a group of Soviet fighters who are women. The Nazi political officer assigned to Steiners unit, whom they all hate "spell my name right I would hate to see someone else's family die for my remarks," says one of Steiner's men, demands one of the captured women give him a blow job. Steiner and his unit leave him with the captive women as the Nazi has his dick bitten off and the women attack and kill him. Justice, Peckinpah style.

Steiner and his commander are the last men left standing at the end of the movie, and Coburn's laughter at the absurdity of his aristocratic foe stumbling to load his gun, sums up the black humour of war and its absurdity even today.



Set in 1943 when the germans had to retreat from their crushing defeat on the russian front, this is a considered and intelligent look at the way soldiers react to warfare.

The story plays out over a constant barrage of soviet artillery, punctuated by several brutal bloody attacks on the increasingly vulnerable german positions. While the violence seems tame in the wake of saving private ryan, it was shockingly graphic for the time. Dozens of men die onscreen in true peckinpah style, collapsing in slow motion, spurting blood from any number of wounds.

The central figure in the action is sergeant steiner a man who is a legend among german soldiers. He fights hard but hates fanatics, and loves the men in his squad.

Steiner has no respect for authority - even for his understanding colonel played by James Mason - and a newly arrived aristocratic officer rubs him up the wrong way and starts a deadly personal war.

Bleak unpleasant and ugly look at men in combat that was almost universally panned by the mainstream press upon its initial release. Its complex and vivid portrayal of the absurdity of war however, prompted none other than orson Welles to write peckinpah and proclaim it the finest antiwar film he had ever seen.

We follow corporal Coburn (in what may be his best performance), a german soldier (not a Nazi)who "hates this uniform and everything it stands for." Loyal only to his men a tight-knit group of soldiers fighting for their survival, Coburn finds his nemesis in his new commander captain schell an arrogant narcissistic prussian aristocrat who desperately wants to come home with an iron cross germanys highest honor for bravery but who is terrified of battle. Since coburn comes highly recommended by other commanders and has already been awarded the iron cross himself, Schell promotes him to sergeant in the hope of winning an ally. After a siege on their compound in which many brave men die while schell cowers in his bunker, coburn learns that the captain has filed a false report claiming that he led the counterattack a deed certain to earn an iron cross. When coburn refuses to confirm schells claims (he also resists calling him a liar which would indicate reverence for a medal he considers worthless) Schell plots to dispose of the troublesome sergeant and his men.

Cross of iron is an angry film that ends with a bitter quote from bertolt brecht: "Do not rejoice in his defeat you men. for though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard the bitch that bore him is in heat again."