Cross of Iron

“On the Eastern front in 1943, the German soldiers no longer had any ideals. They were not fighting for the Party—but for their lives!”

In 1943 the German army is falling back from the Russian front, tired and short of everything. Hauptmann Stransky (Maximilian Schell), a vain aristocrat posted to the line, wants an Iron Cross to carry home to Berlin, while Feldwebel Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) wants only to keep his men alive. Peckinpah sets the two on a collision course, and Steiner cares nothing for the medals offered to him.