Cross of Iron (full movie)

132 min - Action | Drama | War
In 1943, in the Russian front, the decorated leader Rolf Steiner is promoted to Sergeant after another successful mission... See full summary »
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Writers: Julius J. Epstein (screenplay), Walter Kelley (screenplay), and 2 more credits »
Stars: James Coburn, Maximilian     Schell and James Mason


An aristocratic Prussian officer, Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell), is posted as a new battalion commander in the Kuban bridgehead on the Eastern Front in 1943. Stransky proudly tells the regimental commander, Colonel Brandt (James Mason), and his adjutant, Captain Kiesel (David Warner), that he applied for transfer from occupied France to front line duty in Russia so that he can win the Iron Cross.
Veteran, highly-respected Corporal Steiner (James Coburn) leads his Wehrmacht infantry platoon on a reconnaissance patrol, during which his men capture a young Russian boy-soldier (Slavko Štimac). When Stransky meets Steiner for the first time, he orders Steiner to shoot the prisoner in strict observance of a standing order. When Steiner refuses, Stransky prepares to shoot the boy himself, but at the last moment, Private Reisenauer (Fred Stillkrauth) saves the boy by volunteering to do it. Later, Stransky informs Steiner that he has been promoted to sergeant, and is puzzled by Steiner's nonchalant response. Stransky also discovers that his adjutant, Lieutenant Triebig (Roger Fritz), is a closet homosexual when Stransky surreptitiously sees Triebig stroking the cheek of an enlisted orderly, Josef Keppler.
While waiting for an anticipated attack, Steiner releases the young Russian only to see the boy killed by advancing Soviet troops. While Stransky cowers in his bunker, the respected Lieutenant Meyer (Igor Galo), the leader of Steiner's platoon, is killed while leading a successful counterattack. Steiner is wounded in the same battle trying to rescue a German soldier and is sent to a military hospital to recover. There, he is haunted by the faces of the dead men and the boy (in a dream sequence prior to waking from a coma), and has a romantic liaison with a nurse (Senta Berger).