66 CROSS OF IRON
Walden’s UH-1H Medevac he li cop ter goes into action without a gunship escort—
something that would never occur in a real combat zone. Nor would Sgt. Monfriez
have been allowed to carry an automatic weapon on a Red Cross– marked Medevac
he li cop ter; U.S. military law prohibits such weapons on ambulance vehicles of any
kind (though sidearms for personal protection are allowed). Similarly, Walden’s
attack on the Iraqi tank with a Huey fuel bladder is logistically absurd and a blatant
violation of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) and the Geneva Conventions, which
define medical personnel as noncombatants forbidden from engaging in hostilities.
Rather than being awarded a Medal of Honor, Meg Ryan’s Capt. Karen Walden
would likely have been court- martialed, had she lived.Cross of Iron (1977)
Synopsis
Cross of Iron is a British- German war film directed by Sam Peckinpah that stars
James Coburn and features Maximilian Schell, James Mason, and David Warner.
The film follows a Wehrmacht platoon fighting on the Eastern Front in World War II
as the Germans try to stem Soviet advances on the Taman Peninsula in late 1943.
The film focuses on the class conflict between an aristocratic Prus sian officer with-
out battle experience who covets the Iron Cross and a cynical, battle- hardened
infantry NCO. The screenplay was based on The Willing Flesh by Willi Heinrich, a
novel published in 1956 that is loosely based on the true story of Werhmacht sol-
dier Johann Schwerdfeger.Background
German WWII Eastern Front veteran Willi Heinrich (1920–2005) began writing
novels after the war. His first and most famous book, Das Geduldige Fleisch [The
Willing Flesh], about retreating Wehrmacht soldiers embroiled in the Battle of Krym-
skaya in the Crimea (April 1943), was published in 1955. In 1975 Wolf C. Hartwig,
a West German producer of low- budget soft porn exploitation movies eager to break
into mainstream filmmaking, deci ded to try and film Heinrich’s novel. He sent
director Sam Peckinpah a copy of the book, retitled The Cross of Iron in the 1956
English- language edition. Intrigued by the subject matter, Peckinpah agreed to
make a movie version for a $300,000 director’s fee, plus another $100,000 and
5 percent on the back end, if the film proved to be profitable. Hartwig hired Julius
Epstein (Casablanca) to write a screenplay, but Peckinpah rejected it as too con-
voluted and cliché- ridden and hired James Hamilton, a Korean War veteran, to
write a new script and Walter Kelley (Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid) to collaborate on
rewrites after viewing numerous Nazi and Allied newsreels at film archives in
Koblenz and London, respectively (Weddle, 2000, pp. 504–506).Production
A joint Anglo- German production (EMI Films/ITC Entertainment, London and
Rapid Films GmbH, Munich), Cross of Iron was plagued from the outset by financial