Saw it again for 1st time in 34 years; some comments
I saw this movie at the theater when first released, and just saw it for the first time since then (found it available full-length on YouTube).
This is a great movie, but, having read about a dozen memoirs and diaries of German soldiers who fought on the Eastern front (which does NOT make me an expert), I’ll just comment on some areas that I thought fell a little short:
--the opening credits are widely admired, probably because of the interesting archival footage. However, Peckinpah seemed to be trying to convey a deep contrast between the bleak Eastern front and life back in Germany, which is almost made to look like peaches and cream. However, life at home, though far better than the Eastern front, was no piece of cake—Germany’s cities were being ruthlessly firebombed, and the war was certainly felt strongly there. On the other hand, maybe Peckinpah’s intention was to underscore the contrast between the ideals and the realities of war.
--When Stransky arrives at the front, he tells Steiner that it is strictly against orders to take Russians prisoner. While many prisoners were killed on both sides, I have never read of a general order that no Russians were to be taken prisoner. I have read many accounts of Russians being captured. They often provided invaluable information on the strength, position and intentions of the enemy; any general order to never take prisoners would have been strategically foolish.
--If I understood it right, an SS soldier (made to look very evil) is assigned to Steiner’s platoon. However, as far I have read, SS soldiers stayed with SS units; I never heard of an SS soldier being assigned to a regular Wehrmacht army unit, although sometimes during retreats, stragglers from various units were hastily reformed into a fighting force, and I suppose that would have resulted in some mixing of SS and men from the regular army. But in the movie it seems to be a very planned thing.
--There is a general theme in the movie conveying widespread resentment between the front-line grunts and the “aristocratic, Prussian” officer class, as emulated by Stransky and the general who visits the hospital. In all the first-hand accounts I have read from the Eastern front, I got that that the grunts looked with great respect on their commanding officers, who were quite willing to die with the grunts. The exception—the officer they didn’t like--would be the rare one who proved incompetent, which put their lives at risk.
--Finally, I felt Peckinpah really pushed the suggestions of kinky sex—homosexual talk, one soldier openly kissing another, oral sex. This is not to say these things never happened, just that Peckinpah seemed to be making the unusual look more usual than it was, probably for shock value.
Again, I don’t claim to be an Eastern Front expert; that is just my take after reading a number of first-hand accounts. The movie does have great action, an interesting story, and perhaps most importantly, it conveys sympathy deserved by front-line grunts fighting sacrificially everywhere, regardless of the war or which side they were on.