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WHERE THE IRON CROSSES GROW:<br />
The Crimea 1941–44<br />
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:<br />
FORCZYK, Robert. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2014, hardcover,<br />
304 pages, $20.09, ISBN-13 978-1-78200-625-1<br />
Reviewed by Lieutenant-Colonel R. Chris Rankin, CD, MA, Chief, Army<br />
Lessons Learned Centre.<br />
Most people with a keen interest in the war on the<br />
Eastern Front will quickly recognize the quote by<br />
Feldwebel Rolf Steiner from the 1977 Sam Peckinpah<br />
directed film Cross of Iron: “And I will show you where<br />
the Iron Crosses grow.” Based upon Willi Heinrich’s<br />
1956 novel, The Willing Flesh, the film is set during the<br />
German Army’s defence of the Kuban bridgehead in<br />
1943 and covers the German retreat from the<br />
Caucasus across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.<br />
Robert Forczyk’s latest book, Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941–44,<br />
tells the more complete story of the battles between the German and Soviet armies for<br />
the control of the strategic Crimean Peninsula throughout the course of the Second<br />
World War. Given the recent events that began to unfold in the Crimea in 2014, this<br />
book is both timely and informative, adding some historical perspective to this recent<br />
flash point.<br />
Forczyk opens Where the Iron<br />
Crosses Grow by taking a step back,<br />
setting the scene with a short<br />
prologue and quickly covering the<br />
history of the Crimea from the<br />
16th century to the establishment<br />
of Soviet authority after the<br />
revolution. The subsequent nine<br />
chapters outline the campaign that<br />
saw the destruction of first the<br />
Soviet and then the German<br />
armies. Throughout the book,<br />
Forczyk outlines the importance of<br />
German Panzer IV tank and soldiers<br />
in the Crimea, 1942<br />
the campaign’s air and naval components, the insurgency conducted in the background of the<br />
main contest between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army, and the atrocities committed by both<br />
sides. The book also touches on the role played by the Romanian forces, whose efforts on the<br />
Eastern Front, along with those of other German allies, are often overlooked. The book is well<br />
balanced in its account and ends with a rather ominous postscript of the events in Crimea in<br />
2014: “Amazingly, the Crimea is going to remain a cockpit of war, with ancient fortifications<br />
refurbished and pressed back into service so that new generations of heroes can be asked to<br />
make sacrifices for an arid peninsula that has consistently proven to be an empty prize.”<br />
Source: wikipedia<br />
150 THE CANADIAN ARMY JOURNAL VOLUME 16.2 2016
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