High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Willing Flesh (German: Das Geduldige Fleisch, 1955) (English translation released 1956) is a novel by Willi Heinrich, chronicling the Eastern Front combat experiences of a depleted infantry platoon during the 1943 German retreat from the Taman Peninsula in the Caucasian coast of Russia.The war film, Cross of Iron (1977), directed by Sam Peckinpah, is based upon this novel. Later editions of The Willing Flesh have been re-titled Cross of Iron to link book and film.