Biography

Willi Heinrich was born in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

, and during the Second World War he fought the Russians in the Eastern Front

Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...

 with the 1st Battalion

Battalion

A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...

 228th Jäger

Jäger (military)

Jäger is a term that was adopted in the Enlightenment era in German-speaking states and others influenced by German military practice to describe a kind of light infantry, and it has continued in that use since then....

 Regiment

Regiment

A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...

 of the 101st Jäger Division

101st Jäger Division

The 101st Jäger Division was a German Infantry Division of World War II. It was formed in July 1942 by the redesignation of the 101st Light Infantry Division, which was itself formed in December 1940. It took part in the Battle of Kharkov, then the Caucasus campaign and the retreat into the Kuban,...

, the infantry unit of the characters of Das Geduldige Fleisch (The Willing Flesh

The Willing Flesh

The Willing Flesh 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....

; Cross of Iron), his most famous novel. In the war's course, the 101st Jäger Division suffered seven hundred per cent casualties; Heinrich was wounded five times.

After the war, Heinrich became a writer; his first novel, In einem Schloss zu wohnen, written 1950–1952, went unpublished until 1976, when he was an established novelist. His first commercial novel, Das Geduldige Fleisch (The Willing Flesh

The Willing Flesh

The Willing Flesh 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....

), was published in 1955, and almost immediately was translated to English and published as The Willing Flesh

The Willing Flesh

The Willing Flesh 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....

(1956), by Weidenfield & Nicolson in the U.K., and as Cross of Iron

Cross of Iron

Cross of Iron is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner. The film is set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviet's Caucasus operations that forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from the Taman Peninsula on the...

(1957), by Bobbs-Merrill in the U.S. To date, the novel remains in print and in many editions; in 1977, Sam Peckinpah

Sam Peckinpah

David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...

 cinematically adapted it as Cross of Iron

Cross of Iron

Cross of Iron is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner. The film is set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviet's Caucasus operations that forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from the Taman Peninsula on the...

, featuring James Coburn

James Coburn

James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...

 as the protagonist anti-hero Rolf Steiner.

Though he began as a war genre novelist, Heinrich concentrated in the potboiler

Potboiler

Potboiler or pot-boiler is a term used to describe a poor quality novel, play, opera, or film, or other creative work that was created quickly to make money to pay for the creator's daily expenses . Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers...

 genre of soapy, sexy stories that were very popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of his books are novels, but Erzählungen (1985) is an anthology comprising three novellas: (i) Die Freundinnen, (ii) Fata Morgana, and (iii) Harte Bandagen. His last book, Der Gesang Der Sirenen [The Singing of the Sirens], was published in 1994 when he already was retired; Willi Heinrich died in Dobel, near Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

, in 2005.