The prediction of fracture in thin structures is crucial for the safety assessments in various fields of engineering. Modeling methods such as the phase-field method typically assume damage to be constant across the thickness of structural models like beams, plates and shells which, especially in load cases coupling stretching and bending, is an imperfect approximation. In this contribution, fracture behaviors along the thickness direction of Euler–Bernoulli beam considering axial deformation are addressed with a phase-field modeling approach. To achieve this, a mixed-element beam model is introduced, which combines 1D beam elements representing the displacement field with 2D rectangular elements describing a crack phase-field. The nonlinear coupled governing equations are solved using a staggered scheme. The transfer of variables between the coupled fields occurs at the quadrature points which in turn need to have corresponding geometric locations. Numerical examples ranging from the problems of fracture in standalone beams to lattice structures show the applicability of the approach, and detailed comparisons with a standard 2D model confirm its accuracy and efficiency.