It's probably been posted somewhere, but no Gun History forum should be without a topic about the Movie, "Enemy at The Gates."


Propaganda or Fact - Enemy at the Gates?

The movie pits legendary Soviet sniper Vasiliy Zaitsev in a hellish duel during the Battle of Staingrad with SS Colonel Heinz Thorwald, head of Germany's snipers' school. Some say it is true, but others believe the duel was Soviet propaganda. See, Enemy at the Gates, versus Thorvald and/or Konig. It is a fitting subject for this forum in either event, since the weapon of choice for Soviet snipers was the venerable 91/30 Mosin Nagant.

A friend of mine gave me a book on the battle of stalingrad.    I couldn't finish it...  the waste an audacity of each side frustrated me too much.    

Their is some truth to it,  but its been hollywoodized.    

They did send one many out with out a rifle for everyone who had one.

They did just put uniforms on folks and send them to battle.

The Germans were welcomed as liberators by the Ukranians, only to find them slaughtering their livestock, stealing their food stuffs, winter coats, and boots, and enslaving them.  

The idocy on both sides was stupendous.  I could go on but I'll spare you...

I read somewhere that the whole sniper duel never happened.   Beevor, who wrote probably the most accurate book on Stalingrad, titled "Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege"  does not believe the story is true because no reports were ever made of it to the Political Department.    

Story first came out in Walter Craig's Enemy at the Gates.

do a search on www.snipercountry.com.  the review says the movie is a few stories and alot of hollywood rolled into one.

You can check directly from the guy himself:

www.notesofasniper.com/


But, as far as I know that duel never happened.  Just another Hollywood bedtime story...

I read a book that was about 20 years old. Don't remember the name something like great snipers or something like that. They had the story about the German/Russian duel taking place in the outskirts of Stalingrad. Zaitzev had a spotter with him and thought he knew where Konig was. Told his spotter to wave something to get Konig to to take a shot. Konig did and Zaitzev saw the muzzle flash and returned a kill shot.

The object the spotter wave turned out to be his glove.

When I say spotter I am meaning co-sniper. I don't know if they had spotters back then.

I got the book in my locker at work. I'll  get the name and post it.

I don't know why hollywood did it the way they did it.

I hate that movie..........

"Enemia at the gates"

YOU KNOW WHAT MAKES A GOOD MOVIE, NO B-PLOT LOVE STORY.  THANK YOU PEARL HARBOR AND ENEMY AT THE GATES.  THESE ARE ROMANCE STORIES.

FULL METAL JACKET
BLACK HAWK DOWN
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
THESE ARE WAR MOVIES.


[MARINES}

Quoted: YOU KNOW WHAT MAKES A GOOD MOVIE, NO B-PLOT LOVE STORY.  THANK YOU PEARL HARBOR AND ENEMY AT THE GATES.  THESE ARE ROMANCE STORIES. FULL METAL JACKET BLACK HAWK DOWN SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. THESE ARE WAR MOVIES. [MARINES}

FMJ had a b-plot love story.  Who among us can forget "Me so horny, me so horny, me love you long time"?

From what I understand, the movie is based on some true events, and the hollywood took over.

I watched a show on the History Channel awhile back about snipers, and there was a Russian sniper, that was so good, the Germans sent in their top sniper to take him out, BUT the russian sniper got the German sniper instead.

 So that may be what the movie is based on, but as I said hollywood took over....

But it is a good movie, esp if you like the MN 91/30 and M38 rifles.....

Try reading "war of the rats"  looks like the movie/book were ripped off from this book.  

Ah  learn something new every day...

WHATS WRONG WITH CAPS?  NOTHING IN THE CODE OF CONDUCT CONCERNING SOMETHING SO MINUSCULE.  ARE CAPS REALLY WORTH COMPLANING ABOUT.  SOME PEOPLE THINK THIS IS A WAY TO YELL ONLINE, IT'S NOT.  YOU READ THESE THREADS, YOU DON'T HEAR THEM.

Quoted: WHATS WRONG WITH CAPS?  NOTHING IN THE CODE OF CONDUCT CONCERNING SOMETHING SO MINUSCULE.  ARE CAPS REALLY WORTH COMPLANING ABOUT.  SOME PEOPLE THINK THIS IS A WAY TO YELL ONLINE, IT'S NOT.  YOU READ THESE THREADS, YOU DON'T HEAR THEM.

It's just common courtesy. Posting in all caps is like posting a big block of text without paragraph breaks: It makes it much more difficult to read.

Everybody has the old sniper duel story, but I have never been able to find a documented historical event.  They have a Carlos Hathcock version from Vietnam, he was one of the all time greats in competitive shooting and sniping, he had the skills to pull it off.  But again the documentation is crap and the "recovered rifle" which would be a great prize for the Marines "disappeared" after he got back to base.

As for the battle of Stalingrad, it was as terrible as mentioned with the stupid love story.  On german story I read ,noted with disgust that with Nazi political officers forced them to send political bullshit material, political films and rubbers and std booklets in place of ammo, food, clothes and medicine.  They figured it would be a short term thing, until Hitler ordered them not to be relieved and send a message to fight their way out.  He reasoned if they had gas and ammo to make it to German lines , they had enough to attack and go forward.

The USSR had executed nearly every decent officer in their armies at the order of Stalin in the pervious years and tortured nearly every skilled soldier and soldier with experience to death or sent them to gulags.  Lucky for them ,they have terrible weather.

I read a story in a military history book (can't remember the title) that talks about the sniper "duel". It said the Germans sent their top sniper to get the Russian sniper. The Russian had a "spotter" with him and when the "spotter" moved the German shot him thinking it was the Russian sniper. The Russian sniper saw a flash from the German's scope and fired, killing the German.

The German was supposedly in a pile of rubble for 3 days waiting for the Russian sniper. Not quite as exciting as the hollywood version.

Quoted: WHATS WRONG WITH CAPS?  NOTHING IN THE CODE OF CONDUCT CONCERNING SOMETHING SO MINUSCULE.  ARE CAPS REALLY WORTH COMPLANING ABOUT.  SOME PEOPLE THINK THIS IS A WAY TO YELL ONLINE, IT'S NOT.  YOU READ THESE THREADS, YOU DON'T HEAR THEM.

Because it's the equivalent of SHOUTING and shows an utter disrespect for common courtesy and net etiquette...

I first read of the story in Sniper: One on One  (see here) long before the movie came out.
The  encounter is detailed very well. If it is just propaganda, I don't know, but the only thing in
common with the movie is they are in Stalingrad.

While the story is propaganda, I can easily imagine sniper duels going on in Stalingrad.

A well trained sniper can be devastating to enemy morale.