I just got done watching Enemy at the Gates for the first time tonight and from what I understand it is based on actual events. How much of that movie was really true though.
Alot of it seemed very hard to beleive. The main problem with the movie, at least as far as I saw, was that I had a hard time believing that 2 snipers would actually sit in an area in hiding and wait each other out like that. They did it several times in the movie and it was just too hard to swallow.
How much of this story actually happened? Or is it more of a folktale than it is a factual account of that showdown. I heard that those 2 snipers really did face off, but was it really like it was in the movie?
The Russian sniper, Zaitsev, was certainly real. He was the best-known sniper in the Red Army at the time (although there were allegedly others with more kills), and his succcess was trumpeted throughout the Russian military to promote an interest in ‘sniperism’.
–Germany and Russia did fight during WWII.
–the battle of Stalingrad was as gruesome and brutal as portrayed in the movie (some historians would say that the film underplayed this part).
–the portrayal of the sniper is pretty accurrate. I’ll direct your attention to the book “Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45” by Alan Clark. Mr. Clark not only provides description of the grueling life of the Soviet sniper, but he also describes the awesome tenacity of the Soviet soldier during this conflict.
As I understand it the German sniper in the movie is likely a composite of multiple snipers. I’d have to dig around for cites but I believe there is no record of the German sniper and Zaitsev having this supposed ‘duel’. Germany did want Zaitsev dead but they likely sent multiple people in to get him and enver succeeded. You have to be careful of accounts from the time from both Germany and Russia. Neither of them could be counted on for factual reporting. Russia wanted to promote a hero for the people to look up to and Germany would want to cover up (at least publically) knowledge of an especially skillful Russian sniper.
You should read up on snipers. They are a very peculiar breed of soldier and very few people are cut out for it. Apart from their skill with a rifle is their almost inhuman patience. I’ve heard of accounts of snipers waiting several days just to make one shot. In the movie this waiting game is very undestandable for these two snipers. They both know the game…the first to move dies. It is almost more a war of nerves than of guns when it’s sniper vs. sniper.
This movie did it’s best to convey all the myths about the eastern front that most americans have. I haven’t watched it in like 2 years, so I can’t remember that many specifics, but it was remarkable how many myths per minute this movie churned out.
But definitely conveyed the “primitive russians doing human waves against smart, elite german soldiers” myth, and of course had to show the NKVD detachments killing their own troops - a well known, and misunderstood aspect of the war, etc.
If I watched the movie again, I could come up with a list of 50 myths it portrayed.
I read both “Enemy at the Gates” and “War of the Rats”
The books were both good.
“Enemy at the Gates” was well done. It very choppy in parts. The events were factual but the story did not flow well.
“War of the rats” Was an excellent read.
Zaitev’s personal and family history was historically correct.
Tania (female sniper) and Torvald (german sniper)had some details altered or imagined for dramatic effect.
Corperal Mond was a collection of various german soldiers.
The dates, troop movements and major battle details were historically accurate.
It has been a while and I might be wrong, but the storyline in the Movie was not close to “War of the Rats” I cannot remember all the fine details I saw different between the two.
I know the kid (if you seen the movie and read the two books you know who I mean) had a different chain of events but was changed for drmatic effect.
Since I am inbetween books right now, I think I shall reread them and watch the movie again then track this thread down (I Cafe society I Imagine) and see how bad off my memory actually is.
I need to hear what myths you believe most Americans have re the Eastern front, SeñorBeef. I read a fair amount of history and some of your ‘myths’ can be restated to more reasonable language. To wit, *“primitive russians doing human waves against smart, elite german soldiers” *, could be better put as "less well trained Russian replacements going against a German Army with a more individualistic, fluid command structure. Most accounts I’ve read of German action include some remark about the shocking waste of infantry attacks against prepared postions.
And can you elaborate on how Commisar executions are misunderstood. I don’t mean any of this in a sassy sense, mind you, but I’d love some clarification from you.
I follow MonkeyMan, essentially with the “where’d you get that from, Senor?” The Soviets did indeed use human wave tactics with unnerving frequency at Stalingrad and notably in areas near the Ukraine. Furthermore, the NKVD battalions on der Ostfront would sometimes use decimation as a form of extreme discipline (shoot 1 out of every 10 soldiers at random). In Stalingrad, even, anyone who so much as tried to escape fighting in the city if they were called to do so could expect to be shot immediately by the local NKVD militia.
It worked didn’t it? Well, for Stalin, not all the men who got killed. That is, in fact, what happened. Look at the WW2 kill counts, you’ll see just how many Russian troops died. They were ill-trained, often poorly led (though there were some fine generals in every military), and basically sent off to die. The Russian command just expected them to die and didn’t care.
I’ll repeat my cite of “Barbarossa”, which contains excerpts from the diaries of Nazi soldiers who fought on the eastern front. Almost all of them contain descriptions of Soviet soldiers fighting heroically, almost insanely, to overcome the Nazi invasion.
If you are given no choice but to go forwards and have seen soldiers who did nothing wrong shot as an example wouldn’t you fight insanely to attempt to live even with no chance?
Look at animals backed into a corner, don’t they fight heroically?
I first read of this story in a book titled “The Greatest Stories of WWII (on Land)”. It is a collection of short stories, written mostly in first person, by the combatants. One story is the sniper duel, allegedly as told by Zaitsev himself. It’s interesting to note, that names of the German sniper, and Zaitsevs’ cohorts are mentioned, but Zaitsevs name is not mentioned at all, not even in the short intro by the editor. As he tells the story, the German sniper that was brought in to restore some balance to the battle, was the head of Germany’s sniper school at Zossen, SS Standartenfuhrer Heinz Thorwald. The story reads just like the movie, except for the following: The female is not mentioned, however I’ve read elsewhere that she was in fact real. Also, the manner in which Thorwald is killed is different from the movie - no such dramatic face off on the tracks. In the short story, Zaitsev draws a shot from the German using the old “glove on a stick” trick, and guesses his position to be a piece of scrap metal out in the open, away from the “obvious” hiding spots. Taking a shot into the metal, he successfully silences Thorwald forever.
There aren’t many well documented sniper duels, but they do occur, and they are extremely fascinating. It is the ultimate chess match, a test of wits, skill and patience, with death the price of losing.
I believe that the Marine Corp sniper Hathcock, in Vietnam, also had some type of “sniper duel”, but I’m not real sure of the details.
I am just finished reading “enemy at the gates” now. It seems to me that yes, the russians are less trained and equipped. But, they do use manpower somewhat effectively. Many units broke up into small 5-10 man groups and held key building and intersections with devestating results to the germans. The book does mention the NKVD killing soldiers for desertion. But, I don’tr recall any mention of massive charges against machine guns that the movie shows in the opening sequence.
Carlos Hathcock (known as “White Feather” to the North Vietnamese) did in fact engage in a days-long duel with Vietnamese sniper (called the “Snake Eater” by the GI’s in the area) sent specifically to hunt him down.
Though it sounds like a dramatized fiction, Hathcock won the duel (and his own life) by shooting the glint of light from the Vietnamese sniper’s teloscopic sight. The bullet passed clean through the scope tube, striking the siper in the eye.
In short, Hathcock was square in the sights, and the smallest of errors on the part of his foe gave him the edge he needed to win.
One of scores of Hathcock tribute pages on the internet.
The general American understanding of WW2, largely reinforced by cold war propoganda, was that the Germans were these elite supermen of war who could do no wrong, and the Russians were these brutish, retarded forces who would launch dumb attack after dumb attack - and the only reason they eventually won was the sheer numerical advantage they swamped the elite germans with.
Because when people learn about them, they’re not really explained in context. People get this “Gee whiz, the Russians shot their own troops throughout the war!” view, which they assume universally applies to everything.
In reality, this only happened in the first few months of the war, and almost always with NKVD penal batallions, where basically criminals were given a chance to reclaim their freedom by accepting the most dangerous missions - and if they did retreat, often the NKVD security forces would cut them down. But it happened in limited circumstances, almost entirely in the first few months of the world, and almost exclusively to NKVD penal batallions.
