Vasily Zaitsev

I watched a movie the other day called 'Enemy at the Gates'. I really enjoyed the movie, it is set during World War II on the battlefield and revolves around a duel fought between a Russian and German sniper in the battle of Stalingrad. Vasily Zaitsev was the Russian sniper (now if you haven't seen the movie and plan to watch it, don't read on as I am about to ruin the ending) and the German sniper was Erwin Konig, who was the head of the German sniper school. Vasily won the duel with the German sniper in the end, and also won the love of the girl, so happy endings all round in the film. However at the end it mentions that Vasily's sniper rifle is on display in a museum, which got me to wondering how accurately the film portrayed Vasily and the actual events of the battle. I did a little Google search and discovered that yes there was a Vasily Zaitsev who was a sniper and according to his memoirs he did have a duel with a German sniper during the battle of Stalingrad (however it only lasted 3 days), who it was revealed from his dog tags was the head of a German sniper school, however those were about the only two facts that they got right in the movie. 

Vasily in the movie was portrayed as one of many snipers operating in Stalingrad during the battle, although he was the most famous and the best. In real life Vasily was not only the best and most famous but he created a school where he trained other snipers during the battle of Stalingrad, and his tactics are still used today by snipers around the world. Overall I think the movie actually underrated the abilities of Vasily, who was credited with killing over 300 Nazi soldiers during World War II,  and would have been a much better film if they had let history and the character of Vasily drive the story instead of basing it around a love story and a duel. This blog seems to have turned into more of a critique on the movie than what I learnt and it seems that I didn't like the film when I actually did. So in conclusion, watch the film (even though I have ruined the ending, it was predictable anyway) but remember that Vasily was much different in real life than how he is portrayed in the film, and there was no love story in the real battle of Stalingrad.

Read more about Vasily Zaitsev on Russiapedia.