Vasily Grigoryevich Saizew

Vasily Grigoryevich Saizew during the Battle of Stalingrad (1942)

Vasily Zaytsev ( Russian Василий Григорьевич Зайцев ., Scientific transliteration Vasilij Grigor'evic Zajcev *  23. March 1915 in Jeleninskoje , Orenburg Governorate , Russian Empire ; † 15. December 1991 in Kiev ) was a Soviet sniper during World War II . It stood out especially during the Battle of Stalingrad and was the model for some books, films and computer games.

Life

Saizew grew up as the son of a shepherd in the Urals . There he learned how to use the rifle in his early years while hunting . After the start of the German attack on the Soviet Union , Saizew came to the Soviet Navy , where he was deployed in the administration.

In the late summer of 1942 he volunteered for service at the front, whereupon he was transferred to the 1047th Rifle Regiment of the 284th Rifle Division. This was used as part of the 62nd Army in Stalingrad . According to Soviet sources, Saizew is said to have killed a total of 225 German soldiers as a sniper between November 10 and December 17, 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad . According to Saizew's own statements, 27 more should have been added by January 1943.

Soviet war correspondents reported that Saizew killed 40 Germans with precision shots within the first ten days after his unit landed on the western Volga. He also ran a sniper school in the ruins of the “Lazur” chemical plant, where he trained 28 soldiers, who in turn allegedly killed 3,000 German soldiers.

Saizew was wounded by a land mine . For his achievements he was named Hero of the Soviet Union on February 22, 1943 .

Cenotaph of Vasily Grigoryevich Saizew (2013)

After his recovery, Saizev continued to serve on the front lines. He reached the rank of captain by 1945 and was awarded the Order of Lenin , the Order of the Red Banner , the Order of the Patriotic War (1st class), the medal "For the defense of Stalingrad" and the medal "Victory over Germany" . After the war, he ran a factory in Kiev until he died on December 15, 1991 at the age of 76.

Quote

Saizew's famous quote on the situation of the Soviet defenders in Stalingrad:

“ There is no country for us behind the Volga. "

In some sources this saying is wrongly assigned to the commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, Alexander Ilyich Rodimzew .

reception

Even during the war, Saizew was celebrated by Soviet propaganda . A clash in Stalingrad with an unknown but "very capable sniper", as Saizew noted in his biography, was transformed into a duel lasting several days by the Soviet propaganda of the time.

According to this, a certain Major Erwin Koenig, head of a German sniper school in Zossen , was sent to Stalingrad on top orders to track down Saizew and liquidate him. Colonel Batjuk, commander of the 284th Rifle Division, then personally gave Saizew the order to study Major König's working methods, camouflage and shooting habits in order to target him. The alleged duel between Saizew and Major König was presented as a kind of personalized individual warfare in the midst of the mass battle of Stalingrad. With binoculars and telescopes have Zaitsev, his observers and group Sniper Nikolai Kulikov and the agitprop - Political Commissar Danilov days the battlefield on tracks and any terrain changes by Major King searched.

It was only when Danilov moved out of cover and was wounded in the shoulder by an opposing shooter that Major König is said to have exposed himself. Saizew suspected the king was either in a shelter with masked eyes, under a piece of sheet iron or a pile of bricks. Kulikow fired a blind shot to get König to reveal his position. To deceive Kulikow had lifted his steel helmet from the trench and imitated a cry of pain after King's shot. Major König then rose from his hiding place and was killed by Saizew with a shot in the head.

This duel was only mentioned by Soviet sources. There is no Major Erwin König in the documents of the German Wehrmacht ; in addition, the activity as a sniper in the German army was considered "unworthy" of an officer and was usually carried out by the ranks of the crew. Even the most successful and highly decorated snipers in the Wehrmacht, Matthäus Hetzenauer and Friedrich Pein , never got above the rank of private or senior hunter.

As early as 1973, the author William Craig (1929–1997) published a description of the sniper duel in his book Enemy at the Gates - The battle for Stalingrad also in the West. Saizew himself finally published his memoirs in 1981. After Saizew's story was shown for the first time in a film Ангелы Смерти ( Eng. Angel of Death ), Western media took up the topic again. In 1998, author Antony Beevor, in his book Stalingrad , concluded that, despite some real borrowings, the story was essentially fiction. Nevertheless, the novel War of the Rats by David L. Robbins appeared only one year later , in which the duel was again a central motif. This in turn formed the basis for the film Duel - Enemy at the Gates by Jean-Jacques Annaud from 2001, in which Saizew's role was played by Jude Law .

In 2006, Saizev's remains were reburied and, according to his last will, buried on Mamayev Hill next to the Stalingrad Memorial in Volgograd. His Mosin-Nagant rifle with a patriotic inscription is also on display in a state museum located there .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Major John Plaster: The Ultimate Sniper , in www.snipersparadise.com/history/vasili.htm
2. ^ ^{A b} William E. Craig: The battle for Stalingrad , factual report. 8th edition. Heyne, Munich 1991 (original title: Enemy at the gates, The Battle for Stalingrad , translated by Ursula Gmelin and Heinrich Graf von Einsiedel), ISBN 3-453-00787-5 , p. 114.
3. ↑ Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev ( Memento from November 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Nikolai Krylow: Stalingrad. The decisive battle of the Second World War , Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-7609-0624-9 , p. 174.
5. ^ William E. Craig: The Battle of Stalingrad. Factual report , 8th edition. Heyne, Munich 1991 (original title: Enemy at the gates, The Battle for Stalingrad , translated by Ursula Gmelin and Heinrich Graf von Einsiedel), ISBN 3-453-00787-5 , pp. 119–122.
6. ↑ http://www.russian-mosin-nagant.com/
7. ↑ В. Г. Зайцев: За Волгой земли для нас не было - Записки снайпера , Современник, Москва 1981.
8. ↑ Ангелы Смерти , Russia / France 1993, directed by Juri Ozerow
9. ^ Antony Beevor: Stalingrad , Penguin Books, London 1998. ISBN 0-14-024985-0 .
10. ↑ David L. Robbins: War of the Rats , Bantam Books, 1999. ISBN 0-553-58135-X .

literature

• Jochen Hellbeck: The Stalingrad Protocols. Soviet eyewitnesses report from the battle . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-10-030213-7 .
• Зайцев, Василий Григорьевич , in: Советская Военная Энциклопедия , Vol. 3, Москва 1977, p. 369.
• В. Г. Зайцев: За Волгой земли для нас не было - Записки снайпера , Современник, Москва 1981. ( : -. Dt WG Zaitsev a sniper records for us behind the Volga no country () online version )
• James F. Gebhardt, Paul Tamony: Soviet Sniper's Handbook , 1942.

Web links

Wikiquote: Vasily Saizew  - Quotes