Afternoon all, Ollie here with the pilot post of a series about individuals who had a significant impact on the 2nd World War. Being as I reenact Soviet, it seems appropriate to start with a gentleman many associate with Russia's struggle on the Eastern Front, a man who has been the subject of great controversy and suspect for one incident in particular. This man was played by Jude Law in the film Enemy at the Gates...and his name is Vasily Zaitsev.

Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev was born on March 23rd, 1915, incidentally the same date as my younger sister, in Yeleninskoe, Orenburg governate, and grew up in the foothills of the Ural mountains, the great divider that separates Western Russia from the vast, all-consuming wilderness that is Siberia. He was exposed to firearms and marksmanship at an early age, hunting deer and wolves with his brother and grandfather. His first rifle, a single shot Berdan rifle, earned him his first trophy at the tender age of 12.

Zaitsev first enlisted in the Soviet Navy, the voennoe morskoy flot SSSR, and served as a clerk in Vladivostok, one of the Pacific fleet's home bases. When war broke out on June 22nd, 1941, he, like many of his comrades, requested a transfer to where the motherland needed bodies at the front. His wish granted, he was transferred to the 1074th rifle regiment, 284th "Tomsk" rifles, 62nd Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Vasily Chuikov, and assigned the rank of senior warrant officer.

Zaitsev's tactics revolutionised sniper warfare, and many of his tactics are still used to this day. His most famous/well documented tactic, the sixes, involved 3 teams of 2 men each, one sniper, one spotter, covering a large area from 3 separate points. This method is still used today, and was used heavily during the Russian Federation's involvement in Chechnya.

In his first 10 days in the city, Zaitsev's score was impressive to say the least. 40 Germans had fallen as a result of his skill and fieldcraft. Before long, the high command of the Red Army was on to it, and he was soon heralded as a hero. His exploits were published and heavily propagandised, inspiring the people of the Soviet Union to emulate his accomplishments. Before long, the Germans were training their own snipers, which leads us to the most debated part of Zaitsev's story.

In the film Enemy at the Gates, the German high command sends a Major Koenig, played by Ed Harris, to eliminate Zaitsev. This being Hollywood, Zaitsev eliminates Koenig in a very fanciful and artistic manner. Over the past 70 years, many historians have debated whether this Major Koenig existed, or whether he was a work of the Soviet propagandists at the time. In his memoirs, Notes of a sniper, Zaitsev does talk about a 3-day duel between himself and a Wehrmacht sniper school director, a Major Erwin Koenig. This Koenig is also mentioned in William Craig's 1973 book Enemy at the Gates: the siege of Stalingrad. The Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, a museum I have had the pleasure of visiting, also claims to have Koenig's optic.

However, a different name is thrown into the equation in David L Robbins' novel War of the rats. This portrayal sees Zaitsev's counterpart as an SS Standartenfuhrer,named Heinz Thorwald,  an instructor at the Zossen sniper school, founded by the Wehrmacht. However, no SS units fought in Stalingrad, and no sniper had that high rank. To throw in my own 2 cents, I didn't see a German sniper optic when I went to the museum in 2012 with my reenactment group, but that's another story.

Zaitsev survived the war, and indeed the battle, despite being blinded during a bombardment. After the war he became a director of a textile factory in Kiev, his sight having been restored. He died in 1991, and after initial burial in Kiev, his wishes to be buried in Stalingrad were granted. He is interred at Mamaev Kurgan, the Tartar burial mound that dominates Stalingrad's skyline.