enemy at the gates. historical fact?

[Balrog]

yes, i saw the film(enemy at the gates), thought it was ok. the only interesting charater(my opinion) was ed harris playing the german sniper ,major konig. i watched something on television about snipers, and they say that the russians insist that "major konig" really exisited, but that the germans say he never did. i know the russian sniper was a real person, but what about major konig? i would think a scan of german army records would confirm his existence.(unless they were destroyed in bombing,etc) historically, how fair of a picture of khuschev was the film? if people rate this as a bad film,why? was it true about the love story between the 2 russian soldiers? and the murder of the little boy, if konig was real, did he actually do something like that? thank you for any information.

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

Í am not completely certain, but I believe that people who have searched for König have come up with nothing. One would think that a person that famous would be mentioned in Signal, etc. many times...

I think that if the Russians (or, some of them anyway) insist on his existance, it may be due to his mentioning in Soviet propaganda - If there were a great number of German snipers, the creation of one German 'super-sniper', and his subsequent death by a Soviet 'Super-sniper' would be a morale boost, proving the Soviet snipers superior.

Christian

[Balrog]

thank you. that is kind of what i figured, another propaganda tool to prop up sagging morale. i have been unable to find any record of him myself. do you know if the love story part of the film is true. did the russian sniper marry(?) a russian girl soldier he met in stalingrad?

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

I found this info on Tania Chernova:
http://www.lawbuzz.com/movies/enemy_gat ... y_ch13.htm
http://www.lawbuzz.com/index6.htm

A great site, BTW, have a look at all those stories!

Christian

[ChristopherPerrien]

Get the book "One Shot One Kill", that has a chapter on this duel between the supposed two best snipers on the East Front. It either will help in your search or is one of the many books that further this story and/or fact.

Either way It does have many excellent factual accounts by real snipers from the middle ages up to the 1980's. good book.

I had always heard the "best" (ie most kills) sniper was a Russian woman in WWII. Don't know her name, perhaps one of our Russian "comrades" know about this.

Never saw your film but I will try.

[Timo]

Gefreiter Matthäus Hetzenauer
Geboren am 23.12.1924 in Brixen im Thale (Tirol)
Ritterkreuz am 17.04.1945 als Scharfschütze im 7./GebJägRgt 144
345 confirmed kills. He was the no.1 sniper in the German army. It seems that he's still alive.

About König/Thorwald:

- No SS officer König or Thorwald, combined with the correct rank is listed who could be him (wrong units, promoted to late, etc.)

- No SS major (Sturmbannführer) König or Thorwald is listed in the Volksbund database. The database is incomplete, I know, but quite good when it comes to higher ranks such as Sturmbannführer.

- No SS member named König or Thorwald received the Ritterkreuz or the DKiG. If he wasn't fictional, he would have won at least one of them given his alleged 400+ kill score (Hetzenauer got the RK for 144 kills). The fact that König aka Thorwald didn't certainly does not make it plausible that he existed.

Just my 2 cents,
Timo

[Christoph Awender]

Hello Timo!

I talked to Hetzenauer around christmas 2001 but he was very, very ill and an educated guess from me as paramedic would be that he passed away but I will contact the family to ask if someone is interested.

\Christoph

[Gott]

If König was really the head of the sniper school, then some German sniper who went to the sniper school must have seen him. But so far no such records from Germany and Russia. Personally I think König never existed.

[Gen. Erwin Rommel]

Vassili Zaitzev existed, and he claim 500 German kill during the battle of Stalingard, the girl existed aswell her name was Tania Chernova, about the German Sniper he existed but his name was not Major König, he was the master of the german sniper school, but his name was Brigader Thurbolt (I dont know if it is well writen, i can only heard his name one tv), and he was shuted donw too, but i donw know if it was Vassili who killed him.

[Timo]

(...)the German Sniper he existed but his name was not Major König, he was the master of the german sniper school, but his name was Brigader Thurbolt (...)

Not Thurbolt (thats no German name). He is also given as Thorwald. Both König and Thorwald are fiction, they never existed.

[Balrog]

i was researching all this and came across some info on vassily zeitsev. the love story in the film was true, but during the war they were seperated. the girl(i forget her name) assumed that since vassily never return to see her at home, that he must have been killed in the war. in 1969 she was devasted to hear that vassily had survived the war and married another russian woman. so much for the love story. the information on the german snipers is excellent. thank you for all the information and links. by the way, why did so many of you dislike the film? i thought it was okay. actually, konig was the only good part in it for me.

[Reali]

edit: sorry nothing.....

[Gott]

i was researching all this and came across some info on vassily zeitsev. the love story in the film was true, but during the war they were seperated. the girl(i forget her name) assumed that since vassily never return to see her at home, that he must have been killed in the war. in 1969 she was devasted to hear that vassily had survived the war and married another russian woman. so much for the love story. the information on the german snipers is excellent. thank you for all the information and links. by the way, why did so many of you dislike the film? i thought it was okay. actually, konig was the only good part in it for me.

The girl is Tania Chernova. When you did the research did you happen to read that Tania was actually born in America. I thought that was false, but who knows?

[Balrog]

no, i didn't read she was born in america. however, some web sites i have read are wildly, wildly, inaccurate about the facts.

[Gen. Erwin Rommel]

Timo Worst wrote:
Not Thurbolt (thats no German name). He is also given as Thorwald. Both König and Thorwald are fiction, they never existed.

You are rigth in one point the name was Thorwald, but he existed, i saw a documentary from history channel about the battle of Stalingrad and they speak about him there.