Rumor attributes this catchphrase to either the legendary sniper Vasily Zaitsev or the legendary general Vasily Chuikov. The military leader himself, however, in his memoirs asserted that “the words of the people”: “There, in Stalingrad, the soldiers of the 62nd Army are fighting to the death. They said: “There is no land for us beyond the Volga!” And every single one of them will die, but they will keep their word. They will not retreat”... And in fact, it is no longer so important who actually said this phrase first. The point is that it turned out to be stronger than any strategy, firmer than order No. 227 and brighter than the most fiery political information. “There is no land for us beyond the Volga!” - an oath of allegiance, organically acceptable at the level of intuition, at the level of “folk words.” At the level of the national genetic code.
…The events that preceded the largest army battle in the battle brought the Soviet Union to the brink of a serious military failure. After the Germans cut off the Barvenkovsky ledge, vast expanses opened up before them - from Kharkov to the banks of the Don - unprotected by practically nothing. Having rolled more than four hundred kilometers with a steam roller, the Germans took Rostov-on-Don. There, Army Group South was divided in two: Group A turned to the Caucasus, Group B, which included the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus, rushed to Stalingrad. The capture of this city would cut off the south of the USSR, giving Germany control over the Lower Volga and vast territories of the rich Russian south. And, finally, it would be a fascist slap in the face to Stalin personally, which the Germans, who knew a lot about propaganda and manipulation of the information process, of course, intended to use.
Friedrich Paulus
The first chords of a grandiose battle thundered in July 1942 on the borders of the Chir River. Using their superiority in technology, the Germans managed to knock the Soviet vanguards out of their positions within ten days, break through the front of the main forces, reach the Don in the Golubinsky area and create the threat of a deep breakthrough to Stalingrad, which was the original goal of the Nazi command. But the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops (fueled, among other things, by the order “Not a step back!”) thwarted the enemy’s plans. Instead of a rapid breakthrough, it turned out to be a brutal pushing through; the enemy reached Stalingrad, but not as quickly as he wanted. Nevertheless, on August 23, the tanks reached the Volga and the tractor plant. At the same time, the barbaric bombardment with high-explosive and incendiary bombs turned most of the city into ruins - ninety thousand people died... Soviet counterattacks were not decisively successful.
View of city blocks during the days of the city’s defense / Photo by Georgy Zelma: TASS Photo Chronicle
Photo by Georgy Zelma: RIA Novosti
The moment of truth came at the end of October - beginning of November. The nightmare of the winter campaign of '41 was already looming before the Germans. They were in a hurry to finish the job, and the Soviet troops in the city were literally at their limit. On October 14, the 6th Army began its final push. It is unlikely that such powerful forces have ever attacked such a tiny section of the front - the tractor plant and the Barricades plant were attacked by as many as five divisions, two of which were tank divisions. The thermometer dropped below minus fifteen, the defenders were sorely short of ammunition, provisions and, most importantly, people. But what remained of the 62nd Army of Lieutenant General Chuikov literally bit into three tiny bridgeheads with its teeth - the only pieces of land on this right bank of the Volga. And on the one on the left there was no land for them at all.
In the photo Chuikov / TASS Photo Chronicle
The command began to plan it back in September, or rather, then these were hypothetical outlines estimated by Stalin, Zhukov and Vasilevsky in the event of a German breakthrough to Stalingrad. The plan for Operation Uranus (encirclement of the 6th Army in Stalingrad) was approved in detail by Headquarters on November 13. This was the first of three parts of the final battle on the banks of the Volga; Uranus was followed by Operations Saturn and Operation Ring.
Having created absolute superiority in forces and means in the offensive sectors, Soviet troops struck from the north (Vatutin) and south (Eremenko), finding the weakest points in the enemy’s defense. It is well known that the main blow was directed at the units of Germany's allies - the Romanians, who were inferior to the Germans in training, morale, and technical equipment. Paulus' attempts to correct the situation on the spot were unsuccessful. On November 23, red ticks closed in on the Kalach area. Feeling that things were clearly starting to get hot, the German general convinced Hitler to give the go-ahead to break out of the encirclement. Theoretically, this could have worked and saved the 6th Army while the tourniquet around the throat was not yet tightly tightened, but this meant leaving Stalingrad, and for the Fuhrer the city had long become a matter of prestige. Paulus was promised outside support, but neither Manstein, who tried in vain to break through the Soviet ring from Kotelnikov, nor attempts to supply the encirclement with the help of an air bridge turned the situation around.
“Uranus” was a success, but still incomplete - it was not possible to defeat the German units outright, or even to cut them apart and isolate them from each other. Because of this, it was not possible to fully develop the concept of Operation Saturn; we had to limit ourselves to the so-called Little Saturn. Instead of a grandiose breakthrough to the west - southwest, right up to Rostov-on-Don, it remained to limit ourselves to developing an offensive of 100–150–200 kilometers. Having scattered the Italian units, the Soviet tankers burst into operational space, destroying enemy bases with some success. So, on Catholic Christmas, Vasily Badanov’s corps presented the Germans with a “gift” - they literally destroyed the airfield in Tatsinskaya, destroying up to three hundred enemy aircraft on the ground! When the enemy brought up reserves and cut off Badanov from his own, the tankers refueled their vehicles with fuel captured at the airfield and broke out of the encirclement. Unfortunately, at that time our troops objectively did not have the strength to further develop their success, and Paulus, who was firmly entrenched in Stalingrad, demanded that he be taken into account. At the turn of 1942–1943, the front stabilized. “Little Saturn” ended, Operation “Ring” began to eliminate the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht.
An artillery crew fires at the enemy / Photo by Georgy Lipskerov: RIA Novosti
Inscriptions on the walls of city ruins / Photo by Georgy Zelma: RIA Novosti
...Traditionally, the Battle of Stalingrad is considered a radical turning point not only in the Great Patriotic War, but also in the entire Second World War. And this, of course, is true from a historical point of view. What was done at Stalingrad in the winter was consolidated at Kursk in the summer, the Wehrmacht forever lost its strategic initiative. However, are these words - “a radical change” - enough to describe the full significance of what happened in July 1942 - February 1943? To understand what exactly was born at that moment when Chuikov’s fighters, with their last strength, held three tiny bridgeheads of the right bank land? When did the strike forces of Vatutin and Eremenko meet at Kalach? When did the red flag rise over Mamayev Kurgan?
How to convey the feelings that arise when you stand at the foot of the legendary mound? Two hundred granite steps - like two hundred days of the Battle of Stalingrad - lead to its top, where an 87-meter tall statue of the Motherland, if you count with a raised sword, weighing eight thousand tons rises. Huge, like our Motherland, unbending, like the power of its defenders, and reinforced concrete, like the will to win. This, perhaps the best work of the sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, rose above the Mamayev Kurgan in 1967 - the grandiose statue took eight years to build. The sculptured embodiment of victory, our Samothrace - albeit without wings, but with a head - and here you realize the true scale of the event, which not only turned the war around - ingrained in the soul and self-awareness, recorded on the subcortex, becoming one of the symbols of the national spirit. It is not for nothing that the word “Stalingrad” itself has become both a household word and an international one. No, it’s not enough to just say “a radical change”! Historically true, but not enough! For there will always be those who want to belittle our victory (“they filled us up with meat,” “they sent us to fight with our bare hands,” and so on and so forth), and those who want to touch other people’s laurels (“but the allies,” “and at this time on other fronts ")… Yes, there was the same El Alamein, on the scale of the Stalingrad crucible - a “conflict of local significance,” and with all due respect to the memory of the allied soldiers, our soldiers pulled out the battle that changed the course of history themselves. It is worth reminding the revisionists that then, in 1943, everyone understood perfectly well how the era was won. Let us turn again to the collection “Stalingrad. Hitler's Greatest Failure,” in the words of a Times journalist: “The Red Army is a thinking army, and in the eyes of its fighters you will find the unquenchable curiosity, numerous talents and capacity for self-sacrifice, the steel inherent in the Russian people.” Or the book quotes British Prime Minister K. Attlee: “It is worth paying tribute to the Soviet military command. They created not an army of robots, but an army of thinking, proactive people.” And let the “radical turning point” sound no stronger to the history revisionists than the “war between the Tutsi and the Hutus.” But “Stalingrad” is understandable in any language without any explanation.
The history of the Great Patriotic War has become overgrown with many myths in our time. One of the reasons for this was the censorship that existed in Soviet times, when many facts were hushed up, documents were inaccessible, and more or less objective military historical research was classified as secret. Those who did not believe the official version of events had to rely not so much on facts as on rumors and stories. It is not surprising that in the 90s it was these rumors and tales that began to dominate the consciousness of society. Everyone has heard the tales of “overwhelming the enemy with corpses”, “the bloody Marshal Zhukov”, “one rifle for three”, cavalry going on the attack “with swords on tanks”, and a huge number of people still believe them. More exotic versions have also appeared, the most famous among them is the famous version about Stalin’s preparation of an attack on Germany, created by Viktor Suvorov, which also has many fans.
Fortunately, the archives are now open, and normal military historical research based on archival documents has finally begun to appear in our country. One of these researchers is Alexey Isaev ( dr_guillotin
). And just recently his new book appeared on bookstore shelves. "Stalingrad. There is no land for us beyond the Volga".
As the title of the book suggests, we will talk about the Battle of Stalingrad. In principle, the vicissitudes of this battle seem to be generally known (the same Isaev wrote quite a lot about this battle in his previous books), therefore, when I learned at one time that Isaev was writing about Stalingrad, my first thought was: “It would be better if he wrote about something less known (say, about ’43 or ’44).” Nevertheless, I bought the book and don’t regret it at all, because I learned a lot about this battle. Isaev describes in detail, based on archival documents, all stages of this battle, from the battles in the Don Bend to Operation Ring. At the same time, I learned a lot of new things about seemingly long-known events.
So, for example, it was a surprise for me to learn that Operation Uranus involved cutting Paulus’s 6th Army group into two parts (encircling the Zadonsk group of Germans), but the attacks of the 16th Tank Corps failed and the Germans managed to retreat to the main forces of the 6th army.
No less a surprise for me was the role played by Volsky’s 4th Mechanized Corps in repelling Manstein’s counter-offensive. It was traditionally believed that the 2nd Guards Army played the main role in repelling this offensive, but it was the effective actions of the 4th Mechanized Corps at Verkhne-Kumsky that made it possible to gain the time required to concentrate the 2nd Guards Army.
Rumor attributes this catchphrase to the legendary sniper Vasily Zaitsev, then to the legendary general Vasily Chuikov. The military leader himself, however, in his memoirs asserted that “the words of the people”: “There, in Stalingrad, soldiers of the 62nd Army are fighting to the death. They said: “There is no land for us beyond the Volga!” And every single one of them will die, but they will keep their word. They will not retreat”... And in fact, it is no longer so important who actually said this phrase first. The point is that it turned out to be stronger than any strategy, firmer than order No. 227 and brighter than the most fiery political information. “There is no land for us beyond the Volga!” - an oath of allegiance, organically acceptable at the level of intuition, at the level of “folk words.” At the level of the national genetic code.
...The events that preceded the largest battle of armies in history posed Soviet Union on the brink of a serious military failure. After the Germans cut off the Barvenkovsky ledge, huge open spaces opened up before them - from Kharkov to the shores Don, - not protected by practically anything. Having rolled more than four hundred kilometers with a steam roller, the Germans took Rostov-on-Don. There, Army Group South split in two: Group A turned to Caucasus, Group "B", which included the 6th Army Friedrich Paulus, rushed to Stalingrad. Taking this city would cut off the south USSR, gave Germany control over Lower Volga and vast territories of the rich Russian south. And finally, it would be a fascist slap in the face personally Stalin, which the Germans, who knew a lot about propaganda and manipulation of the information process, of course, intended to use.
Friedrich Paulus
Initially Paulus sent 270 thousand people, three thousand guns, more than 1,000 aircraft and up to 700 tanks into battle. The Stalingrad Front could oppose the Germans with 0.5 million people, but the technical equipment was worse: the troops had 2,200 artillery barrels, and the gap in aviation and tanks turned out to be even more noticeable - 450 and 400 units, respectively.
The first chords of a grandiose battle thundered in July 1942 on the borders of the river Cheer. Using their superiority in technology, the Germans managed to dislodge the Soviet vanguards from their positions within ten days, break through the front of the main forces, and reach Don near Golubinsky and create the threat of a deep breakthrough on Stalingrad, which was the original goal of Hitler’s command. But the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops (fueled, among other things, by the order “Not a step back!”) thwarted the enemy’s plans. Instead of a rapid breakthrough, it turned out to be a brutal pushing through; the enemy has reached Stalingrad, however, not as quickly as he wanted. Nevertheless, on August 23 the tanks reached Volga and a tractor factory. At the same time, the barbaric bombardment with high-explosive and incendiary bombs turned most of the city into ruins - ninety thousand people died... Soviet counterattacks were not decisively successful.
View of city blocks during the days of the city’s defense / Photo by Georgy Zelma: TASS Photo Chronicle
With the task of keeping the enemy on the line Don The Stalingrad front failed. Commander Vasily Gordova replaced Andrey Eremenko, and the front itself, in two months, underwent a whole series of reorganizations with disaggregation, reassignment and ultimately renaming (in September the former Stalingrad became Donskoy, and new Stalingrad turned out to be ex Southeastern). By this point, the enemy began to tighten the ring, trying to take the city by storm and throw the defenders into Volga.
07/17/1942 Stalingrad is on fire / RIA Novosti
And this is where everything went completely wrong for the Germans. Of course, both the soldiers and the enemy command had experience in street fighting; even particularly difficult battles in the conditions of a heavily destroyed city did not seem an insurmountable difficulty... The entire Volga was shot through, from bank to bank, and reinforcements for the besieged Stalingrad They arrived already very shabby. Problems should not have arisen, but they did: our soldiers created them for the enemy. Firstly, they did not want to give up or retreat. The Germans were forced to slowly and painstakingly clear block after block, so that, having cleared it, the next day they would again find Soviet soldiers there, who had recaptured the positions with a counterattack, making their way through the ruins behind the smoke that came through underground communications. Battles were fought for every house, many of them, like Pavlov's House, went down in history under the names of their defenders. At the tractor factory, which became the front line, tanks were repaired under fire; they went into battle straight from the factory gates.
Photo by Georgy Zelma: RIA Novosti
Let's return to the chronology of the autumn of 1942... The tactics of street fighting (if this concept of tactics is applicable to them at all) dictated their own laws, forcing the Germans to fight differently from the way they were used to. In conditions when the opponents on both sides of the front line were separated by some tens of meters (sometimes even meters!), it was impossible to attract artillery and aviation for support; even small arms could not always be used in narrow corridors and sewer tunnels - due to the risk of ricochet. But flamethrowers and “antediluvian” bladed weapons were used en masse - bayonets, knives, homemade clubs... On the streets of Stalingrad, the “war of engines” gave way to hand-to-hand combat, as ancient as the world. And in the open spaces of squares and vacant lots, snipers reigned.
The moment of truth came at the end of October - beginning of November. The nightmare of the winter campaign of '41 was already looming before the Germans. They were in a hurry to finish the job, and the Soviet troops in the city were literally at their limit. On October 14, the 6th Army began its final push. It is unlikely that such powerful forces have ever attacked such a tiny section of the front - a tractor plant and a plant "Barricades" attacked as many as five divisions, two of which were tank divisions. The thermometer dropped below minus fifteen, the defenders were sorely short of ammunition, provisions and, most importantly, people. But what remained of the 62nd Army, Lieutenant General Chuikova, literally bit into three tiny bridgeheads with its teeth - the only pieces of land on this right bank Volga. And on the one on the left there was no land for them at all.
In the photo Chuikov / TASS Photo Chronicle
By mid-November the German onslaught had run out of steam. And already on the 19th the Soviet counter-offensive began.
The command began planning it back in September, or rather, then these were hypothetical outlines, estimated Stalin, Zhukov And Vasilevsky in case of a German breakthrough to Stalingrad. Operation plan in detail "Uranus"(encirclement of the 6th Army in Stalingrad) Headquarters approved on November 13. This was the first of three parts of the final battle on the banks of the Volga; Operations followed Uranus "Saturn" And "Ring".
Having created absolute superiority in forces and means in the offensive sectors, Soviet troops struck from the north ( Vatutin) and south ( Eremenko), finding the weakest points in the enemy’s defense. It is well known that the main blow was directed at the units of Germany's allies - the Romanians, who were inferior to the Germans in training, morale, and technical equipment. Attempts Paulus correcting the situation on the spot was unsuccessful. On November 23, red ticks closed in on the area Kalacha. Feeling that the matter clearly smelled of frying, the German general urged Hitler give the go-ahead to break out of encirclement. Theoretically, this could have worked and saved the 6th Army while the tourniquet around the throat was not yet tightly tightened, but this meant leaving Stalingrad, and for the Fuhrer the city had long become a matter of prestige. Paulus promised outside support, but neither Manstein, trying in vain to break through the Soviet ring from the side Kotelnikova, nor attempts to supply the encirclement with the help of an air bridge did not turn the situation around.
"Uranus" was a success, but still incomplete - it was not possible to immediately defeat, or at least cut up and isolate the German units from each other. Because of this, it was not possible to fully develop the concept of the operation. "Saturn", I had to limit myself to the so-called Little Saturn. Instead of a grandiose leap to the west - southwest, right up to Rostov-on-Don, it remained to limit ourselves to developing an offensive of 100–150–200 kilometers. Having scattered the Italian units, the Soviet tankers burst into operational space, destroying enemy bases with some success. So, on Catholic Christmas the building Vasily Badanov presented the Germans with a “gift” - he literally rolled out the airfield in Tatsinskaya, destroying up to three hundred enemy aircraft on the ground! When the enemy pulled up reserves and cut off Badanova from their own, the tankers refueled their vehicles with fuel captured at the airfield and broke out of the encirclement. Unfortunately, our troops objectively did not have the strength to further develop their success at that time, and they were firmly entrenched in Stalingrad Paulus demanded to be taken into account. At the turn of 1942–1943, the front stabilized. "Little Saturn" completed, operation began "Ring" to eliminate the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht.
An artillery crew fires at the enemy / Photo by Georgy Lipskerov: RIA Novosti
According to the plan, everything should have been completed in a week. But the soldiers Paulus showed unprecedented fanaticism and - we must give the enemy his due - resilience close to inhuman. In severe frost, with unusable uniforms, with supplies tending to zero, with a banal shortage of food (it reached the point of cannibalism), the Germans held out for 23 days. However, by January 26, it became clear that it was all over for them: Soviet troops were finally able to cut through the enemy, uniting in the area Mamayev Kurgan. January 30 Hitler appropriated Paulus field marshal rank, recalling in a radiogram that not a single German field marshal had ever been captured... One can understand the feelings of a military leader who was already on edge, who was actually offered to die heroically (well, or commit suicide - depending on the situation). One way or another, the very next day he sent a request to the Soviet headquarters to accept his surrender. On February 2, German resistance in Stalingrad ended.
Inscriptions on the walls of city ruins / Photo by Georgy Zelma: RIA Novosti
For Reich it was a disaster - military and moral. More than 90 thousand soldiers and officers, 24 generals and, of course, a field marshal were captured. Defeat under Moscow the winter of 1941–1942 was painful and unpleasant, the Stalingrad collapse turned out to be mortally humiliating. Goebbels's propaganda denied the surrender of those surrounded - the 6th Army in its entirety was declared dead, and they even staged fake mourning in Germany. The slap that Hitler was preparing to give Stalin, suddenly turned into a heavy slap in the face to himself...
...Traditionally, the Battle of Stalingrad is considered a radical turning point not only in Great Patriotic War, but also throughout World War II war. And this, of course, is true from a historical point of view. Made under Stalingrad in winter it was secured under Kursk in the summer, the Wehrmacht lost its strategic initiative forever. However, are these words - “a radical change” - enough to describe the full significance of what happened in July 1942 - February 1943? To understand what exactly was born at that moment when the fighters Chuikova with their last strength they held three tiny bridgeheads on the right bank? When the striking forces Vatutina And Eremenko met at Kalacha? When over Mamayev Kurgan did the red flag go up?
How to convey the feelings that arise when you stand at the foot of the legendary mound? Two hundred granite steps are like two hundred days Battle of Stalingrad- lead to its top, where an 87-meter tall statue rises, if you count with a raised sword, weighing eight thousand tons - Motherland. Huge, like our Motherland, unbending, like the power of its defenders, and reinforced concrete, like the will to win. This is perhaps the best work of the sculptor Evgeniy Vuchetich rose above Mamayev Kurgan in 1967 - it took eight years to build the grandiose statue. The sculptured embodiment of victory, our Samothrace - albeit without wings, but with a head - and here you realize the true scale of the event, which not only turned the war around - ingrained in the soul and self-awareness, recorded on the subcortex, becoming one of the symbols of the national spirit. It is not for nothing that the word “Stalingrad” itself has become both a household word and an international one. No, it’s not enough to just say “a radical change”! Historically true, but not enough! For there will always be those who want to belittle our victory (“they filled us up with meat,” “they sent us to fight with our bare hands,” and so on and so forth), and those who want to touch other people’s laurels (“but the allies,” “and at this time on other fronts "... Yes, it was the same El Alamein, on the scale of the Stalingrad crucible - a “conflict of local significance”, and with all due respect to the memory of the allied soldiers - our soldiers pulled out the battle that changed the course of history themselves. It is worth reminding the revisionists that then, in 1943, everyone understood perfectly well how the era was won. Let us turn again to the collection “Stalingrad. Hitler’s greatest failure”, words of a journalist "Times": “The Red Army is a thinking army, and in the eyes of its fighters you will find unquenchable curiosity, numerous talents and the ability to sacrifice, the steel inherent in the Russian people.” Or the book quotes the British Prime Minister K. Attlee: “It is worth paying tribute to the Soviet military command. They created not an army of robots, but an army of thinking, proactive people.” And let the “radical turning point” sound no stronger to the history revisionists than the “war between the Tutsi and the Hutus.” But “Stalingrad” is understandable in any language without any explanation.
Both friends and foes.
And that says it all.
* In the header: photo by Sergei Fadeev / TASS Photo Chronicle
Hello, my children!
Just recently I told you about the heroism of female snipers.
And today I’m telling you about the famous sniper, who became a symbol of snipers around the world after the Great Patriotic War. About the man whose words are engraved on one of the monuments of the Mamaev Kurnan ensemble - “There is no land for us beyond the Volga.” His name was Vasily Zaitsev.
Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev
born on March 23, 1915 in the village of Eleninka, Kartalinsky district, Chelyabinsk region in a peasant family. He graduated from seven classes of junior high school. In 1930 he graduated from a construction college in the city of Magnitogorsk, where he received a specialty as a reinforcement engineer. Since 1937, he served in the Pacific Fleet, where he was assigned as a clerk in the artillery department. After studying at the Military Economic School, he was appointed head of the financial department in the Pacific Fleet, in Preobrazhenie Bay. The war found him in this position.
Zaitsev combined all the qualities inherent in a sniper - visual acuity, sensitive hearing, restraint, composure, endurance, military cunning. He knew how to choose the best positions and disguise them; usually hid from enemy soldiers in places where they could not even imagine a Russian sniper. The famous sniper hit the enemy mercilessly. Only in the period from November 10 to December 17, 1942, in the battles for Stalingrad, V.G. Zaitsev destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers, including 11 snipers, and his comrades in arms in the 62nd Army - 6000.
One day Zaitsev made his way to a burnt house and climbed into a dilapidated black stove. From this unusual position, two entrances to the enemy dugouts and the approach to the basement of the house where the Germans were preparing food were clearly visible. A sniper killed 10 fascists that day.
One dark night, Zaitsev made his way to the front along a narrow path. Somewhere not far away a fascist sniper had taken refuge; it must be destroyed. Zaitsev examined the area for about 20 minutes, but could not find the lurking enemy “hunter”. Pressing himself tightly against the wall of the barn, the sailor stuck out his mitten; she was violently torn from her hand.
Having examined the hole, he moved to another place and did the same. And again the shot. Zaitsev clung to the stereo tube. I began to carefully scan the area. A shadow flashed on one of the hills. Here! Now we need to lure the fascist out and take aim. Zaitsev lay in ambush all night. At dawn the German sniper was killed.
The actions of the Soviet snipers alarmed the enemies, and they decided to take urgent measures. Especially, Zaitsev was glorified by a sniper duel with a German “super sniper”, whom Zaitsev himself in his memoirs calls Major Koening, sent to Stalingrad with a special task of fighting Russian snipers, and the primary task was the destruction of Zaitsev. Zaitsev, in turn, received the task of destroying him personally from division commander N.F. Batyuk. After one of the Soviet snipers had his optical sight broken by a bullet, and another in the same area was wounded, Zaitsev managed to establish the enemy’s position. About the fight that followed, Vasily Grigorievich wrote:
“It was clear that an experienced sniper was operating in front of us, so we decided to intrigue him, but we had to wait out the first half of the day, because the glare of the optics could give us away. After lunch, our rifles were already in the shadows, and direct rays of the sun fell on the fascist positions. Something glittered from under the sheet—a sniper scope. A well-aimed shot, the sniper fell. As soon as it got dark, ours went on the offensive and at the height of the battle we pulled out the killed fascist major from under the iron sheet. They took his documents and delivered them to the division commander.”
By the summer of 1942, Petty Officer 1st Article Zaitsev submitted five reports with a request to be sent to the front. Finally, the commander granted his request and Zaitsev left for the active army. On a September night in 1942, along with other Pacific soldiers, Zaitsev crossed the Volga and began to participate in the battles for the city of Stalingrad. Already in the first battles with the enemy, Zaitsev showed himself to be an outstanding shooter. One day the battalion commander called Zaitsev and pointed out the window. A German soldier was running 800 meters away. The sailor took careful aim. A shot rang out and the German fell. A few minutes later, two more enemy soldiers appeared in the same place. They suffered the same fate. As a reward, Zaitsev received a sniper rifle along with the medal “For Courage”. By that time, Zaitsev had killed 32 enemy soldiers using a simple “three-line rifle”. Soon people in the regiment, division, and army started talking about him.
Sniper rifle by Vasily Zaitsev. On the butt of the rifle there is a metal plate with the inscription: “To the Hero of the Soviet Union, Guard Captain Vasily Zaitsev. He buried more than 300 fascists in Stalingrad.”
Throughout the war, V.G. Zaitsev served in the army, in whose ranks he began his combat career, headed a sniper school, commanded a mortar platoon, and then was a company commander. He took part in the liberation of Donbass, in the battle for the Dnieper, and fought near Odessa and on the Dniester. Captain V.G. Zaitsev met May 1945 in Kyiv - again in the hospital.
During the war years, Zaitsev wrote two textbooks for snipers, and also invented the still used technique of sniper hunting with “sixes” - when three pairs of snipers (shooters and observers) cover the same battle zone with fire.
After the end of the war, he was demobilized and settled in Kyiv. He was the commandant of the Pechersk region. He studied in absentia at the All-Union Institute of Textile and Light Industry. He worked as director of a machine-building plant, director of the Ukraina clothing factory, and headed the light industry technical school.
Died on December 15, 1991. He was buried in Kyiv at the Lukyanovskoye military cemetery. On January 31, 2006, in Volgograd on Mamayev Kurgan, a ceremony was held for the reburial of the remains of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Honorary Citizen of the Hero City of Volgograd, the legendary sniper of the Second World War Vasily Zaitsev. The reburial took place on Mamayev Kurgan with full military honors. The coffin was carried past a monument on which was engraved the famous phrase of Zaitsev himself - “There is no land for us beyond the Volga.” Vasily Zaitsev was buried next to the graves of twice Hero of the Soviet Union pilot Vasily Efremov and chairman of the Stalingrad Defense Committee Alexei Chuyanov. To be buried on Mamayev Kurgan, where the famous sniper fought, was Vasily Zaitsev’s last wish.
He was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and medals.
By the decision of the Volgograd City Council of People's Deputies of May 7, 1980, for special services shown in the defense of the city and the defeat of Nazi troops in the Battle of Stalingrad, he was awarded the title "Honorary Citizen of the Hero City of Volgograd." The Hero's name is given to a motor ship plying along the Dnieper.
About the sniper V.G. Zaitsev has shot two films. "Angels of Death", 1992, directed by Yu.N. Ozerov, starring Fyodor Bondarchuk, and "Enemy at the Gates", 2001, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, in the role of Zaitsev - Jude Law.
