How many hares did Vasily kill? Vasily Zaitsev: the unknown story of the legendary sniper

Zaitsev Vasily Grigorievich sniper of the 1047th Infantry Regiment (284th Infantry Division, 62nd Army, Stalingrad Front) junior lieutenant. Born on March 23, 1915 in the village of Elino, now Agapovsky district Chelyabinsk region in a peasant family. Russian. Member of the CPSU since 1943. Graduated from a construction technical school in Magnitogorsk. Since 1936 in the Navy. Graduated from the Military Economic School. The war found Zaitsev in the position of head of the financial department in the Pacific Fleet, in Preobrazhenye Bay.

In the battles of the Great Patriotic War from September 1942. He received the sniper rifle from the hands of the commander of his 1047th regiment, Metelev, a month later, along with the medal “For Courage”. By that time, Zaitsev had killed 32 Nazis from a simple “three-line rifle”. In the period from November 10 to December 17, 1942, in the battles for Stalingrad, he killed 225 soldiers and officers of the pr-ka, including 11 snipers (among whom was Heinz Horwald). Directly on the front line, he taught sniper work to soldiers in the commanders, trained 28 snipers. In January 1943, Zaitsev was seriously wounded. Professor Filatov saved his sight in a Moscow hospital.

Title of Hero Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal to Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev, awarded on February 22, 1943.

Having received the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union in the Kremlin, Zaitsev returned to the front. He finished the war on the Dniester with the rank of captain. During the war, Zaitsev wrote two textbooks for snipers, and also invented the still used technique of sniper hunting with “sixes” - when three pairs of snipers (a shooter and an observer) cover the same battle zone with fire.

After the war he was demobilized. He worked as director of the Kyiv Machine-Building Plant. Died on December 15, 1991.

Awarded the Order of Lenin, 2 Orders of the Red Banner, Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree, and medals. The ship plying along the Dnieper bears his name.

ABOUT famous duel Two films were shot by Zaitsev and Horvald. "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 - Judy Lowe.

The Great Patriotic War was a time when the Soviet people showed what the official press called “mass heroism.” It really was massive - everyone, young and old, joined in the battle with the Nazis, not sparing themselves.

But there were people who did absolutely incredible things. Not only the whole country, but the whole world learned about their exploits. One of these war legends was the sniper Vasily Zaitsev.

He was born in March 1915 in the village of Eleninka, Polotsk village, Verkhneuralsky district, Orenburg province, in peasant family. His grandfather Andrey Alekseevich Zaitsev, was a hereditary hunter and commercial hunter and from childhood he introduced his grandchildren to this activity, especially highlighting the eldest, Vasya.

Vasily grew slowly as a child, which is why his parents even feared that he would remain a “small size.” However, the grandfather did not care - he passed on to his grandson all the secrets of the taiga hunter's skill. Although it’s unlikely that little Vasya could have guessed where and when this science would be useful to him.

Vasily Zaitsev graduated from a seven-year school, then a construction technical school with a degree in fittings, then accounting courses.

In 1937, Zaitsev was drafted into the army. Despite his short stature, the commission assessed his good general physical development and sent to the Pacific Fleet.

Zaitsev started as a clerk in the artillery department, and by the beginning of the war, thanks to his education, he became the head of the financial unit.

Here, far from the Western Front, it would be possible to sit out the war in relative peace. Only this prospect did not suit Vasily Zaitsev. By the summer of 1942, the sergeant major of the 1st article literally tormented the command with reports asking to send him to the front.

Vasily Zaitsev in Stalingrad, October 1942. Photo: Public Domain

Baptism by fire

And finally, he was enlisted in the second battalion of the 1047th regiment of the 284th Infantry Division. A unit formed from sailors of the Pacific Fleet transferred to infantry was transferred to Stalingrad.

On the night of September 22, 1942, the 284th Rifle Division safely crossed the Volga, entering Stalingrad, where heavy fighting raged.

The division immediately entered the battle. And here an episode occurred, which Vasily Zaitsev would later describe in his memoirs and which, in a very free interpretation, was included in the film “Stalingrad” Fedor Bondarchuk.

Zaitsev's battalion led an attack on German positions on the territory of the Stalingrad gas depot. The enemy trying to stop the onslaught Soviet troops, set fire to fuel containers with artillery fire and air strikes. This is how Zaitsev himself described what was happening in his book:

“Flames shot up over the base, gas tanks began to burst, and the ground caught fire. Giant flames rushed over the chains of the attacking sailors with a deafening roar. Everything is on fire. Another minute - and we will turn into coals, into firebrands...

Forward! Forward!

The soldiers and sailors engulfed in fire tore off their burning clothes as they walked, but did not drop their weapons. Attack of naked burning people... I don’t know what the Nazis thought of us at that moment. Perhaps they mistook us for devils or saints, whom even fire cannot kill, and therefore fled without looking back. We drove them out of the village adjacent to the gas station and stopped on the extreme western street, lying down among the small individual houses that made up this street. Here someone threw a raincoat to me, and I somehow covered myself... From the hot air, the soldiers' lips were cracked, their mouths were dry, their singed hair stuck together - the teeth of the comb were bent. But the battalion commander, Captain Kotov, rejoiced: the order was carried out! They recaptured the gas tanks, took possession of the unfinished red building, seized the office of the hardware plant, fighting is taking place in the workshops and breaches of the asphalt and hardware plants!”

So Zaitsev’s battalion managed to knock the Germans out of their positions and gain a foothold in the city. So the “division burned to the ground” shown in “Stalingrad” did not actually die, but continued to successfully beat the Nazis.

It should be noted that Vasily Zaitsev and Fyodor Bondarchuk are connected by one more point - in 1989, in the director’s film Yuri Ozerov"Stalingrad" Bondarchuk played the role of a sniper Ivana, the prototype of which was Vasily Zaitsev.

Death from the oven

The Battle of Stalingrad differs from others in that it developed into a months-long street battle, where the methods of conventional warfare were ineffective. As a result, small assault groups and snipers became the main striking force in these battles.

Soviet and German snipers staged a real hunt for enemy soldiers and officers. It has become dangerous not only to walk in the city, but even just to lean out of shelters.

This is where Vasily Zaitsev’s skills as a taiga hunter helped him a lot. He had excellent eyesight and hearing, iron restraint, composure, endurance and military cunning.

It is extremely important for a sniper to be able to camouflage himself and not reveal himself ahead of time. Vasily Zaitsev possessed these abilities like no one else.

Once Vasily hid in a dilapidated oven, from which the entrances to the fascist dugouts were clearly visible, as well as the basement that served the Nazis as a kitchen. In one evening, Zaitsev eliminated 10 enemy soldiers.

During the period from November 10 to December 17, 1942 alone, Vasily Zaitsev destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers, including 11 enemy snipers. In total, the sniper groups of the 62nd Army that fought in Stalingrad eliminated 6,000 enemy soldiers and officers during this period.

Duel of two aces

The fame of Zaitsev’s exploits spread to the other side of the front line. To eliminate the Soviet sniper, the German command called its specialist from Berlin - the head of the sniper school, whom Zaitsev calls in his memoirs “ Major Koenig».

According to a number of historians, Zaitsev’s opponent was the head of the sniper school in Zossen, an SS Standartenführer Heinz Thorwald.

Koenig-Torvald managed to eliminate several Soviet snipers, after which Zaitsev began a counter hunt for him.

On the decisive day, Zaitsev acted in tandem with another sniper - Nikolai Kulikov. This is what the Soviet ace himself writes about the culmination of the duel: “We worked at night. We settled in until dawn. The Nazis fired at the crossings of the Volga. It was getting light quickly, and as daylight came the battle developed with new strength. But neither the roar of guns, nor the explosions of shells and bombs - nothing could distract us from completing the mission. The sun has risen. Kulikov made a “blind” shot: the sniper should have been interested. We decided to wait out the first half of the day, since the glare of the optics could give us away. After lunch, our rifles were in the shade, and direct rays of the sun fell on the fascist position. Something glittered at the edge of the sheet: a random piece of glass or an optical sight? Kulikov carefully, as only the most experienced sniper can do, began to lift his helmet. The fascist fired. The Nazi thought that he had finally killed the Soviet sniper, whom he had been hunting for four days, and stuck half his head out from under the leaf. This is what I was counting on. He hit it straight. The fascist’s head sank, and the optical sight of his rifle, without moving, sparkled in the sun until the evening...”

The German's documents and rifle were delivered to the division commander. It turned out that Zaitsev’s opponent had optics with 10x magnification on his weapon, while the Soviet sniper had only 4x magnification. However, this did not help the German.

Victory in a hospital bed

Over four months in Stalingrad, a group of snipers commanded by Vasily Zaitsev destroyed 1,126 Nazis.

The battle ended for the sniper in January 1943, when he was seriously wounded and lost his sight. The hero was taken to Moscow, where Professor Filatov himself operated on him, returning the sniper’s ability to see.

After treatment in the hospital, Zaitsev headed a sniper school, then commanded a platoon, and subsequently a company. But that was a little later.

And on February 22, 1943, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for the courage and military valor shown in battles with the Nazi invaders, junior lieutenant Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

During the war, Vasily Zaitsev wrote two textbooks on sniper business. In addition, he came up with the technique of sniper hunting with “sixes” - when three pairs of snipers (shooters and observers) cover the same battle zone with fire. This technique was widely used during the Chechen campaigns.

Captain Vasily Zaitsev met the victorious May 1945 in Kyiv, in the hospital, where he was treated after another injury.

Hero of the Soviet Union, participant in the Battle of Stalingrad Vasily Zaitsev, 1979. Photo: RIA Novosti / Igor Kostin

Last will

There, in Kyiv, Vasily Zaitsev spent his peaceful post-war life after demobilization.

He graduated from the institute, was the director of a clothing factory, plant, and headed a technical school. When to use Soviet army a new SVD sniper rifle was being accepted, among those who were involved in the tests was Vasily Zaitsev.

Zaitsev's rifle is now kept in the Volgograd Museum of City Defense as one of the main rarities. In 1980, the city authorities awarded Vasily Zaitsev the title of Honorary Citizen.

The last years of the life of the hero of Stalingrad can hardly be called happy - the exploits of the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War were ridiculed, in Ukraine, which was striving for independence, Bandera's underdogs and their young like-minded people raised their heads.

Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev died on December 15, 1991, just a few days before the country for which he fought disappeared. His last wish was to be buried next to his comrades on the Mamayev Kurgan in Stalingrad.

However, in the conditions of the collapse of everything and everyone, the hero’s last will was never heard.

Vasily Zaitsev was remembered again in Russia in 2001, when the film “Enemy at the Gates” dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad was released in Hollywood. His main storyline there was a fight between Zaitsev and Major Koenig. The blockbuster, in which the role of Zaitsev went to actor Jude Law, looked like an outright “cranberry”, but nevertheless allowed the memory of the hero of Stalingrad to be brought back from oblivion in Russia.

January 31, 2006 last request Vasily Zaitsev was executed - his remains were solemnly reburied with military honors on Mamayev Kurgan.

The grave of Vasily Zaitsev on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd. Photo: wikipedia.org / Konstantin Dorokhin

The famous memoirs of the Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev, who became famous during the Battle of Stalingrad, were published in Spain. They caused a controversial reaction in society, and the film “Enemy at the Gates” was made based on them.

“Use every cartridge wisely, Vasily,” the father instructed his son when they went together to hunt wolves in the taiga. He used the experience acquired then in Stalingrad in relation to other wolves - in human form, but also gray. “Every day I killed 4 to 5 Germans,” he would write later. Chilling memoirs of sniper Vasily Zaitsev (1915-1991), Hero of the Soviet Union, one of the most famous representatives of this difficult and terrible profession. Published in Spain by Crítica, they tell the reader about the brutal battle waged by snipers during the Second World War. We find ourselves in the very heart of a brutal battle when a gunman sitting in cover sees the eyes of the man he is about to kill. Memoirs of a direct participant in those events allow us to look into inner world, follow the actions of the fighters, who always inspired insurmountable fear and some kind of unhealthy worship. In a word, to lift that mystical veil that always surrounds the sniper.

The memoirs of Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev tell how a sniper acted during the Battle of Stalingrad, on whose personal account there were 242 killed Germans, including 11 enemy snipers (the destruction of enemy snipers was one of the priorities). The dramatic events in which Zaitsev participated formed the basis of the film “Enemy at the Gates,” directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. Historians such as Antony Beevor believe that some of the sniper's story, including the lengthy and intense duel with an experienced German sniper sent specifically to eliminate Zaitsev (which is the basis of the plot), is pure fiction. Be that as it may, memories are most interesting description brutal and bloody battle in Stalingrad and read with bated breath.

In one episode, Zaitsev orders his group, consisting of three pairs of snipers, not to shoot at German officers who, thinking that they are safe, are washing themselves near a trench. “They’re just lieutenants,” he says. “If we swat a small fish, a fat fish will never stick its head out.” The next day they returned to their original position. We decided not to touch the soldier who was leaning out. And this is where those they were waiting for appear. A colonel accompanied by a sniper with a wonderful rifle, a major with a Knight's Cross framed by oak leaves and another colonel smoking cigarettes with a long and elegant cigarette holder. “Our shots rang out. We aimed for the head, as it is written in textbook, and the four fascists fell to the ground, giving up their ghosts.” There was also a case when he shot at a German officer who had an Iron Cross on his chest. “I pulled the trigger and the bullet went through the award. The German fell back, spreading his arms wide.”

Zaitsev begins his memoirs with a story about his childhood. His grandfather was a hereditary Ural hunter and gave him his first gun. When going hunting, he lubricated himself with badger fat so that he would not be smelled by him. While hunting wolves, he learned to follow the scent and sit in ambush, which would later help him “in the fight against other two-legged predators that invaded our homeland.” The future sniper had a good education. He graduated from a construction technical school and accounting courses, and worked as an insurance inspector.

In 1937 he was drafted into the army and assigned to the Pacific Fleet as a sailor, and from then on he always proudly wore his vest under his military uniform. Zaitsev was eager to go into battle, asked to be assigned to a sniper company and, already as a foreman, on September 21, 1942 he ended up in Stalingrad. It was like hell. He will write in his diary that there was a thick smell of fried meat in the air.

In his first fight, when he runs out of ammunition, the short and broad-faced Zaitsev, not at all like Jude Law, who played him, engages the German in hand-to-hand combat and kills him. Here we see the war exactly as it is: “Eventually he stopped resisting and I smelled a sickening smell. By dying, the fascist also shit himself.”

During the defense of the famous Red October plant, it experiences difficult moments. There is a so-called “war of the rats”, when the enemy is hiding in the basements and sewer hatches destroyed city. At the end of October, a colonel saw how Zaitsev destroyed an enemy machine gun crew consisting of three people with three shots from an ordinary soldier’s rifle. “Give him a sniper rifle,” the colonel ordered. They brought Moisin Nagant 91/30 to Zaitsev, and the colonel told him: “There are already three of them. Now keep score." So he became a sniper and got a taste for it: “I liked being a sniper and having the right to choose an object; when fired, it seemed to me that I heard the bullet piercing the enemy’s skull.” Zaitsev hits from a long distance - 550 meters or more. The sight allows you to clearly see the target.

“You know if he shaved, you see the expression on his face, you watch him hum something to himself. And while your subject runs his hand across his forehead or tilts his head to adjust his helmet, you look for the best point to shoot. He doesn’t even suspect that he only has a few seconds left to live.” There are no doubts, no remorse. “Putting the sight between his eyes was easy. I pulled the trigger, it twitched for a few seconds and froze motionless.”

Zaitsev portrays Soviet soldiers exclusively in a heroic and noble light, and the Germans as cruel: they finish off the wounded with flamethrowers or throw them to be eaten by dogs. For a sniper, fascists are “snakes” that wriggle when he presses them to the ground with his foot.

The memoirs contain a lot of advice to snipers (Zaitsev later became an instructor). Spring or key - a good place to shoot at the enemy. After the shot, immediately change your position to avoid detection.

It takes no more than two seconds for a shooter to aim and pull the trigger, but surveillance and camouflage can take hours or even days. You have to become invisible. Patience is the key to success. Contrary to popular belief, snipers do not act alone, but in pairs and even groups, using various kinds of bait and dummies to lure the enemy into a trap.

An entire chapter of the book is devoted to the famous duel, which is about in the film Enemy at the Gates. The memoirs say that a captured German soldier reported that the German High Command, worried about the mounting losses, sent a certain Major Koenings, director of the Wehrmacht sniper school located near Berlin, to Stalingrad with the sole task of eliminating the famous Russian marksman.

A German and a Russian sniper (played by Ed Harris in the film) play a deadly game. As a result, Zaitsev manages to outwit and kill German ace. He drags his corpse out of hiding and hands it over to the division commander along with the rifle and documents. The supposed sight of this alleged (and defeated) German sniper is on display at the Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow.

“There has never been a German sniper major named Koenings,” Beevor, who studied this issue in detail in his famous book “Stalingrad,” said in a conversation with me. He is not mentioned either in official German or Soviet sources. “I have studied all the sniper reports about the Battle of Stalingrad available in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense in Podolsk, and I can say with complete confidence that the famous duel between a German and a Soviet sniper never happened. If it had really taken place, it would certainly have been reflected in the reports, since it would certainly have taken advantage of such an opportunity Soviet propaganda. The whole story was invented after the Battle of Stalingrad.”

Beevor recalls that Anno invited him to view his painting “in the vain hope that I would not be too critical; I warned him in advance about my position. The French director bought the rights to the book by William Craig, which formed the basis of the film. And Craig believed the propaganda story about the sniper duel and the stories of Tanya Chernova (played by Rachel Weiss in the film) that she, too, was a sniper and the shooter’s lover. Poor Zaitsev, the army political workers used him for their own purposes, completely rewriting his biography and turning it into a legend. All this led to the fact that after the war he became depressed and began to drink.”

In reality, the historian notes, Zaitsev's exploits were greatly exaggerated, and he was not even the best Soviet sniper at Stalingrad. And the best was Sergeant Anatoly Chekhov (not the most suitable surname for someone engaged in such a dangerous profession), another hero of the urban war, whom Vasily Grossman interviewed and even accompanied during a combat mission on Mamayev Kurgan, where the most fierce battles took place to see how it works. Unlike Zaitsev, whom Grossman also knew personally, Chekhov, who used something like a silencer, looked not at faces, but at insignia. On the first day of fighting he killed nine Germans; in the second - 17, and in eight days - 40. In total, during the Battle of Stalingrad, Chekhov eliminated 256 enemy troops. In 1943, near Kursk, he lost both legs. Other famous Soviet snipers were Ivan Sidorenko, who set a kind of record by eliminating 500 German soldiers. Five more shooters accounted for more than 400 killed Germans. The famous female sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko destroyed 309 enemy soldiers and officers. After the end of the war she became a historian.

Grossman did not write anything about any long duel, but he did describe a fight between Zaitsev and a German sniper, which lasted... 15 minutes. It was this episode, according to Beevor, that was inflated to the scale of the legend about the dramatic battle between Zaitsev and Major Koenings, whom no one had ever heard of, allegedly sent to eliminate the Soviet sniper.

At the end of his memoirs, Zaitsev writes about the injuries received at the end of the Battle of Stalingrad. He lost his sight from German shrapnel and spent a lot of effort trying to restore it. He was not allowed to return to the front in order to preserve such a vivid example of Soviet patriotism, and the famous sniper began to train new generations of soldiers. The manuals he wrote are still used in Russian military schools. At the end of the war, Zaitsev was demobilized with the rank of captain and worked at a textile factory in Kyiv, constantly remembering combat missions. He died ten days before the collapse of the USSR, he is buried on Mamayev Kurgan, where fierce fighting took place. Perhaps even now the spirit of the great shooter continues to observe his objects from there among the ruins of Stalingrad that have dissolved in time.

Lurking Death

Other famous snipers include:

- Finn Simo Haiha ("White Death"), the best sniper of all time, who killed 505 Soviet troops during the Finnish-Soviet War (he did not use a telescopic sight).

In 1942, during the brutal battles for Stalingrad, Soviet snipers delivered sensitive blows to the Germans.

Skillfully camouflaging themselves, patiently waiting, they lay in wait for the enemy at the most unexpected moment and destroyed him with one well-aimed shot.

Vasily Zaitsev especially annoyed the Nazis.

Vasily Zaitsev is the famous sniper of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front, Hero of the Soviet Union, the best sniper of the Battle of Stalingrad. During this battle from November 10 to December 17, 1942, he destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers, including 11 snipers.

In order to reduce the activity of Russian snipers and thus raise the morale of their soldiers, the German command decides to send the head of the Berlin sniper squad, SS Colonel Heinz Thorwald, to the city on the Volga to destroy the “main Russian hare.”

Torvald, transported to the front by plane, immediately challenged Zaitsev, shooting down two Soviet snipers with single shots.

Now the Soviet command was also worried, having learned about the arrival of the German ace. The commander of the 284th Infantry Division, Colonel Batyuk, ordered his snipers to eliminate Heinz at any cost.

The task was not easy. First of all, it was necessary to find a German, study his behavior, habits, handwriting. And this is all for one single shot.

Thanks to his vast experience, Zaitsev perfectly studied the handwriting of enemy snipers. By the camouflage and firing of each of them, he could determine their character, experience, and courage. But Colonel Thorvald puzzled him. It was impossible to even understand in which sector of the front he was operating. Most likely, he changes positions quite often, acts with great caution, tracking down the enemy himself.

One day at dawn, together with his partner Nikolai Kuznetsov, Zaitsev took a secret position in the area where their comrades had been wounded the day before. But the whole day of observation did not bring any results.

But suddenly a helmet appeared above the enemy trench and began to slowly move along the trench. But her swaying was somehow unnatural. “Bait,” Vasily realized. But for the whole day not a single movement was noticed. This means that the German lay in a hidden position all day without giving himself away. From this ability to be patient, Zaitsev realized that in front of him was the head of a sniper school. On the second day, the fascist again showed nothing of himself.

Then we began to understand that this was the same guest from Berlin.

The third morning at the position began as usual. A battle was breaking out nearby. But the Soviet snipers did not move and only observed the enemy positions. But political instructor Danilov, who went with them into the ambush, could not stand it. Having decided that he had noticed the enemy, he leaned out of the trench quite a bit and just for a second. This was enough for the enemy shooter to notice him, take aim and shoot him. Fortunately, the political instructor only wounded him. It was clear that only a master of his craft could shoot like that. This convinced Zaitsev and Kuznetsov that it was the guest from Berlin who fired and, judging by the speed of the shot, was right in front of them. But where exactly?

SMART SNIPER ZAYTSEV

There is a bunker on the right, but the embrasure in it is closed. There is a damaged tank on the left, but an experienced shooter will not climb there. Between them, on a flat area, lies a piece of metal, covered with a pile of bricks. Moreover, it has been lying there for a long time, the eye has become accustomed to it, and you won’t even notice it right away. Maybe a German under the leaf?

Zaitsev put his mitten on his stick and raised it above the parapet. A shot and an accurate hit. Vasily lowered the bait in the same position as he raised it. The bullet entered smoothly, without drift. Like a German under a sheet of iron.

The next challenge is to get him to open up. But today it is useless to do this. It’s okay, the enemy sniper will not leave the successful position. It's not in his character. The Russians definitely need to change their position.

The next night we took a new position and began to wait for dawn. In the morning, a new battle between infantry units broke out. Kulikov fired at random, illuminating his cover and piqued the interest of the enemy shooter. Then they rested throughout the first half of the day, waiting for the sun to turn around, leaving their shelter in the shadows, and illuminating the enemy’s with direct rays

Suddenly, right in front of the leaf, something sparkled. Optical sight. Kulikov slowly began to lift his helmet. The shot clicked. Kulikov screamed, stood up and immediately fell without moving.

The German made a fatal mistake by not counting the second sniper. He leaned out a little from under cover right under Vasily Zaitsev’s bullet.

Thus ended this sniper duel, which became famous at the front and was included in the list of classic techniques of snipers around the world.

By the way, curiously, the hero of the Battle of Stalingrad Vasily Zaitsev did not immediately become a sniper.

When it became clear that Japan would not start a war against the USSR, troops began to be transferred from Siberia and Far East to the German front. This is how Vasily Zaitsev fell under Stalingrad. Initially, he was an ordinary infantryman-shooter of the famous 62nd Army of V.I. Chuikova. But he was distinguished by enviable accuracy.

September 22, 1942 The division in which Zaitsev served broke into the territory of the Stalingrad hardware plant and took up defensive positions there. Zaitsev received a bayonet wound, but did not leave the formation. Having asked his shell-shocked comrade to load the rifle, Zaitsev continued to fire. And, despite being wounded and lacking a sniper scope, he destroyed 32 Nazis in that battle. The grandson of the Ural hunter turned out to be a worthy student of his grandfather.

“For us, the soldiers and commanders of the 62nd Army, there is no land beyond the Volga. We have stood and will stand to the death!” V. Zaitsev

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.

V. Zaitsev died on December 15, 1991. He was buried in Kyiv at the Lukyanovskoye military cemetery, although his last wish was to be buried in the Stalingrad land that he defended.

On January 31, 2006, the ashes of Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev were solemnly reburied in Volgograd on Mamayev Kurgan.

Born on March 23, 1915 in the village of Elininsk, Agapovsky district, Chelyabinsk region. He graduated from 7 classes and a construction technical school in Magnitogorsk, where he received a specialty in fittings. Since 1937 he served in the Pacific Fleet (as a clerk in the artillery department). After studying at the Military Economic School, he was appointed head of the financial department of the Pacific Fleet, in Preobrazhenye Bay. It was in this position that he met the war.

By the summer of 1942, Sergeant Major 1st Article V.G. Zaitsev submitted 5 reports to send him to the front. From September 21, 1942, in the active army, he defended Stalingrad. Already in the first fights he showed himself to be a marksman (and not surprisingly: from the age of 12 he went hunting alone). He destroyed his first enemies with a simple three-line rifle, then he was given a sniper rifle. By order of the troops of the 62nd Army No. 39/n dated October 25, 1942, for 40 destroyed enemies, the chief petty officer of the 1st article, V. G. Zaitsev, was awarded the medal “For Courage.”

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 the Nazis in places where they could not even guess his location. On November 2, 1942, sniper of the 1047th Infantry Regiment (284th Infantry Division, 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front) V.G. Zaitsev was presented with the Order of Lenin for the destruction of 110 enemy soldiers and officers. By order of the troops of the Stalingrad Front No. 100/n dated December 4, 1942, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

During the period from November 10 to December 17, 1942, in the battles for Stalingrad, he destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers. For these exploits, on December 18, 1942, junior lieutenant V.G. Zaitsev was presented by the command to highest degree differences in the country. In January 1943, while carrying out the order of the division commander to disrupt a German attack on the right-flank regiment with a sniper group of 13 people, Zaitsev was seriously wounded and blinded by a mine explosion. Only on February 10, 1943, after several operations performed in Moscow by Professor Filatov, his vision returned. By that time, his official account included 242 destroyed enemies (some sources round this figure to 245). By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated February 22, 1943, junior lieutenant Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 801).

Since April 1944 - again in the active army (3rd Ukrainian Front). On May 10, 1944, while repelling an attack by enemy infantry and tanks towards the location of the division headquarters command post, he personally destroyed 18 enemies and was again seriously wounded. For this battle he was presented with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. By order of the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front No. 383/n dated October 10, 1944, the Guard awarded Senior Lieutenant V.G. Zaitsev the second Order of the Red Banner.

Throughout the war, Vasily Zaitsev served in the army, in whose ranks he began his combat career, headed a sniper school, commanded a mortar platoon, and then was the commander of a separate anti-aircraft machine gun company of the 79th Guards Rifle Division. He crushed the enemy in the Donbass, participated in the battle for the Dnieper, fought near Odessa and on the Dniester. During the war years, he wrote 2 textbooks for snipers, and also invented the still used technique of sniper hunting with “sixes” - when 3 pairs of snipers (a shooter and an observer) cover the same battle zone with fire. May 1945, Captain V.G. Zaitsev met the Guard in Kyiv - again in the hospital.

He visited Berlin after the end of the war. There I met with friends who had gone through the battle route from the Volga to the Spree. In a solemn ceremony, V.G. Zaitsev was presented with his sniper rifle with the inscription: “To the Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Zaitsev, who buried more than 300 fascists in Stalingrad.” Nowadays this rifle is kept in the Volgograd Museum of City Defense. Next to it there is a sign: “During the period of street fighting in the city, sniper of the 284th Infantry Division V.G. Zaitsev used this rifle to destroy more than 300 Nazis, taught 28 Soviet soldiers the art of sniper. When Zaitsev was wounded, this rifle was passed on to the best snipers of the unit.” . According to the Soviet press, Vasily Zaitsev's final battle tally is "more than 300" enemies destroyed. Most likely, this number includes enemies he destroyed not only with a sniper rifle (as the last award sheet states that on May 10, 1944 he personally destroyed 18 enemies, but it is not specified what type of weapon: rifle, machine gun, machine gun...)

After the war, V.G. Zaitsev was demobilized for health reasons and lived in Kyiv. At first he was the commandant of the Pechersk region. He studied in absentia at the All-Union Institute of Textile and Light Industry and became an engineer. He worked as director of a machine-building plant, director of the "Ukraine" clothing factory, and headed the light industry technical school. He died on December 15, 1991, and was buried in Kyiv at the Lukyanovsky military cemetery. On January 31, 2006, the ashes of Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev were transported to the hero city of Volgograd and solemnly reburied on Mamayev Kurgan. 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.

Awarded the orders: Lenin (02/22/1943), Red Banner (12/04/1942, 10/10/1944), Patriotic War 1st degree (03/11/1985); medals.

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From the materials of V. G. Zaitsev’s award sheets:

From wartime press materials:

From press materials of the post-war years: