Q&A: Enemy At the Gates?
Question by snipps: Enemy At the Gates?
What are some history inaccuracies of the movie. I know its based on historical, events, but what did the movie make up. Thanks.
Best answer:
Answer by elf2002
The title of the film is taken from the book “Enemy at the Gate: The Battle for Stalingrad” (1973) by William Craig, which also documents the real-life war exploits of Vasilli Zaitsev.
The duel between Zaitsev and Konig is fiction. There is, according to modern research, no evidence that such a battle took place. There was, though, a rumor amongst Russian soldiers about the story but no witnesses or logs support it (probably it was just a rumor created for increasing the will to fight amongst the Russian soldiers). The German who was shot in the duel was SS sniper Colonel Heinz Thorvald. The Germans claimed someone named Koenig had been shot in the duel and not Thorvald because they didn’t want to admit their ace was down. This was claimed by Zaitsev, who also found the papers on the body identifying him as Thorvald.
Unfortunately, in real life, there was no happy reunion for Vassili and Tania: by the battle’s end, each thought the other dead, and Tania learned years later that not only was her lover still alive, but had recently married.
The character of Ludmilla is a possible reference to another famous Soviet sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who had over 300 kills, even more than that of Vassili Zaitsev, who had around 257 kills.
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