The film is set against the backdrop of the 1942 Battle of Stalingrad, which it portrays accurately. The carnage and savagery of the war, the close involvement of political officers, the shooting of deserters and the importance of propaganda are all elements of the story that ring very true.
The central drama is said to be based on the true story of Vassili Zaitsev, as documented in the 1973 book, Enemy at the Gates, by William Craig. However, the words ‘loosely based’ may have been more appropriate.
Here are the facts according to Craig’s book:
What the film reflects accurately:
- That Zaitsev was a shepherd who learned his skills shooting deer in the forests of the Urals
- That he came to Stalingrad and became a master sniper.
- That he was made into a hero by Russian newspapers.
- That the Germans did sent a Major (Konings) from Berlin to kill him.
- That Zaitsev was determined to kill him first, and ignored the wider war to concentrate on the one man.
- That a young Russian soldier, Tania Chernova, became one of Zaitsev’s students and that they became lovers.
- That she was hospitalised for the rest of the war by a wound to her stomach caused by an explosion that nearly killed her.
- That a political officer, Danilov was present when Zaitsev shot the Major and that he ‘suddenly raised himself up, shouting: “There he is. I’ll point him out to you”’
- That Konings then shot Danilov, and Zaitsev went on to shoot Konings.
However, more or less everything else in the film can be taken as fictional licence. Note particularly:
- Craig’s book makes no mention of any relationship between Danilov and Zaitsev. It also does not suggest that Danilov knew Tania, that she spoke German or worked as a translator
- According to Craig, Danilov was shot in the shoulder and did not die of the wound
- Zaitsev, not Danilov, was with Tania when she was injured.
- The two lovers did not reunite: in hospital she received a letter from a friend saying he had died in an explosion. (Only in 1969 did she learn that he had recovered and married someone else).
However, the issue is not only how accurately the film reflects William Craig’s book - there is the question of whether that book itself was flawed.
In the best-selling book Stalingrad, The fateful siege : 1942-1943, Antony Beevor wrote: ‘The whole story of the sniper duel is fiction. There is absolutely no trace (of it) in the German military archives...or in the Red Army files which concentrated on sniper activities (the daily reports of the Political Department of Stalingrad Front to Moscow). This great story can be classified as Soviet propaganda.’
So who’s right? Well, the argument has been raging between academic historians for decades and, sadly, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know the truth for certain. Given that truth is the first casualty of both war and propagandeering, and that Stalin’s totalitarian Russia excelled at both, the true separation of fact and legend is probably lost forever...
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
As attempts to take the city began to swallow up more and more German men and resources, Stalin and his generals saw a chance to turn the table on Hitler. The Sixth Army's flanks to the north and south of the city were now only defended by Germany's Italian and Romanian allies. These units were much weaker than their German or Soviet counterparts.
Stalin's generals ordered a swift counter-attack. They broke through the Romanian and Italian lines and by November 23, the whole of the German Sixth Army, a quarter of a million men, was completely encircled. If they did not withdraw now, while they still could, they faced annihilation.
As temperatures dropped to minus 30 degrees C, the starving German soldiers were forced to slaughter their horses. Later they dug up their frozen carcasses to eat the bones, and some resorted to cannibalism.
Yet despite the desperate situation and the urgent advice of his military commanders Hitler refused to contemplate a withdrawal. After General Von Manstein's attempts to relieve them in December failed, Paulus's men had neither the supplies nor the strength to break through the Soviet lines.
The last surviving German soldiers surrendered on February 2. The defeat was followed by three days of solemn music on German state radio. The Soviets took more than 110,000 prisoners, few of whom survived captivity.
- 50,000 Germans died as well as thousands of Romanian and Hungarian allies
- 91,000 Germans were captured, only 6,000 of whom ever returned home
- 485,751 Russian troops died, 13,500 of whom were executed by their own side
- 9,796 citizens survived the battle, eking out an existence in the city's lice-ridden cellars
After Stalingrad the Nazis never regained the initiative on the Eastern Front; the tide finally began to turn against Hitler and his attempt to dominate the whole of Europe.
In just over two years the Third Reich lay in ruins and victorious Soviet troops were stationed in Berlin and throughout the countries the Nazis had previously held in Eastern Europe. Instead of a new German empire, Hitler's invasion of Russia helped create a Soviet giant in the east that lasted for more than 40 years.
Last year (2000) the authorities in Stalingrad, erected a memorial to the German war dead — many of whom are being DNA tested in an attempt to discover their identities.
Russian sources credited Vasily Zaitsev with killing 144 Germans before the end of the battle of Stalingrad. He was then blinded by a detonating land mine. He was decorated with the Order of Lenin and later elevated to the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union. His rife can still be seen in the Stalingrad History Museum.