Vasily Zaitsev: The Battle of Stalingrad’s most celebrated sniper

"Observing enemy behavior is my passion. You see a pompous and self-important fascist officer coming out of a dugout and imperiously bossing his men around. They strictly obey his will, his wishes and his whims. But, he doesn't know that he has literally seconds to live…" Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev wrote in his memoirs, 'There Was No Land for Us Beyond the Volga' (English title: 'Notes of a Russian Sniper').

Zaitsev notched up 242 enemy soldier and officer kills. He was not the most deadly sniper of World War II, but he was definitely the most celebrated sniper in the Battle of Stalingrad.

From shipboard straight into the trenches

Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev learned to be a good shot as a child. His grandad was an experienced hunter and frequently took his grandson hunting in the taiga.

The outbreak of war found him not in a sniper platoon, however, but in the Pacific Ocean. Zaitsev, who had a sound basic education, began serving in the financial-economic department at the headquarters of a Pacific Fleet military unit.

Many navy men were eager to go to the front to fight the enemy and Zaitsev was no exception. The future hero of Stalingrad submitted five applications asking to be sent to the front and, finally, in the Summer of 1942, his request was met.

"For five whole years, I proudly wore a sailor's striped shirt and readied myself for battles on the ocean wave… And I ended up fighting on land," wrote Zaitsev.  

A born sniper

In September 1942, Zaitsev found himself in Stalingrad, in the 284th Rifle Division of Lieutenant-General Vasily Chuikov's 62nd Army. Initially, he was involved in street fighting as an ordinary infantryman.

But, his marksmanship was quickly spotted. A group of soldiers were at their positions when two Germans appeared in front of them. "I brought up my rifle and, almost without aiming, fired. Fritz fell. A few seconds later, a second one appeared. I dispatched him, too," Zaitsev recalled. 

The regimental commander, who had witnessed the scene, immediately gave orders for Zaitsev to be issued with a sniper rifle with an optical sight.

A master sniper

Zaitsev had excellent eyesight and hearing, endurance, iron self-possession and composure. He was rapidly promoted into the circle of the best snipers in Stalingrad.  

Zaitsev constantly honed his skills, studied enemy tactics, worked out his own rules and, at the same time, was unafraid of improvisation. "On getting to the edge of the battle area, camouflage yourself, lie stock-still and observe, study the terrain, compile a diagram and mark notable features on the drawing."

Zaitsev tried not to operate in the setting sun - as it dipped towards the horizon, the sun could become reflected in a rifle's optical sight, betraying a sniper's position. The morning sun, however, glinted in the binoculars of German officers and spotters and the sights of enemy sniper rifles.

"If at dawn, for instance, you see the reflected flash of a cigarette lighter – it alerts you that a sniper has lit up. Get a fix on that spot and wait: A wisp of tobacco smoke should appear. After a little more time has passed, perhaps a whole day, a helmet might emerge for a split second. You'd better not be caught napping!" 

The "little hares"

The talented shooter and expert sniper also partook in training other snipers, who were unofficially dubbed the “zaichata” ("little hares"; taken from ‘zaiets’, Russian for ‘hare’, the root of the surname ‘Zaitsev’). 

They numbered three dozen or so. Zaitsev taught them to change location after two or three shots, to camouflage themselves carefully and to set up decoys to fool the enemy (for instance, by positioning a dummy figure dressed in military uniform). The main thing Zaitsev demanded was to think outside the box and to improvise.

Zaitsev devised the tactic of going after targets in groups of six. The "Sixes" were a technique he successfully employed with his trainees. It consisted of three pairs of snipers (shooters and spotters) comprehensively covering the same zone from different firing directions. 

Chuykov personally met many of the snipers in his army. The following is how he recalled an encounter with Zaitsev and his pupil Viktor Medvedev: "When I first met Zaitsev and Medvedev, I was struck by their modesty, their unhurried movements, their invariably calm character, their probing gaze: They could look at one spot for a long time without a flicker of their eyelids. The grip of their hand was firm and steady: When shaking hands they clasped you like a vise."  

Sniper hunter

In the course of the fighting in Stalingrad, Zaitsev eliminated 11 enemy snipers. "I had already learnt to rapidly distinguish the 'handwriting' of the fascist snipers and, by assessing their firing style and methods of camouflage, I had no particular trouble telling the more experienced riflemen from the novices and the faint-hearted from the dogged and determined ones," he recalled. 

The duel between Zaitsev and Major König (Konings) has become particularly famous. The German sharpshooter was sent to Stalingrad to eliminate the "little hares" and, of course, the chief "hare". The confrontation between the two master marksmen was portrayed in the 2001 movie 'Enemy at the Gates'.

The identity of Major König has been queried by historians. According to one account, the name could have been an alias for SS Standartenführer Heinz Thorvald, the head of a sniper school in the town of Zossen.

König-Thorwald succeeded in eliminating several Soviet snipers, after which he took on Zaitsev. A spotter by the name of Nikolai Kulikov managed to lure the German out of his concealment. 

"Very cautiously, as only the most experienced sniper would do, Kulikov raised the helmet," Zaitsev recalled. "The fascist fired. Kulikov jerked slightly upwards for a second, gave a loud cry and fell back… At long last, the Soviet sniper, the 'chief hare' he had been stalking for four days, was dead! This is what was undoubtedly going through the German's mind and he stuck the top of his head out from behind an iron sheet. I fired. The fascist's head fell back, while his rifle's optical sight remained glinting in the sun." 

As soon as it was dark, the Soviet troops in this sector carried out a night sortie. At the height of the fighting, Zaitsev and his companion dragged the dead major out from under the iron sheet, located his papers and delivered them to the divisional commander.

Hero of the Soviet Union

In January 1943, Zaitsev was seriously wounded and temporarily lost his sight. His eyesight was restored in Moscow, after he was urgently transported to the capital. On February 22 that same year, Junior Lieutenant Vasily Zaitsev was honored with the ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ title for courage and military valor demonstrated in fighting with the German Fascist occupiers.

After recovering his health, Zaitsev returned to the army, took part in combat, trained new "little hares" and wrote two manuals on the art of snipership. When victory came, he was in a military hospital in Kiev.

Zaitsev decided to stay in the capital of Soviet Ukraine and spent many years working here in management positions in the light industry sector. He died on Dec. 15, 1991, several days before the disintegration of the USSR.

The celebrated sniper's last wish was to be buried in Volgograd (as Stalingrad has been known since 1961). His grave remained in Kiev for many years, however. Only in 2006 were his remains solemnly reburied on Mamayev Kurgan, the site of bitter fighting where 35,000 of the city's defenders lie today.