Erwin König
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Erwin König, aka Heinz Thorvald (died c. 1942), was a highly skilled Wehrmacht sniper allegedly killed by the legendary Red Army sniper Vasily Zaytsev during the Battle of Stalingrad.
König is mentioned both in Zaytsev's memoirs Notes of a Sniper and William Craig's 1973 non-fiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. The 2001 movie Enemy at the Gates portrays a fictional account of the sniper duel between Zaytsev and König during the final days of the Battle of Stalingrad.
[edit] Historical authenticity
Zaytsev claims the duel took place over a period of three days in the ruins of Stalingrad. In his own memoirs, Zaytsev refers to him as being a German sniper named Herr Koning (Koning is Dutch for King, cognate to König in German), identified as the head of a sniper school in Berlin, by documents taken from his dead body. This is unconfirmed as German Heer personnel records make no mention of any German sniper called König or Koning.
However, at the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow there is a rifle scope that apparently belonged to a Wehrmacht sniper called Erwin König. In a post-war visit to Berlin, Zaytsev was confronted by a woman who told him she was König's daughter. Soviet authorities quickly evacuated Zaytsev to avoid any confrontation.[1]
[edit] Fictional versions
A fictionalized account of the duel in the movie Enemy at the Gates portrays Erwin König as the head of the Wehrmacht Sniper School. He is played by Ed Harris and is sent to Stalingrad to take on the increasingly aggressive Soviet snipers. Initially he is successful, killing three of Vasily's partners, but eventually he is outwitted by the Russian. König is depicted as a ruthless Bavarian aristocrat pitted against the shepherd Vasily Zaytsev. In the film he is killed at the Stalingrad train yard by Zaytsev.
American author David L. Robbins used the original name of Heinz Thorvald that Zaytsev himself used in his earlier memories in his 1999 novel War of the Rats. This story portrays Thorvald (König) as an SS-Standartenführer who was originally an instructor at the Wehrmacht underground headquarters in Zossen. However, no SS division fought in Stalingrad and no active sniper had such a high rank. German snipers were not employed in units but were deployed as Jägers. The Red Army, conversely, deployed snipers in large units up to battalion strength. Zaytsev was a Junior Lieutenant (мла́дший лейтена́нт) and eventually Captain (капита́н) of a Russian sniper unit.
From David L. Robbins, author of War of the Rats:
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- "The only light I can shed on your Thorvald/Koenig question is this: In an interview on the phone with me, I asked Zaitsev that question. He said he had always felt that the Germans claimed someone named Koenig had been shot in the duel and not Thorvald because the Germans didn't want to admit their ace was down. He opined that Koenig was very close to the German word for king, as in a chess analogy; you win the chess game when you take your opponent's king. Z was sure the papers he took from the body said Thorvald, and that's the way he wrote it in his memoirs. So, true or not, I went with it because the man told me so."
[edit] References
- ^ "Vasily Zaytsev (Russian)". http://www.facts.kiev.ua/2007/02/02/05.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-29.
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