And I don’t know much about Vassili .
have you seen the “enemy at the gates movie” its laughably bad.
the real zeitzev is no jude law…
Jude Law needs to stick to making movies like “Hitch” and even though i havent seen it i reckon its rubbish :lol: :lol: :lol:
In movie all about Vassili is lie ,but when soldiers ratake Read Squer in Stallingrad if they want to retreat soviet shut them NKVD your army killing you that’s very sad.
True my good friend 
but the russians did kill the retreated soldiers, thats a fact.
If they retreated that’s means then they canot win ,but stalin dont want to heard that ,Stalins words to not retreat do not one step back.Crazy man :lol: :lol:
Well it would be more appropriate and sensible if the Russians when they retreated to regroup and charge again and not get slaughtered by their owne officers.
Though Stalin was just trying to inflict fear into the russians so they try their hardest to kill the germans and if they fail, they suffere the consenquences by getting shot anyway.
the suicide charge was usually reserved as a punishment for penal battalions in russia. not for regular russian troops.
conscripted civilians of the Soviet Union Right ?
It’s most likely propoganda but who knows? That’s propoganda for you, doing its duty once again :evil:
Neither Erwin Koenig or the guy that Zaitsev call “Untersturmfürher Heinz Thorvald” actually exist.
Yes Zaitsev killed more than 200 german soldiers, some snipers included, but the so called Stalingrad duel never took place.
The best german Scharfschützen ( sharpshooter= sniper) was obergefreiter Mattheus Hetzenauer, with 345 confirmed kills who fought in the East front since 1943 and survived the war.
The story of Vasily Zaitsez vs. Major Heinz Thorvald (or Konig) has been widely argued over. Did an actual confrontation occur between them? Did Vasily Zaitsez even exist at all or was he just part of Russian propaganda during the Battle of Stalingrad? I personally think that it Zaitsez did indeed exist, but the sniper duel didn’t.
Some info there
Edited by Dani: link removed since the threads were merged.
He is exist for sure meybe he didnt kill so many axis soldiers but he is exist.
Check the vasilli zaitsev thread here 
Have you actually done any research on this? It is an established fact that Zaitsev fought in Stalingrad.
The debate is not weither or not Zaitsev exsisted or not, but about the sniper duel between him and some German “super sniper”.
What kind of fact? You seen it in a film? Read in schoolbook?
There is famous order 227 called “Not a step back” in which everything is written. So called “barrier units” were used as military police and were located in several kilometers from the front, guarding crossroads, seaching for deserters, spyies and checking documents. They could shoot only in case of resistance, all arrested should be delivered to investigator.
If don`t believe documents, i can send you lots of soldier memories in which they say that no one shoot at them while retreat.
To Hosenfield:
[/quote]the suicide charge was usually reserved as a punishment for penal battalions in russia. not for regular russian troops.
The same situation with penal battalions. There were no barrier units after them. And I suppose that it will be new for you, penal battalions consisted only from officers and penal company (Rota) consisted from sergant and private. Commanders in penalty units were normal army officers that took part in action as well as penalted soldiers. To leave penalty unit you had to:
- stay for 3 months
- arrange heroic deed
- “pay blood” (as ussial any small wound would be enough)
- death
After one leave penalty unit he was restored in rank, all his decorations returned but against orders as usual decreased in place (for officers).
well maybe it wasnt that russians shot soldiers who were retreating…
didnt all armies fire on their soldiers if they refused to do orders in combat and were going to run away?
anyway, in cases were there were orders to retreat, of course soldiers wont be fired upon by thier own officers.
but… of course i dont have too much to back up my theory besides some movies, and stories.
Yes, the Russians did shoot soldiers retreating without orders out-of-hand.
Funny thread you have here guys.
I decided to check out the forum after looking through the photos, and I just couldn’t resist to reply to this thread! I am russian myself (born near Leningrad in 1978). Many of my relatives suffered during the Great Patriotic War, that war is very well remembered here.
I’ve seen the movie ‘Enemy at the gates’ - it is full of bullshit, I just laughed most of the time while watching that crap. It has nothing to do with reality. NKVD officer shooting own troops with machine gun… hahaha.
NKVD stands for “People’s Comission for Internal Affairs” - they were hunting criminals and deserters. “Zagradotryad” (barrier unit), according to famous Order #227 was supposed to be formed behind “unstable” divisions (3-5 units of 200 well armed soldiers for every division), their were supposed to shoot deserters (among other duties). The term “shoot” is poor translation of russian “rasstrel”, which actually means “execution through shooting” (after a tribunal!). Those barrier units were assigned to Special Departments of NKVD and had NKVD officers in command, who performed tribunals. The function is the same as Military Police in US Army or Feldgendarmerie in Wehrmacht.
Soldier deserted with his weapon received certain death sentence, others were returned back to the army (privates and sergeants to the penalty company, officers to the penalty batallion).
Penalty batallions (“Shtrafbat”) were formed of degraded officers of regular army, not conscripts. Those officers were fighting like normal soldiers, trying to restore their status. They were regular russian troops, period.