Vassili Zaitsev, a soldier in the Red Army, is sent to the frontline of the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. Forced into a suicidal charge without a rifle but with ammunition, he hides among a pile of corpses, while a tank shell incapacitates a car. The occupant, Commissar Danilov, takes cover in the same heap of corpses and finds a rifle. Vassili reveals himself, advising the commissar not to fire until an explosion covers the noise. Danilov gives the rifle to Vassili, who, to the former's astonishment, is able to kill five German soldiers in less than a minute.
Nikita Khrushchev demands ideas from his subordinates to improve morale. While the other commissars suggest more severe discipline and terror, Danilov, now a senior lieutenant, recommends giving the troops inspiration. He suggests they should "make examples, but examples to follow," and recommends Zaitsev for that role. Soon after, Danilov begins publishing heroic tales of Vassili's exploits in the army's newspaper. Vassili is transferred to the sniper division and becomes friends with Danilov. Both also become romantically interested in Tania Chernova, a private in the local militia. In fear for her safety, Danilov has her transferred to an intelligence unit, ostensibly to make use of her German skills in translating radio intercepts.
With the Soviet snipers taking an increasing toll on the German forces, German Major Erwin König is deployed to kill Vassili and crush Soviet morale. When the Red Army command learns of König's mission after he wipes out Vassili's sniper unit, they dispatch König's former student Koulikov to help Vassili kill him. König, however, outmaneuvers Koulikov and kills him, shaking Vassili's spirits. Danilov finds a boy, Sacha Filipov, who volunteers to act as a double agent by passing König false information about Vassili's whereabouts in exchange for food. Vassili sets a trap for König and manages to wound him with the help of Tania. During a second attempt, Vassili falls asleep, and his sniper log is stolen by a looting German soldier. The German command takes the log as evidence of Vassili's death and plans to send König home, but König does not believe that Vassili is dead.
General Friedrich Paulus confiscates König's dog tags to prevent Soviet propaganda from profiting if König is killed and identified. In turn, König gives the general a War Merit Cross that was posthumously awarded to his son, a lieutenant in the 116th Infantry Division who was killed in the early days of the battle. König tells Sacha where he will be next after deducing that the boy is responsible for his being wounded. Tania and Vassili have meanwhile fallen in love. That night, Tania secretly goes to the Soviet barracks and makes love with Vassili. The jealous Danilov disparages Vassili in a letter to his superiors.
König spots Tania and Vassili waiting for him at his next ambush spot, confirming his suspicions about Sacha. He then kills the boy and hangs his body to bait Vassili. Vassili vows to kill König and asks Tania and Danilov to evacuate Sacha's mother. Tania is wounded by shrapnel en route to the boats. Thinking she is dead, Danilov regrets his jealousy of Vassili and even his ardor for communist ideals begins to falter. Finding Vassili waiting to ambush König, Danilov puts on a helmet and exposes himself to provoke König into shooting him and revealing his own position. Thinking that he has killed Vassili, König goes to inspect the body only to find himself in the Russian's sights. Accepting his fate, König grimly turns to look Vassili in the face before being shot. Two months later, after Stalingrad has been liberated and German forces have surrendered, Vassili finds Tania recovering in a field hospital.
The filming of Enemy at the Gates took place in Germany. The crossing of the Volga River was shot on the Altdöberner See, a man-made lake near the village of Pritzen, in the south of Brandenburg. A derelict factory in the village of Rüdersdorf was used to recreate the ruins of Stalingrad's tractor factory. The massive outdoor set of Stalingrad's Red Square was built at Krampnitz, near Potsdam. It was a former Wehrmacht riding school that had served as a Soviet barracks during the Cold War. Set construction began in October 1999 and took almost five months to complete.[12] The scene at the end with the waving coats is a reference to Sergio Leone.[13]
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Enemy at the Gates was written by James Horner and released on 31 March 2001.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 53% approval rating from 139 critics with a weighted average score of 5.70/10. The website's consensus says: "Atmospheric and thrilling, Enemy at the Gates gets the look and feel of war right. However, the love story seems out of place."[15][16]Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, calculated an average score of 53 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.[17] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[18]
Military historian David R. Stone praised the cast and said the film is "a good thing for the study of the Eastern Front during World War II" but criticized its historical inaccuracies and presentation, concluding: "To end on a brighter note, Enemy at the Gates has at the very least boosted the number of my students who drop by the office to ask questions about Stalingrad. I only wish it had done a better job of giving them good answers."[11] For the Society for Military History, historian Roger Reese wrote: "As a work of fictionalized history this movie serves a useful purpose beyond entertainment, that of bringing to the attention of movie-goers in the West the sacrifices Soviet soldiers made in defending their country and defeating Hitler and giving a face to those legions still largely anonymous to us."[9]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that it "is about two men placed in a situation where they have to try to use their intelligence and skills to kill each other. When Annaud focuses on that, the movie works with rare concentration. The additional plot stuff and the romance are kind of a shame."[19]New York's Peter Ranier was less kind, declaring: "It's as if an obsessed film nut had decided to collect every bad war-film convention on one computer and program it to spit out a script."[20]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone admitted the film had faults but said that "any flaws in execution pale against those moments when the film brings history to vital life."[21]
The film received unenthusiastic reviews in Russia but had good box office in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Some Red Army Stalingrad veterans were so offended by inaccuracies in the film and how the Red Army was portrayed that on 7 May 2001, shortly after the film premiered in Russia, they expressed their displeasure in the State Duma, demanding a ban of the film but their request was not granted.[22][23] The film was also received poorly in Germany. Critics stated that it simplified history and glorified war.[24][25][26] At the Berlinale film festival, it was booed. Annaud stated afterwards that he would not present another film at Berlinale, calling it a "slaughterhouse" and said that his film received a much better reception elsewhere.[27][28]
Historical accuracy
Zaitsev's sniper rifle on display at the Volgograd's Stalingrad Panorama Museum. Actor Jude Law (who portrays Zaitsev) uses an accurate version of the weapon in the film: a 7.62×54mmRMosin Model 1891/30sniper rifle with a PU 3.5×sniper scope.
As a film inspired by real events, it was dramatized and the plot was fictional in several ways.[6][9][10] It contained several inaccuracies,[11][16] including about Vasily Zaitsev, developments of the war, graphic details, and maps depicting a modern map of Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states as independent countries, as well as Switzerland and Turkey being invaded by Nazi Germany.[29] Zaitsev was a senior sergeant (Russian: ста́рший сержа́нт) in the 2nd Battalion, 1047th Rifle Regiment, 284th Tomsk Rifle Division, during the Battle of Stalingrad. The film uses events from William Craig's 1973 nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad but is not a direct adaptation. The book by Zaitsev himself[30] "There was no land for us beyond the Volga. Sniper's Notes" (Russian: «За Волгой земли для нас не было. Записки снайпера»), which completely contradicts the point of view presented in Craig's book and the film on the events that took place, is not taken into account. Historian Antony Beevor said he believed Zaitsev's story to be fictional.[29] There is no documentation about the duel between Zaytsev and Major Erwin König.[10]
The film misrepresents the role of blocking detachments in the Red Army. Although there was Order No. 227 (Russian: Директива Ставки ВГК №227) that became the rallying cry of "Not a step back!" (Russian: Ни шагу назад!, romanized:Ni shagu nazad!),[9] machine gunners were not placed behind regular troops with orders to kill anyone who retreated, and they were used only for penal troops. As per Order No. 227, each detachment would have between three and five barrier squads per 200 personnel.[16] At the same time, the film has been accused of understating the role of women. In the film, two women snipers appear but never shoot at anyone, in fact, Soviet women snipers have been credited with killing over 10,000 enemies in combat.[9]
The film's first scene shows new Soviet troops, including Zaitsev, arriving at the Stalingrad front, being screamed at, threatened, and in general humiliated by their commanders. They are then transported and locked in crowded boxcars to stop them from deserting. According to military historian Boris Yulin, that was forbidden and is unrealistic, as the soldiers would have then been killed in case of a German air raid or shelling.[16] According to historian Alexey Isaev, who has written several books about the Battle of Stalingrad, blocking detachments were mostly used in Stalingrad as "usual combat regiments" although the film emphasizes the message that "most Soviet soldiers needed a literal gun in the back in order to go into battle". As there were many cases of heroism, it is argued it was unlikely that Soviet soldiers were motivated only by fear.[16] In regards to the lack of weapons, which happened early in the war and changed by 1942, Isaev said: "There were no unarmed soldiers sent to the attack.... What is shown in Enemy at the Gates is pure nonsense."[16]
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad in southern Russia. The battle was characterized by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in aerial raids; the battle epitomized urban warfare, being the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It was the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entirety of World War II—and arguably in all of human history—as both sides suffered tremendous casualties amidst ferocious fighting in and around the city. The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II, as Germany's Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was forced to withdraw a considerable amount of military forces from other regions to replace losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the hostilities ended, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army had been destroyed and Army Group B was routed. The Soviets' victory at Stalingrad shifted the Eastern Front's balance of power in their favour, while also boosting the morale of the Red Army.
A sniper is a military or paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with telescopic sights. Modern snipers use high-precision rifles and high-magnification optics. They often also serve as scouts/observers feeding tactical information back to their units or command headquarters.
Snipers of the Soviet Union played an important role mainly on the Eastern Front of World War II, apart from other preceding and subsequent conflicts. In World War II, Soviet snipers used the 7.62×54mmR rifle cartridge with light, heavy, armour-piercing (B-30), armour-piercing-incendiary (B-32), zeroing-and-incendiary (P3), and tracer bullets. Most Soviet World War II snipers carried a combat load of 120 rifle cartridges in the field.
Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev was a Soviet sniper during World War II.
Urban warfare is warfare in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy. It is considered to be arguably the most difficult form of warfare.
The Order of the Red Banner was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was the highest award of Soviet Russia, subsequently the Soviet Union, until the Order of Lenin was established in 1930. Recipients were recognised for extraordinary heroism, dedication, and courage demonstrated on the battlefield. The Order was awarded to individuals as well as to military units, cities, ships, political and social organizations, and state enterprises. In later years, it was also awarded on the twentieth and again on the thirtieth anniversary of military, police, or state security service without requiring participation in combat.
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both to civilian and military persons.
Mamayev Kurgan is a dominant height overlooking the city of Volgograd in Southern Russia. The name in Russian means "tumulus of Mamai". The formation is dominated by a memorial complex commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad. The battle, a hard-fought Soviet victory over Axis forces on the Eastern Front of World War II, turned into one of the bloodiest battles in human history. At the time of its installation in 1967 the statue, named The Motherland Calls, formed the largest free-standing sculpture in the world.
Erwin König was reported to have been a German Heer Officer in the Wehrmacht the regular military of Germany or was an Officer in the Waffen-SS who was a sniper killed by the Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev during the Battle of Stalingrad. Due to the lack of any Nazi records proving the existence of König and his achievements there is some doubt as to whether he existed at all or was an invention of Soviet propaganda.
Roza Georgiyevna Shanina was a Soviet sniper during World War II who was credited with over 50 kills. Shanina volunteered for the military after the death of her brother in 1941 and chose to be a sniper on the front line. Praised for her shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of precisely hitting enemy personnel and making doublets.
The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943), a battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, often regarded as the single largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, and one of the most decisive battles of World War II, has inspired a number of media works.
War of the Rats is a World War II novel written by David L. Robbins in 1999.
Vasily Shalvovich Kvachantiradze was a top Soviet sniper during World War II. He is credited with confirmed kills numbering at least 215 officers and soldiers of the German Wehrmacht during the Vitebsk-Orsha Offensive and 542 confirmed kills total during the war.
The 10th Rifle Division 'Stalingrad' of the Order of Lenin of the Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR was a Soviet rifle division formed on 1 February 1942 prior to the Battle of Stalingrad. The 10th Rifle Division participated in heavy front-line actions which would significantly reduce its strength by the battle's end. It was under the jurisdiction of the Internal Troops of the NKVD but took strategic orders from the 62nd Army command. Later it converted into a regular Red Army division and was renamed the 181st "Order of Lenin" "Stalingrad" Rifle Division.
Frankenstein's Army is a 2013 found footage horror film directed by Richard Raaphorst, written by Chris W. Mitchell and Miguel Tejada-Flores, and starring Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse, Luke Newberry, Alexander Mercury, Robert Gwilym, Andrei Zayats, Mark Stevenson and Hon Ping Tang. An international co-production of the United States, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands, the film is set on the Eastern Front of World War II, as seen from the point of view of a Red Army team. In the film, Soviet troops invading Germany encounter undead mechanical soldiers created by a mad scientist descended from Victor Frankenstein.
The 284th Rifle Division began service as a standard Red Army rifle division shortly after the German invasion. Moved to the front soon after, it helped defend the Soviet lines west of the Ukrainian capital for more than a month, but was then destroyed in the encirclement of Kiev. A new division was formed in early 1942. It served in the early fighting against the German summer offensive of 1942 until its losses forced it to be withdrawn for rebuilding. In September it was redeployed, and played a leading role in defending the northern part of the central city and Mamayev Kurgan hill in the Battle of Stalingrad, and later in the reduction of the trapped German 6th Army during Operation Ring, for which it was raised to Guards status as the 79th Guards Rifle Division shortly after the battle ended. A third 284th was raised a few months later. It served on the quiet fronts of the Far East for most of the rest of the war before fighting briefly against the Japanese in Manchuria in August, 1945. The unit continued to serve well into the postwar period under other designations.
Semyon Danilovich Nomokonov was a Soviet sniper during World War II credited with 367 kills. An ethnic Hamnigan Evenk, Nomokonov was among the indigenous peoples of Russia who fought in the war. He received the nickname "Taiga Shaman" from enemies.
Tania Chernova was a Russian-American woman known for serving in the Red Army as a sniper during World War II. She traveled to Belarus to get her grandparents out of Russia, but upon arriving learned that German invaders had already killed them. After that, she joined the Soviet resistance on the Eastern Front, becoming an effective sniper.
Zinaida Aleksandrovna Samsonova was a senior medical service sergeant who served in the 667th Infantry Regiment of the 218th Infantry Division of the Soviet 47th Army on the Voronezh Front in World War II. Killed in action on 27 January 1944 by a German sniper while attempting to rescue a wounded Soviet soldier during the Kalinkovichi-Mozyr offensive west of Gomel, she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on 3 June 1944.
Nikolai Yakovlevich Ilyin was one of the top Soviet snipers of World War II. Awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 8 February 1943 for his first 216 kills, by the time he was killed in action later that year his tally reached 494.
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