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was there a Major König?

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#5835

was there a Major König?

Was there ever a Major König like in Enemy at the Gates?

I was doing some research about snipers in the eastern front and i found a ton of info about Vasily Zaytsev, but nothing on his opponent. Can anyone please help.

Heinz Thorvald was an alleged apocryphal, yet famous, German sniper, best known from the memoirs of Vasily Zaytsev, he was a skilled sniper that Vasily killed during the Battle of Stalingrad. He was apparently identified by documents from his body, Vasily Zaytsev in his memoirs "Notes of a sniper" claimed the duel took place over a period of some 3 days, Zaytsev in his memoirs identifies the sniper as Major Herr Koning-head of the Berlin Sniper School, although the Germans had no records of Heinz Thorvald.

Well allegedly he was some high ranking officer and had hundreds of kills, as many as 400, the amount of exaggeration is indeterminate.

Thorvald's existence is itself unconfirmed, so it is currently unknown if the duel took place. And as i said i cant find any information on this guy. Does anyone have an idea if this was propaganda or what?

Top sniper names i found was

Matthias Hetzenauer (Nazi Germany)
Josef 'Sepp' Allerberger (Nazi Germany)
Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Soviet Red Army)

Last edited May 7, 2009 at 8:09 PM by HostileAmerican

#5864

Re: was there a Major König?

the wikipedia entry is pretty conclusive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_K%C3%B6nig

saying he was pretty much made up, but your phrasing suggests you have already read that so yeah...
#7004

Re: was there a Major König?

I think he's probably real, maybe a dedicated Nazi when after he died his records were destroyed as Soviets were closing in to save his family. If he's mentioned in Vasili's memiors there must be something to the man
#7005

Re: was there a Major König?

This Discussion was still in another Forum, but the end was -> He is not real.
He should got a Ritterkreuz? But he doesnt appears in the list of the Ritterkreuz.



Mystic
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#7017

Re: was there a Major König?

Anthony beevor did quite a lot of research on snipers in Stalingrad- a good book...

Zaitsev took a german rifle which he claimed Was koënig's which is on display in the Russian armed forces museum- still not real proof of His existence though
Za Chest Gvardii!