- Erwin König
Heinz Thorvald (died c. 1942) was an alleged , yet famous, German sniper, best known from the memoirs of Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev and the book Enemy at the Gates (not to be confused with the movie mentioned below) as a skilled sniper that Vasily killed during the
Battle of Stalingrad . He was apparently identified by documents from his body, although the Germans had no records of Heinz Thorvald. Allegedly he was a high ranking officer and had hundreds of kills, as many as 400, the amount of exaggeration is indeterminate. This "sniper duel" was used by theSoviets forpropaganda purposes. Thorvald's existence is itself unconfirmed, so it is currently unknown if the "duel" took place.Fictional representations
A fictionalized account in the movie "
Enemy at the Gates " portrays Heinz Thorvald (under the name of Erwin König), played byEd Harris , as the head of the Wehrmacht Sniper School. He is sent to Stalingrad to take on the increasingly aggressive Soviet sniper division. In this, he is at first highly successful. He is depicted as a ruthless, somewhat aristocraticBavarian , pitted againstVasily Zaytsev , the top Russian sniper and propaganda darling. In the film, König is killed at the Stalingrad train yard after Zaytsev fires aMosin-Nagant (7.62x54R ) bullet through the German's left eye.The name Heinz Thorvald was arrogated by author David L. Robbins in his 1999 novel "
War of the Rats ", although he argues that Thorvald was an SS colonel (Standartenführer ), and was originally an instructor at theWehrmacht underground headquarters inZossen . However, no records of the SS ever being inStalingrad have been found, and no active sniper was ever given a rank so high, as snipers in the German Army were not employed in formed units of snipers, but were rather deployed in small groups. The Red Army, conversely, deployed snipers in units as large as a battalion, and Vasily himself was aJunior Lieutenant and eventuallyCaptain .External links
* [http://www.snipercentral.com/konig.htm Sniper Central - Thorvald and/or Konig]
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