The Impact of Snipers on the Eastern Front of World War II

                                                            Brian Brown

                                                            History 299

                                                            April 19, 2009

A single bullet can drastically alter a person’s day. If that bullet is placed in the hands of a trained sniper, it can alter the course of a month long battle. The Eastern front was one of the key battle sites of World War II and was also the location of some of the most intense sniping operations of the entire war. In this paper I will use primary and secondary sources to analyze the use and impact of snipers on morale, communication, and economy. I hypothesize that snipers made significant contributions in each of these categories for their respective sides and that they had significant effects upon the outcome of the battles they participated in.

            Morale was one of the most vital things a soldier could have. Without morale, a soldier became ineffective, skittish, and a liability to those around him. Few things in war destroy morale faster than an enemy sniper. The presence of a sniper was usually announced to enemy troops by a single shot, followed by the death of one of their comrades. This presented a problem to the remaining troops. Not only were they under fire from an enemy, but they could not see where this enemy was nor could they predict who would be the next victim. Additionally, if the sniper left, there was no way for the opposing men to know unless one of them left cover, thereby risking his life. The strain of being constantly in danger was amplified by the inability of the troops to strike back at the sniper, as well as their anger at the death of their fellow soldiers. Due to the mounting anger that standard infantry held against snipers and the outrage of the common soldier at the deaths of their friends at the hands of marksmen, snipers were not treated well if captured. A passage in Sniper on the Eastern Front describes the treatment of one captured German sniper at the hands of his Russian captors. The description was quite grisly; the German was beaten, cut with knives, and then emasculated and had his rifle jammed to the sights up his rectal cavity. Due to the abhorrent treatment of snipers by each side, snipers quickly learned to hide their guns if they were in close combat or there was a threat of being captured.

Snipers could also have a positive effect on the morale of their own side, particularly in the case of counter-sniping. There were very few ways to consistently kill an enemy sniper, and besides artillery, bringing in another sniper was one of the few options that nearly guaranteed results. The very first action of Sepp Allerberger’s sniper career was to eliminate an enemy sniper who was killing German frontline troops. His memoirs go into great detail about how the men immediately cheered up when they saw they had their own sniper to fight the Russian marksman.  When Allerberger finally eliminated the enemy, the German troops were re-invigorated and rushed out of their trenches and successfully stormed the enemy position.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Russian snipers, particularly Vassili Zaitsev, proved to be such a detriment to German morale and such a boost to the Russians that German High Command sent in their best sniper, a Major Koning, to hunt down and kill Zaitsev.  Unfortunately for the Germans, this plan backfired, and Zaitsev killed Koning, further lifting Russian morale and dropping German fighting spirit to a new low. The Battle for Stalingrad was rife with sniping on both sides; however the Russians used a tactic no other country did during the war. This tactic was the employing of female snipers on the field, which they did to great effect. By doing this, the Russian Army was able to fill their ranks further as well as raise morale of troops and civilians by reporting on the lethal effectiveness of the Soviet fighting woman. While affecting morale may have been the primary impact of snipers on the common infantry, the higher ups were more concerned with how snipers affected communication on both sides.

            Besides the obvious job of eliminating enemy soldiers, snipers also served as scouts on both sides of the war. Using their unique position as almost free lance soldiers, and their specialized equipment of scopes and camouflage, snipers were able to monitor enemy actions and troop movement. Once back on their own lines, the snipers would report back to their commanders all the pertinent information they had found while abroad. To guarantee accurate reporting and reinforce meticulous habits, many snipers kept a detailed journal on all they saw while active in the field.  Some of these journals survived the war to be published, like Vassili Zaitsev’s, and proved to be some of the best and most revealing sources about snipers. Due to snipers unique positions on the battlefield, they bore witness to some of the worst aspects of war.  Sepp Allerberger witnessed many such atrocities. Besides the many gory scenes of soldiers and their untimely fates, Allerberger also saw the horrors of what some non-combatants suffered at the hands of the Russian military. In one passage, Allerberger retells the disturbing story of a Hungarian couple who owned a restaurant that was pillaged by the Red Army. The man was tied up to a light post, and his wife was ravaged by the entire platoon of Russian soldiers and then killed. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident, and civilians all over the Eastern Front suffered at the hands of both armies. Witnessing these events helped to harden individual snipers resolve to defeat the enemy and to defend their people as well as to try and eliminate as many of the perpetrators as possible. Additionally, snipers assisted in the setting up of ambushes for enemy patrols by spotting troop movement and relaying the information to their own officers. The Russians used this to great affect as displayed by Tania Chernova’s ill-advised, yet effective attack on a German patrol.

As well as monitoring troop movement, snipers played a vital role in observing the enemies armored units as well as the location of enemy artillery. Of particular note were the commanding officers of tank and artillery units. They made prime targets for snipers; not only for their higher rank, but because of the disruption in communication it would cause if they died, particularly in the units directly under their authority. On several occasions the elimination of an officer stalled the movement of the units under him, causing the group to become ineffective on the battlefield. One such event occurred in Sniper on the Eastern Front when Sepp Allerberger eliminated the commander of a tank unit right before a large conflict broke out between the German and Russian sides. Due to the death of their commanding officer, the tanks did not enter the fight, but merely stayed back and fired ineffective shots at the Germans, before turning around and leaving the field. This ability for a sniper to make major changes on the battle field with a single bullet brings up the third aspect that snipers affected during the war, and that was economy.

            The cost of a single rifle round was insignificant when compared with the cost of training and arming a single soldier. This disparity in cost was magnified when compared with the cost to train officers and specialists in the military. Snipers had the ability and the equipment necessary to deliver a single round with lethal effectiveness to these high cost targets. On the Eastern Front of World War II, officers, machine gunners, and artillery spotters made prime targets for snipers on both sides. After the end of the war, an Austrian military periodical named Truppendeinst published an interview with the top three German snipers of the war. In conducting the interview, the snipers were asked about their strategy and tactics. In regards to the targets they selected, the snipers responded with “Usual general order: elimination of observers of the enemy’s heavy weapons and commanders, or special order, when all important or worthwhile targets were eliminated; for example, anti-tank gun positions, machine gun positions, etc. Snipers closely followed the attacking units and whenever necessary eliminated enemies who operated heavy weapons and those who were dangerous to our advance.” The logic behind this tactic was quite simple; eliminate enemies who could operate or direct large weapons towards you or your comrade’s positions. The easiest and most common casualties of this type of profiling were new officers, particularly those who had been successfully indoctrinated before leaving for the war. Both sides taught undying loyalty to their homeland, and preached that they were in the right. Additionally, many soldiers felt nearly invincible before they reached an actual battle, making them far less cautious then they should have been. Allerberger encountered one such Soviet officer leading a patrol of soldiers near his own lines. The German had mixed emotions due to the obvious youth and inexperience of the officer, but could not allow the patrol to continue on. Allerberger shot and killed the officer, as well as two more of his men who tried to retrieve the body. Due to the overwhelming disparity in economy that snipers represented, as well as their ability to eliminate threats to their own infantry, snipers were some of the best equipped units on either side. Additionally, snipers were able to operate almost independently, usually relying only on a fellow sniper or soldier to spot for them, which was in stark contrast to the units and platoons standard soldiers were organized into and operated with. The simple advantage represented by the cost of a single bullet eliminating the invested time and money put into the training and outfitting of an enemy soldier, or better yet an officer or specialist, was one of the key reasons why snipers were so highly valued and widely used on the Eastern Front.

            In regards to the historiography on snipers on the Eastern Front of World War II, the available material was rather lacking. The best secondary source I was able to find was Peter Senich’s The German Sniper 1914-1945, which detailed the history of sniping in Germany and contained an excellent interview with three of the best German snipers of the Eastern Front. Two additional secondary sources, William Craig’s Enemy at the Gates and Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad, both touched on snipers, but did not go into any real detail about them and were also limited to the Russian snipers who participated in the battle of Stalingrad. I had to use primary sources for the bulk of my information, which thankfully worked out well. Albrecht Wacker’s Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight’s Cross was by far the best source I had due to its depth of analysis and the amount of information it contained.

            Snipers played a vital role on the Eastern Front of World War II. They were essential in spotting troop movement, eliminating enemy officers and specialists, as well as raising their own troop’s morale as they simultaneously lowered the enemies. Further studies could and should be done in regards to individual sniper behavior, general tendencies unique to each side’s marksmen, and the effect that sniping can have upon the human psyche of snipers and infantry alike. I believe that I have shown the importance of snipers and their heavy impact upon the Eastern Front through this paper, proving my hypothesis that snipers had a significant effect upon the battles in which they fought.

Pledge: Brian Brown

(England, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2005) 119.

Ibid., 28.

Ibid., 14-16.

William Craig, Enemy at the Gates (New York, New York: Reader’s

Digest Press, 1973) 121.

[5]Ibid., 130.

Female snipers played a significant role in the War on the Eastern Front. The Russians use of women surprised the German soldiers and gave the Soviets an additional pool of recruits which helped them eventually overwhelm the Germans. For more information on female snipers see: Jean K. Cottam, “Soviet Women in Combat in World War II: The Ground Forces and the Navy.” International Journal of Women’s Studies, no. 3 (1980): 345-357. As well as: John Erickson, “Night Witches, Snipers and Laundresses.” History Today, no. 40 (July) (1990): 29-35. And also: E.M. Tenney, “Mrs. Roosevelt, the Russian sniper, and me.” American Heritage, no. 43 (1992): 28.

[7]Robert W. Thurston and Bernd Bonwetsch, I The People’s War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (Chicago: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 2000) 220, 221.

[8]Albercht Wacker, Sniper on the Eastern Front, 35-37.

[9]Vassili Zaitsev, Notes of a Sniper: Vassili Zaitsev’s Account of the battle of Stalingrad (Las Angeles: U.S. Publishers, 2003).

Albercht Wacker, Sniper on the Eastern Front, 142-144.

[11]Civilians played a crucial role on each side of the conflict. Many Russian citizens were pressed into battle, and most citizens of each country were vital to the war effort. For more information on civilians on the Russian side during World War II see: Robert W. Thurston and Bernd Bonwetsch, I The People’s War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (Chicago: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 2000).

[12]William Craig, Enemy at the Gates, 145-146.

[13] Albercht Wacker, Sniper on the Eastern Front, 21.

[14]Peter R. Senich, . The German Sniper 1914-1945  (Boulder Colorado: Paladin Press, 1982) 117.

[15]Ibid.

[16]Albercht Wacker, Sniper on the Eastern Front, 22-23.

[17]Antony Beevor, Stalingrad (New York, New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998) 285.

[18] Peter R. Senich, . The German Sniper, 117.

                                                            Bibliography                                                    

Primary Sources

-Books

Keitel, Willhelm. In the Service of the Reich. Edited by Walter Gorlitz. Translated by David Irving. London: Focal Point Publications, 2003.

Bidermann, Gottlob H, and Derek S. Zumbro. In Deadly Combat: a German Soldier’s Memoir of the Eastern Front. Lawrence Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Wacker, Albrecht. Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight’s Cross. South Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword Books, 2008.

Zaitsev, Vassili. Notes of a Sniper: Vassili Zaitsev’s Account of the battle of Stalingrad. Las Angeles: U.S. Publishers, 2003.

Secondary Sources

-Books

Bartov, Omer. The Eastern Front, 1941-1945, German Troops and the Barbarisation of    Warfare. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad. New York, New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998.

Craig, William. Enemy at the Gates. New York, New York: Reader’s

Digest Press, 1973.

Bidermann, Gottlob, Herbert. In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier’s Memoir of the Eastern Front. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Erickson, John. The Road to Stalingrad. New York, New York: Harper and

Row Publishers Inc., 1975.

Haskew, Michael E. The Sniper At War From the American Revolutionary War to the Present Day. London, England: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005

Hoyt, Edwin. 199 Days the Battle for Stalingrad. New York, New

York: Tom Doherty Associates Inc., 1993.

Kerr, Walter. The Russian Army: Its Men, its Leaders, and its Battles. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1944.

Roberts, Geoffrey. Victory at Stalingrad. London, England: Pearson

Education Limited, 2002.

Rotundo, Louis. Battle for Stalingrad: the 1943 Soviet General Staff Study. Elmsford, New York: Pergamon-Brassey’s International

Defense Publishers Inc., 1989.

Sajer, Guy. The Forgotten Soldier. New York, New York: Harper and

Row Publishers Inc., 1967.

Senich, Peter R. The German Sniper 1914-1945. Boulder Colorado: Paladin Press, 1982.

Thurston, Robert W., and Bernd Bonwetsch. I The People’s War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union. Chicago: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 2000.

-Journals

Cottam, Jean, K. “Soviet Women in Combat in World War II: The Ground Forces and the Navy.” International Journal of Women’s Studies, no. 3 (1980): 345-357.

Erickson, John. “Night Witches, Snipers and Laundresses.” History Today, no. 40 (July) (1990): 29-35.

Tenney, E.M.. “Mrs. Roosevelt, the Russian sniper, and me.” American Heritage, no. 43 (1992): 28.

-Websites

Bruner, Thomas. “Sniper History- Vassili Zaitsev ‘Enemy At The Gates’ The True              Story.” Sniper’s Paradise. http://www.snipersparadise.com/history/vasili.htm (accessed January 30, 2009)

Daryl2007. “World War II Snipers.” Hub Pages. http://hubpages.com/hub/World-War-II-Snipers_strategies (accessed January 30, 2009)

Yoder, Mike. “Rattenkrieg.” Military History Online. http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/stalingrad/rattenkrieg.aspx (accessed January 30, 2009)

                                                                                                            Brian Brown

                                                                                                Annotated Bibliography

                                                                                                            2/16/09

                                                                                                            Hist 299

                                                Annotated Bibliography

Kerr, Walter. The Russian Army: Its Men, its Leaders, and its Battles. New York: Alfred       A Knopf, 1944.  One of the oldest sources I have found, this book goes into detail about the general makeup of the Russian army during World War II.  It contains information on all aspects of several of the major Russian battles of the war and talks about many divisions of the military. In particular, it has information on the utilization of snipers by the Russians which I will use for my project.

Craig, William. Enemy at the Gates. New York, New York: Reader’s

Digest Press, 1973.   This book is an excellent source that goes into great detail about the battle for Stalingrad.  It illustrates the fight from both sides and explains the actions of the leading generals for both sides.  In addition, it details several stories about snipers from the Soviet side.

Hoyt, Edwin. 199 Days the Battle for Stalingrad. New York, New

York: Tom Doherty Associates Inc., 1993. This source analyzes and relates the battle for Stalingrad. It summarizes early military operations leading up to the battle, and goes into great detail about the battle itself.  Additionally, it contains information on two individual Russian snipers which I plan to use for my project.

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad. New York, New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998. This source details many aspects of the battle for Stalingrad.  It has information from both sides of the fight and from different sectors of each military.  This source also has information on many individual Soviet snipers and their contributions to the battle.

Roberts, Geoffrey. Victory at Stalingrad. London, England: Pearson

Education Limited, 2002. This book is more of an introductory guide to the battle of Stalingrad. It still contains excellent information and is laid out very well.  It has information on Soviet snipers as well as the leading journalist who printed their exploits.

-Brian Brown