1. At the beginning of the movie with the young Zaitsev with his grandfather, the scene is a work of fiction. Although Zaitsev spent his youth with his grandparents he only killed a wolf once(he was 14) while trapping rabbits with his cousin, Zaitsev saw eyes in the distance in the darkness and fired with his hunting rifle, hours later they found a dead wolf.
2. The movie labels him as an "un-educated peasant"(or herder/rancher) which is not true, at the age of 17(1932) he moved to the city of Magnitogorsk and began working at an industrial construction site. In this city he attended a Technical School where he got a degree in book-keeping.
3. The map at the beginning shows an un-realistic map of Europe during WW2 with the the Soviet Union having modern day Russian border missing a large chunk of its territory. Italy was never conquered by Germany, much of Eastern Europe were Axis Allies.
4. He was not a "conscript" either. At the age of 21(1936) he was drafted into the Soviet Navy, where he became a clerk in a Navy office. By 1942 he had a senior NCO rank (Rank equal to Senior Sergeant I think Staff Sergeant in US Military) and 6 years of service with the Navy in the city of Vladivostok(Russian Far East city on the Pacific Ocean). In May of that year the main Black Sea Fleet base of Sevastopol was abandoned after 7 months of siege. Many sailors including Zaitsev wanted to get into the fight and get revenge for Sevastopol. In June 1942 there was a call for Volunteers for a Marine Battalion to join the 1047th Rifle Regiment of the 284th Rifle Division, Zaitsev reported to his commanding officer and requested re-assignment to the new Battalion. His commander said that he might be too short to be a Marine but granted his request. In July the Battalion went through Army training(where AND THIS IS KEY Everyone learned how to fire a rifle with accuracy, clean a rifle, and survival skills). In August the 27 year old Zaitsev was mobilized to head West.
5. Then there is the scene with "soldiers"(pseudo-soldiers) heading to the Front in a train full of civilians, then the train is stopped, the civilians are removed and the train (cattle) car doors are locked shut. Now that is absolute nonsense. There were no civilians heading in the direction of the enemy on Military trains(especially not on Military trains), the flow of Refugees was 95% of the time to the East, while troops would head to the West. There was also no locking of any train cars, both officers and soldiers rode in the same train car.
Zaitsev did indeed go to Stalingrad on a train, but it had no civilians on it. The only women he saw on the train were Army nurses and medics, one caught his attention. She was not Tatiana Chernova. Days before arriving near Stalingrad Zaitsev's Platoon was instructed on how to use a Maxim machinegun, the standard Medium to Heavy Machinegun in the Red Army at the time. Then on September 19th they arrived about 10km East of Stalingrad and were off loaded near a road because there was a threat of German bomber attack if they went any closer. They marched on foot in full combat gear with weapons until trucks became available to drive them to the town of Krasnaya Sloboda across from Stalingrad where they underwent further urban combat training.
6. The scene where they arrive at Stalingrad by train is therefore also fiction. The whole guy waving flag and yelling through a megaphone looked very stupid, in reality they would have made the perfect bomber target. Such a disorganized structure would have never won a single battle. There were officers assigned to each unit, the unit trained with the same officer since boot camp. The structure was the same as in any Army, the Major communicated his order to his Captains, who communicated the order to the Lieutenants, who would issue orders to the Sergeants below them who would order their soldiers to carry out the order. The only time officers used megaphones or microphones to address troops was when they were gathered together outside of battle not in battle.
On September 21st Zaitsev assumed his role and led a Squad of troops into a wooded area across from the city of Stalingrad and took cover here until night. Most of his Battalion took up positions near the Volga river. At night wounded were brought over from the opposite side and transported to nearby field hospitals. On the morning of September 22nd barges and rowboats became available and the 284th Rifle Division crossed the Volga river before sunrise. There were no attacks on the crossing that night even though German howitzers could do that and had attacked previous crossings several nights before.
This means the crossing in the movie is also fiction and somewhat suicidal.
7. This movie caused a lot of confusion and misunderstanding as far as ranks and titles are concerned. The term "Commissar" was not a title, it was a rank, in the Red Army it had been used since the Russian Civil War(1917-21) as a Senior Officer rank. But it also had an adjective describing the authority of the officer. Battalion Commissar meant the officer was equal to a Major, Regiment Commissar meant the officer was equal to a Lieutenant Colonel, and so on, the highest rank of a "Commissar" could have was Corps Commissar, this rank was rare and completely abolished by 1939, replaced by a rank of "General", before 1939 the highest ranks were Komandarm 1st class etc and Marshal. Komandarm was simply Commander of a (Field) Army, Marshal was the highest possible officer rank somebody could have. Commissars were the primary officers (not political officers) in the Red Army up to 1939. Before 1939 officers below the rank of Commissar were normal ranks(commander of a Company and commander of a Platoon) and a rank of a Political Supervisor or Politruk, this rank required both officer training and Communist Party member status for political indoctrination. Politruks were equal in rank to a Lieutenant, usually Junior Grade to Senior Politruk(could command a Company). In the 1939 this system was abandoned, replaced by a more common system of Majors, Colonels, and Generals. The term "Commissar" became an Executive Officer rank from that year on. Lieutenants replaced "Platoon Commanders" and Politruks became 2nd in command. Commissars never "personally" ordered any soldiers around as shown in the movie, as I already mentioned. NCO's would order around the Privates, the highest ranking NCO was the Starshina (equal to Master Sergeant or Sergeant Major), to be a Starshina you had to be a Veteran of many years of service, just any idiot would not do.
The above information has to be mentioned before any more mistakes can be listed.
8. So the suicidal crossing scene is fiction as I mentioned. So are the depictions of sadistic "pseudo-officers" who in the movie go around being called generic "Commissars" and "Political Officers" which don't really mean anything.
During the morning of September 22nd 1942 troops of the 284th Rifle Division crossed the Volga river under the cover of darkness, each men knew as soon as he set off for Stalingrad that deserters(and I mean REAL deserters not people who retreat) would be punished and faced possible execution under Order 227. Nobody even thought about jumping overboard into the river knowing full well that he/she would drown as soon as he/she did because of the equipment carried by the soldiers.
Was night crossing always the preferred form of moving across the Volga? No when necessary day crossings were made with small amounts of fast patrol boats, but this was rare as the battle went on.
9. The Ju-87 Stukas attack in broad daylight and there is not even a hint of anti-aircraft weapons or an Air Force on the Soviet side(another mistake, as there were 100's of air battles over the Stalingrad sky with Soviet fighters against German fighters and bombers). One female Soviet ace Lidya Litvyak flew Yak-1 and La-5 fighter planes over Stalingrad.
10. When the boat arrives at the dock the really absurd events start taking place. Yet again no organization. And then the writers decided to get "creative" and start rationing rifles. Really how the hell did we ever win the Battle of Moscow in 1941 with "One man gets a rifle, the next man 5 rounds of ammunition"? Of course the most stupid scene that is connected to this one comes several minutes later when Danilov asks Zaitsev: "Do you know how to shoot a rifle?". The next statement a viewer should make is: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THE ARMY IF YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SHOOT A RIFLE!?!". And this is true, it makes no sense. Every Regular Army in the world teaches their soldiers how to shoot their weapon, there is no Army that "skips" this vital part of training their soldiers. So when the writers invent their own rules and "suggest" that these "pseudo-soldiers" never saw a rifle in their lives this made a lot of people(Russian WW2 Veterans) angry. Then they are not soldiers, just people wearing Army caps and Winter coats in the month of September. What could civilians without training accomplish in battle, nothing! It takes experience for civilians to become soldiers. And the writers seem to not know this.
No Regular Army in the world has a practice of issuing weapons to its troops just seconds before they enter battle. Weapons are issued as I said before after training and distributed long before entering combat. Nobody in their right mind would set up arms distribution in the middle of a battle under enemy bomber attack. And no, weapons rationing did not happen in Stalingrad, especially with the bolt action rifles, there were millions of them lying around since WW1. Even civilian volunteers who wanted to fight could expect to at least get an old WW1 period rifle.
The "Pseudo-soldiers" in Army winter coats run up the river bank and suddenly in between them "soldiers" wearing actual combat gear materialize. I have no idea where they came from. But the scene seems to suggest there was a caste system in the Red Army or something, because the "soldiers" have weapons and helmets and don't appear the same as the "pseudo-soldiers". There are also "soldiers" firing sub-machineguns at aircraft with no hope of hitting them since they are out of range. There were no "upper class" soldiers. A soldier was a soldier, only Penal Companies or Battalions had soldiers who were considered less important and did not even wear any kind of insignia. This was because these were made up of deserters and prisoners not regular soldiers.
11. The next scene is of a handful of idiots with some of the ugliest faces I have ever seen wearing what appear to be officer insignia, although the leader had insignia of a Senior Lieutenant and the guy behind him had insignia of a Major. But if they were supposed to be a Politruk and a Battalion Commissar then I have to say their uniforms were those of regular infantrymen. High ranking officers wore chevrons on their sleeves and had yellow or dark red outlines on their insignia patch.
These "officers" give no formal orders, no information on the enemy, do not set any objectives that need to be completed. They just make threats and throw unarmed troops at an enemy that is already waiting for them. There is no hope of victory in such a situation. Of course the "attack" is a failure. One could expect nothing else from a "mob" of untrained unarmed "pseudo-soldiers" who have no idea what they are doing.
I will describe what really happened later, but I want to finish this scene first.
What next? But of course the "reinforcements" who have been shipped halfway across the country need to be gunned down for what? Falling back from a failed attack? Did the writers seriously think that EVERYONE who tried to take cover from enemy fire was gunned down by some insane death squads? So what would stop the enemy counter-attack? If the situation continued as it is shown in the movie then the Germans who had just massed in this nameless Square would have continued moving forward, 1 machinegun and a handful of sub-machineguns and revolvers would have done nothing to the armor of German Pz. III tanks and half-tracks, the Germans would have rolled over them in seconds and continued on to the river where no significant resistance existed, and the next scene would have been of how the Germans won the battle, end of story. The simple fact is, nothing shown in the movie would have stopped the 6th Army from winning the battle.
Ah but people will defend the writers claiming "Stalin ordered everyone who retreats shot" and this is a distortion of fact. Stalin ordered deserters punished, but who was a deserter? Somebody who abandoned their assigned position in battle, the position he/she was to defend and hold against enemy attack, abandoned weapons and material as well as their comrades to the enemy. Nothing was said about retreating from attacks. Stalin held officers responsible for failures of their soldiers. And for the most part real deserters received minimum punishment while others were sent to Penal Companies and officers could find themselves in a Penal Battalion. Executions of deserters and traitors were rare. In about 3 months during the most important period of the battle 265 people were executed from the whole Stalingrad Front where there were 100,000's of soldiers deployed.
This is the account of Zaitsev's first combat experience, I am paraphrasing it from his Memoirs.
On the morning of September 22nd 1942 Zaitsev got off a barge with his Company on the docks of the Krasniy Oktyabir(Red October) Industrial District, northeast of Stalingrad city. He was armed with a PPSh-41 sub-machinegun not a Mosin Model 1891/30 bolt action rifle, this is what he was trained with and this is what he was issued after training. He was in an Assault Platoon, automatic weapons were standard issue for these units. German troops(Light Infantry) were advancing towards the Volga river and had occupied several multi-story buildings of a factory near Mamayev hill(the highest point near the city) and had a perfect view of the river bank, this meant they could direct artillery and air strikes onto exposed Soviet troops. Zaitsev's Battalion(2nd Battalion 1047th Rifle Regiment) was ordered to capture these buildings and hold them against counter attack. The attack began when Soviet Artillery BM-13 Artillery Rocket Launchers(called "Katushas" by Russian soldiers, a term now frequently misused) fired a salvo of rockets onto German positions to cover the advance.
They had to bypass a fuel oil storage depot to attack their enemy from the side(see photograph for reference). But, the enemy saw them and called in fighter-bombers that dropped incendiary bombs that started quite a few fires, some soldiers(no specific number given) were seriously burned, most of the Battalion got through before the bombs fell and prolonged house to house fighting began(Zaitsev says his Squad had to defeat a German machinegun nest by 1. suppressive fire and 2. grenades). It was quite a mess, for example: the first floor was captured but the basement and upper floors remained in enemy hands. More than once soldiers had to use bayonets and rifle butts to fight in close quarters combat. Casualties were high and when the basement was captured it had to be turned into a field hospital, Zaitsev claimed he strangled a German soldier to death when ran into him in a dark room. Fighting in dark rooms and hallways (littered with debris from bombs) of an industrial building involved using voice recognition to determine friend from foe and grenades to clear out rooms and hallways held by the enemy. At this point Zaitsev developed a favorable opinion of his PPSh and made sure to have one around for the rest of the battle. It took a week of fighting to reduce Zaitsev's Battalion from more than 700 men to 80-90 men left in fighting condition, they held residential buildings, offices, and machine shops in a Metal Processing Plant.
(Aerial photo of battle scene possibly weeks after the battle began)
http://stalingrad-game.ru/index.php?typ ... age_id=246 12. In the movie none of the above happened. Zaitsev's whole unit(just a mass of pseudo-soldiers) is 99% wiped out in minutes by German fire and of course the death squads of "evil political officers". The "officers" don't even try to outflank the enemy, they just send all the reinforcements at enemy machineguns, like this is the first time they had ever seen battle or commanded soldiers. "Somehow" Zaitsev survives without a weapon, strange with all those dead bodies lying around there seems to be no rifles of any kind among them.
13. The massed German troops disappear, as if they got tired of killing enemy troops and no longer wanted to push forward towards the Volga river with their overwhelming firepower and numbers and win the battle. Only a handful of Germans are left and they use Danilov's car as target practice. It seemed like he was driving from the German occupied zone. What was he doing there in the first place? He ends up in the fountain of Dancing Children(re-created with the wrong number of figures) surrounded by corpses of pseudo-soldiers and not a single dead German in sight. He finds a rifle, Zaitsev the "Sheep herder from the East" could not, but he does. Zaitsev loads the weapon with the 5 rounds of ammunition and gives it to an officer(also not very appropriate designation), and as I mentioned before Danilov asks Zaitsev "Do you know how to shoot a rifle?". Zaitsev answers "a little" or something like that. I have already covered the absurd nature of this dialogue and how it was obviously written by somebody who has no idea how Armies work. Zaitsev gets the rifle and of course eliminates the 4 German officers preparing to take a shower in the middle of a battlefield(as this is obviously the best place to do it) and also kills a German soldier who was arming a Model 24 Stiehlhandgranate to throw at Zaitsev who was no more than 5 meters away maximum and the German soldier had an MP-40 sub-machinegun!
In the Russian version of this movie Danilov introduces himself as a Senior Political Officer of the "21st Infantry Company", in the English version he just says "21st". Here is the problem, a "Company" is a sub-unit of a Battalion. A Battalion normally has between 3 to 9 Companies. There never was a single Battalion with 21 Companies. So this is wrong from the start. If he was from an "Independent Company" there may have been an excuse for this mistake, but there is none. The next problem is Danilov's rank. It is more like the lack of one, even though he has Senior Lieutenant insignia on his collar. Where is this "Infantry" Company he is supposed to be commanding? None is ever shown, nobody else from this incorrect 21st Company is mentioned in the movie, this seems like a part of the story the writers decided to abandon right away without developing it or giving an explanation. How did Danilov become an officer? He obviously has little to no officer experience, and yet he is not a Junior officer but a Senior one! It was never a practice in the Red Army to give out ranks at random. Poor leadership had harsh consequences, including execution. His Company is AWOL, he has no side arm even though he is an officer(or at least he appears to be). What is he? From appearances a Newspaper Editor not a Rifle(correct designation) Company Officer. Officers attended various Military Schools like the Frunze Academy in those years, they would learn how to command a unit and operate in combat, these were the basics. Danilov does not even know the basics, he would never be issued an officer's uniform, he is not even fit to be a messenger.
Following the introduction Danilov says Zaitsev will be moved to the "Sniper Division". Another moment in Military Doctrine ignorance by the writers. A whole Division of Snipers would serve no purpose, they would be at a severe dis-advantage in close quarters house to house combat and against tanks. Snipers assist other units, they do not fight as the "primary"(majority) force in a Division. It would make no sense to maintain a Sniper Division because a. it lacks anti-aircraft firepower and b. it lacks large anti-tank weapons. Snipers are most effective when they operate in Teams and Groups attached to other units, a Combined Arms Force is the best choice for urban warfare. Snipers would eliminate Machinegun nests allowing units of 10-20 soldiers in Assault groups to advance and capture enemy held buildings. If the enemy brought in artillery spotters or crew served weapons it would be the job of the Snipers to eliminate them from a long distance. At the same time the Wehrmacht frequently used "Designated Marksmen"(Scharfshutzen) in Infantry Platoons and such to cover their troops and eliminate Soviet Snipers. Snipers could operate in units of around 16 men but rarely had more than that(the real Zaitsev pioneered the tactic of using large groups of specialized Snipers). The Sniper is a master of camouflage and accurate shots, large numbers of Snipers are not needed.
Following all this Danilov and Zaitsev SOMEHOW get back to their own lines without being shot! Remember the absurd logic of shooting all of your own soldiers who fall back from the battlefield? Danilov and Zaitsev "magically" teleport to some kind of print shop later on safely behind their own lines.
14. The next chronological scene is the arrival of Khruschev in Stalingrad. Another winner in the contest to re-write history. The real Khruschev, the bureaucrat, never actually stepped foot inside Stalingrad when it was a warzone. He was not an officer and he never commanded any real troops. He had good organization skills and he helped organize the evacuation of civilians from the city as well as other events a bureaucrat is useful for. As soon as Khruschev in the movie steps off of the boat the writer's fantasy takes over. For some odd and retarded reason the civilians are told "Comrade Stalin has forbid any civilians to leave the city", why? So they could get massacred? Please, the city was evacuated in August 1942, almost 1 month before the Axis arrived in the city, the Luftwaffe began bombing the city in early August and yes there were high civilian casualties, but 90% of the people in the city were transported to the other side of the Volga river and sent to places where they could be useful. Stalingrad was an Industrial city, its population was made up of highly skilled workers and engineers, they were valuable to the War Effort and would be sent to factories in the Ural mountains to supply the Army with weapons and other supplies. Factories don't work by themselves, they need people to work in them. The Movie's twisted logic of threatening civilians and condemning them to death has nothing to back it up. Civilians from Stalingrad would be shipped by the 1,000 to Factories behind the Frontline. Anti-communist rhetoric takes the place of the truth in these scenes.
15. Kruschev is shown wearing winter clothing in September, he would be sweating rivers if he tried to do the same in the real Stalingrad in September. Soldiers keep materializing in these scenes even though reinforcements are massacred(according to the film). He arrives in some kind of Command Bunker, where an idiot General is seen crying and begging for forgiveness or something. He is a 3 star General, in Stalingrad he would be a Field Army Commander. He says something like "I sent all my boys in...but the Germans have tanks, artillery, and planes". That is great, BUT SO DID THE RED ARMY. Ever hear of the T-34? Ever hear of Ivan Kozhedub, the Allies Top Fighter Ace? So if he sent in all his men to die, who is holding back the German advance? I think that is a good question. The idiot General is given a TT-33 pistol by the movie Khruschev and he uses it to kill himself.
The movie idiot General never existed. He is a work of fiction. I can't believe the writers never did any research into the commanders at the battle of Stalingrad! They were far from cowards and morons depicted in the film. The Field Army in the city of Stalingrad was the 62nd Army. It started its service as the 7th Reserve Army formed from fresh Reserve units in July 1942. It was in the reserve of South-Western Front commander 4 star General Andrei Yeremenko, who went on to become Marshal in the Soviet Army when WW2 ended. As the Axis advanced on the city(in August) Yeremenko promoted 3 star General Vasily Chuikov to the position of organizing the defense of Stalingrad(mainly on the advise of Army[5 star] General Giorgi Zhukov the un-official Red Army Commander in Chief). Chuikov had been serving as the commander of the 64th Army, which had been fighting the German 6th Army since it had crossed over the Don river to the west of Stalingrad. Chuikov was a specialist in urban warfare, he had served in Spain and had been an advisor to Chiang Kai-Shek's National Revolutionary Army which had been fighting and holding back the Japanese Army in China with nothing more than rifles and Molotov cocktails, he knew how to improvise and defeat a stronger opponent.
Chuikov moved to Stalingrad and a General Abramov took command of the 64th Army which dug in south of Stalingrad. The 7th Reseve Army was renamed the 62nd Army and began to build up defenses around and inside the city. The city had been bombed repeatedly by the Luftwaffe and Chuikov had to improvise Anti-Aircraft units formed from volunteers including local police forces these were issued a variety of heavy Flak guns and heavy Machineguns. The population was evacuated and he had little time to build up strong points outside the city. The defenses outside of the city were then just simple trenches and fox holes and were meant only to delay the advancing Axis forces. Rather than crowd the city with heavy equipment Chuikov decided that most of the heavy artillery(which the Red Army did possess) should be moved across the Volga river to the opposite side where it would form a line of batteries that would support the troops in the city. The fire of the heavy artillery was concentrated on choke points and bottle necks in the streets of Stalingrad where German tanks and vehicles would get stuck and could be destroyed. Tanks were not available in large supply to the 62nd Army, so those that were available were used to support infantry attacks or were transferred to Tank Brigades and Cavalry units outside of the city. Chuikov then set up a network of Anti-tank Guns and Mortars to support the troops inside the city where heavy artillery could not be used.
The German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army advanced into the city at the cost of heavy losses. Advancing German Infantry Battalions suffered 80% casualties. But the Axis troops had numerical advantage and had 100,000 troops to Chuikov's roughly 60,000(losing men every minute). He had to organize reinforcements if his 62nd Army was to hold out. So as the Axis began taking the city on September 14th 1942, Chuikov began sending reinforcements over the Volga river either at night or under cover of a smokescreen. Also at the same time he pushed for the construction of airfields near Stalingrad so he could have 24 hour fighter and bomber support. In late September Soviet Night Bomber Air Regiments began hitting Axis Supply dumps, Airfields, Camps, and Troop concentrations near Stalingrad. The raids were effective and the Germans and their Allies began to expend great resources to build up Flak traps near their bases. The battle quickly became one of controlling floors of buildings and less like Blitzkrieg and this was the beginning of the end for the Axis at Stalingrad.
The movie scenario looks nothing like the above. The idiot General acted nothing like Chuikov. And Chuikov commanded the battle in the city, there was no Khruschev there.
16. The movie Kruschev pretty much orders the ONLY (un-named) Field Army commander with any potential combat experience in the city of Stalingrad to shoot himself. Now lacking a commanding General he walks out into a room filled with a mass of fat, ugly, and incompetent people dressed in officer's uniforms. Some of these "political officers" look like they ate all the rations set aside for a month in 1 day, it is a mystery how they managed to get so fat in wartime. Anyway Khruschev gives them a "motivational" speech about soldiers "sh*tting their pants" and such. He wants these idiots to tell him how to win the battle, because you know after having won the Battle of Moscow a year earlier they would obviously not know any strategies of winning this battle. An insane anonymous "military genius"(which the movie is filled with) suggests killing family members of soldiers who retreat. Great idea! That should really help Nazi Germany to even out the odds that are currently 3 to 1 against it. The only marginally reasonable leader in the room(of course Khruschev because all other Russians are murderous incompetent psychopaths as this movie suggests) does not like the "plan". Ah but there is at least one other voice of reason, and this is our friend "Commissar" Danilov. He has a "brilliant" idea! How about we promote our soldiers as heroes? Oh my god that is great idea, why didn't we think of it before in the 2 years the war has been raging? Uh well we did, just the movie writers never bothered to read any history. Such as the stories of Soviet pilots flying their planes into German bombers from 1941. Or similar stories such as the one about the 28 "Panfilovtsi" who in the heroic story destroyed a tank for every man in the unit using Anti-tank grenades and Molotov cocktails and never surrendered each dying in the battle, again from 1941, a year before Stalingrad.
The idea of promoting heroes does not require somebody to be a genius to think of it. But it seems every "Russian" but Danilov in the film has an IQ of 25. And many people take this idiotic display of "officers" as fact. These idiots would have been shot for incompetence a long time before this battle started. Khruschev asks Danilov if he knows any heroes? In the course of 2 years of war no heroes materialized? Do these people have any belief in what they are fighting for? Is there something else but brutality on the minds of these "political officers"?
Obviously not, as this movie tries to claim. But the reality was so much different. Soviet citizens had been sacrificing themselves for some "greater good" since the war began. The city of Leningrad was starved and bombed each and every day for nearly 900 days, yet it never surrendered, it never gave up. Obviously its besieged citizens believed in something if they continued to work and fight during starvation. The city was cut off from the rest of the country by a Nazi encirclement around the city, there was little hope of victory in the first year, but people refused to give in. To suggest that in the fall of 1942 there were no "heroes" to look up to for the Soviet citizen is just plain stupid. Also, just because you promote heroes does not mean you will win the war. You need something to back up those heroes.
17. So Zaitsev is promoted to "hero" status. Simply because he killed 5 enemy soldiers. What are the writers suggesting? That the Wehrmacht had suffered no casualties before this? I think the 1 million + dead Axis troops since June 1941 would disagree. Now that he is a "hero" he has a personal "agent" just like a movie star, because "agents" are more important than competent officers I guess the movie writers are saying. And no doubt as soon as Zaitsev is told the "good news", told because he apparently can't read(after 3 years of a College Education according to the real Zaitsev), Zaitsev and Danilov celebrate that they will be "famous"! Fame is what soldiers fight for. Not to protect their wife/girlfriend/husband/children/mother/father etc, not to protect their homes, not for patriotism, no for Fame! Because apparently being famous and making a lot of money is the only important thing one thinks about during wartime.
Zaitsev and Danilov meet in an "intact" Newspaper printshop in the middle of bombed out Stalingrad. Because it is smart to run a printshop surrounded by the enemy. And of course it is much easier to get paper and ink for a printshop in wartime then it is to get enough rifles and ammunition for your soldiers, because paper and ink are the most mass produced products in wartime! The "propaganda" about Zaitsev starts rolling.
14 Oct 2007, 10:49
