Just found this out. Anyone interested in the new movie, Enemy At the Gates, will be happy to know, that the movie will be released Feb 23rd 2001.
There is a thread in this very forum entitled "Enemy at the Gates" , it has some good info and links about the film, just click right here to pop over: http://www.ww2n.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000016.html [This message has been edited by Otto (edited 14 December 2000).]
Dear Ron: The movie is about a duel between a top Russian sniper named, Zaitzev, and the Germans top sniper a "Major Konigs" at the Battle of Stalingrad. Weather the duel really happened or not, I do not know, there is alot of controversey about it. The duel supposedly came about when the Germans heard about a Russian "super sniper" doing his deed in Stalingrad. Well, the Germans were supposedly infuriated about this snipers successes, so they supposedly sent for their top sniper, supposedly named Konigs. Konigs supposedly arrived at Stalingrad and went to work killing Russian snipers. Zaitsev apparently saw what was happening and went to hunt the German sniper. Supposedly, a Russian official, of some kind was with Zaitsev, when the official, raised up and said something like: "There he is! I see him", and the official was killed by Konigs who in turn gave away his position to Zaitsev. Zaitsev supposedly killed Konigs with a single shot thorugh Konigs scope, and supposedly, this is on display in Moscow. Personally, I dont know what to believe on this. There has been documentaries on the History Channel, talking about this duel. The documentary is called: Suicide Missions "Sniper". Also, there are books that mention the duel, I dont remember what titles. Hope this helps answer your question.
Yeah i heard about that duel too on the History channel. I never even heard of it advertised...is it opening wide? or in the states? Thanks for the info Evens!
Actually, after reading spome other discussions about this supposed sniper duel--there was one, but Major Koenig never existed and neither did his supposed sniper school outside Berlin. I dont remember the exact details, but I was a bit skeptical when I first heard it, they had the research to back it up and despite what THC said, it was in-fact a myth.
I read about that somewhere too, that Konigs never existed. The movie sounds great though, I wonder if theu will have Dragonov sniper rifles in thios film?
I've been seeing several previews of this movie lately! Looks very interesting! Even if it is partly false (not sure if this duel actually took place) Even still ww2 film = me entertained!
The Dragunov SVD sniper rifle didn't exist at the time of Stalingrad. In fact, I think it didn't come into service until some time AFTER WW2. What the Russians used during WW2 was a scoped version of the Mosin-Nagant 91/30.
Dragunov was the highly advanced sniper rifle even for its time. It came about in the late 60's with a telescopic thermal and night vision scope. The US first encountered this rifle in Veitnam and it was considered to deadily and advanced the Military put a 10,000 reward up for any American soldier that could copy an intact Dragunov sniper rifle.
I remember reading something about that many years ago. About 17 years ago, at the job I held then, my supervisor had been a US Army sniper in Vietnam. He is credited with I think 49 kills.
yeah i heard that..just saw previews can't wait! HAHA when it comes out we all can squable over how accurate it is!
Yeah, that's half the fun for me. But I really like the fact that this film is focused on Russia/Germany. Not to many Western films are. I'm very optimistic about it.
I cant wait to see the film too. I am as eagerly awaiting this one as I did for SPR and U 571. Must admit, I liked U 571 better because of my personal history with U-Boats and because of my German friends of U 181, U 505, U 10, U 2540 and a few others. Enemy at the Gates should be near as good (hopefully better)than Stalingrad. I hope we all can really enjoy this film as it will give the Hollywood bigwigs an idea that war movies will make them MONEY.
I wonder why they keep changing the release dates? when I first heard about it being released was sometime in late 2000, now its in march.
For the first time last night I saw previews for this movie and it does look good to me. I think Ed Harris looks good as a "Konigs" type character.
I agree, he pulls off that 'stern german' look very well. For more info, there is a link to the official movie page for this movie on the 'Films' page, check it out.