Company of Heroes: Eastern Front

Other discussions (Read-Only) => Off Topic => Topic started by: HostileAmerican on May 07, 2009, 07:33:27 PM

Title: was there a Major König?
Post by: HostileAmerican on May 07, 2009, 07:33:27 PM

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)

Title: Re: was there a Major König?
Post by: khorney on May 09, 2009, 01:09:16 AM

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...

Title: Re: was there a Major König?
Post by: HappyBrit on July 16, 2009, 08:02:27 PM

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

Title: Re: was there a Major König?
Post by: Mystic-Car on July 16, 2009, 09:28:19 PM

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

Title: Re: was there a Major König?
Post by: vengefulnoob on July 17, 2009, 11:31:03 PM

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