A biography of the second most successful sniper of the German Wehrmacht and one of the few private soldiers to be honored with the Knights Cross award. An Austrian conscript who qualified as a Wehrmacht machine gunner, Josef “Sepp” Allerberger was drafted to the southern sector of the Russian Front in July 1942. Wounded at Voroshilovsk, he experimented with a Russian sniper-rifle while convalescing and so impressed his superiors with his proficiency that he was returned to the front as his regiment’s only sniper specialist. This sometimes-harrowing account provides an excellent introduction to the commitment in fieldcraft, discipline and routine required of the sniper, a man apart. There was no place for chivalry on the Russian Front. Away from the film cameras, no prisoner survived long after surrendering. Russian snipers had used the illegal explosive bullet since 1941, and Hitler eventually authorized its issue in 1944. The result was a battlefield of horror. Allerberger was a cold-blooded killer, but few will find a place in their hearts for the soldiers of the Red Army against whom he fought. “It is a great read and covers just about everything you would want to know about Allerberger, the weapons, techniques and employment of German snipers on the Eastern Front in WWII but does it in a manner and narrative that is never boring and is guaranteed to hold your interest.” —Argunners Magazine “A very unique story and experience worth telling of an Eastern Front Sniper.” —Sniper Central

A gripping memoir of a Soviet sniper who fought against the Nazis during the siege of Leningrad and throughout World War II. Joseph Pilyushin, a top Red Army sniper in the ruthless fight against the Germans on the Eastern Front, was an exceptional soldier. His first-hand account of his wartime service gives a graphic insight into his lethal skill with a rifle and into the desperate fight put up by Soviet forces to defend Leningrad. Pilyushin, who lived in Leningrad with his family, was already 35 years-old when the war broke out and he was drafted. He started in the Red Army as a scout, but once he had demonstrated his marksmanship and steady nerve, he became a sniper. He served throughout the Leningrad siege, from the late 1941 when the Wehrmacht’s advance was halted just short of the city to its liberation during the Soviet offensive of 1944. His descriptions of grueling front-line life, of his fellow soldiers, and of his sniping missions are balanced by his vivid recollections of the protracted suffering of Leningrad’s imprisoned population and of the grief that was visited upon him and his family. His narrative will be fascinating reading for anyone eager to learn about the role and technique of the sniper during the Second World War. It is also a memorable eyewitness account of one man’s experience on the Eastern Front.

Eastern Front Sniper is a long overdue and comprehensive biography of one of World War IIs most accomplished snipers.Mathus Hetzenauer, the son of a Tyrolean peasant family, was born in December 1924. He was drafted into the Mountain Reserve Battalian 140 at the age of 18 but discharged five months later.He received a new draft notice in January 1943 for a post in the Styrian Truppenbungsplatz Seetal Alps where he met some of the best German snipers and learned his art.Hetzenauer went on to fight in Romania, Eastern Hungary and in Slovakia. As recognition for his more than 300 confirmed kills he was awarded on the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on April 17, 1945.After nearly five years of Soviet captivity Mathus Hetzenauer returned to Austria on January 10, 1950. He lived in the Tyrol's Brixen Valley until his death on 3 October of 2004.

Throughout World War II, German snipers were obliged to carry a ’Scharfshützen Buch’ which recorded every kill. Each success noted had to be verified by a witness and signed by a superior officer.The journal of Sutkus is one of only a few such books to have survived the war. It records more than 200 kills, placing him as one of the war’s most successful snipers. A large part of his journal is reproduced for the first time here.

Günter Koschorrek wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could lay his hands on, storing them with his mother on infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing, and it was not until he was reunited with his daughter in America some forty years later that it came to light and became Blood Red Snow. The author’s excitement at the first encounter with the enemy in the Russian Steppe is obvious. Later, the horror and confusion of fighting in the streets of Stalingrad are brought to life by his descriptions of the others in his unit – their differing manners and techniques for dealing with the squalor and death. He is also posted to Romania and Italy, assignments he remembers fondly compared to his time on the Eastern Front. This book stands as a memorial to the huge numbers on both sides who did not survive and is, some six decades later, the fulfilment of a responsibility the author feels to honour the memory of those who perished.

'I did not regard myself as a slacker. Even in childhood I taught myself to carry out tasks entrusted conscientiously and carefully. In war, it is no secret that the casual don't survive'.Yevgeni Nikolaev was one of Russias leading snipers of World War II and his memoir provides and unparalleled account of front-line action in crucial theaters of war. Nikolaev is credited with a remarkable 324 kills and his wartime service included time in the siege of Leningrad in 1941/1942.His memoir is not a neutral, apolitical account. Far from it. Nikolaev asserts, for example, that Finland attacked Russia. As a member of the NKVD, it is not surprising that his memoir full of historical misinterpretation and justification of the agencys actions.Equally, Nikoalev is dismissive of his Nazi opponents. On several occasions, he discusses his Nazi counterparts as bandits and scum, and implores the reader to take a look, fellows, at the beast of a bastard Ive laid low.In vivid, arresting recollections he paints his actions in a saintly heroic light. He describes the comfort of the German foxholes, wired with telephone connections, relative to the Russians who fasted without food or water awaiting the moment for a perfect shot. He claims the Russian soldier was a moral warrior, killing only with head or heart shots.In addition to describing details of his kills, Nikolaev explains how his life was saved when an explosive rifle bullet struck a watch that he kept in his jacket pocket. His life was saved by a surgeon who extracted all the watch parts.

In this vivid first-hand account we gain unique access to the inner workings of Stalin's Central Women’s Sniper School, near Podolsk in Western Russia. Luliia was a dedicated member of the Komsomol (the Soviet communist youth organisation) and her parents worked for the NKVD. She started at the sniper school and eventually became a valued member of her battalion during operations against Prussia. She persevered through eight months of training before leaving for the Front on 24th November 1944 just days after qualifying. Joining the third Belorussian Front her battalion endured rounds of German mortar as well as loudspeaker announcements beckoning them to come over to the German side. Luliia recounts how they would be in the field for days, regularly facing the enemy in terrifying one-on-one encounters. She sets down the euphoria of her first hit and starting her “battle count” but her reflection on how it was also the ending of a life. These feelings fade as she recounts the barbarous actions of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. She recall how the women were once nearly overrun by Germans at their house when other Red Army formations had moved off and failed to tell them. She also details a nine-day stand-off they endured encircled by Germans in Landsberg.

"Arguably the finest account of sniping during World War II." – Adrian Gilbert, author of Challenge of Battle. "Undoubtedly literature’s most remarkable account of sniper action." – Charles W. Sasser, former US Army Special Forces soldier and author of One Shot–One Kill Lyudmila Pavlichenko was one of the most successful – and feared – female snipers of all time. When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 she left her university studies to join the Red Army. Ignoring offers of positions as a nurse she became part of Soviet Russia’s elite group of female snipers. Within a year she had 309 confirmed kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. Renowned as the scourge of German soldiers, she was regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort and, in 1942, on Stalin’s personal orders, she travelled as part of a Soviet delegation to the West, fundraising in Canada, Great Britain and the USA. Dubbed ‘Lady Death’, she spoke out about gender equality in the Red Army and made the case for the USA to continue the fight against the Nazis in Europe. The folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her exploits – ‘Miss Pavlichenko’ – and she visited the White House, where she formed an unlikely but long-lasting friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. In November 1942 she visited Coventry and accepted donations of £4,516 from Coventry workers to pay for three X-ray units for the Red Army. She also visited a Birmingham factory as part of her fundraising tour.

'As a sniper, I've killed more than a few Nazis. I have a passion for observing enemy behaviour. You watch a Nazi officer come out of a bunker, acting all high and mighty, ordering his soldiers every which way, and putting on an air of authority. The officer hasn't got the slightest idea that he only has seconds to live.' Vassili Zaitsev's account of the hell that was Stalingrad is moving and harrowing. This was a battle to the death - fighting street by street, brick by brick, living like rats in a desperate struggle to survive. Here, the rules of war were discarded and a psychological war was being waged. In this environment, the sniper was king - an unseen enemy who frayed the nerves of brutalised soldiers. Zaitsev volunteered to fight at Stalingrad in 1942. His superiors recognized quickly his talent, and made him a sniper. He adapted his hunting skills to the ruins of the city, watching his prey with nerves of steel. In his first 10 days, Zaitsev killed 40 Germans. He achieved at least 225 kills and the tactics he developed are still being studied. Zaitsev was used a symbol of Russian resistance against the Nazis. His exploits, including a famous 'duel' with a Nazi sniper, remain the stuff of legend. His account is absorbing to anyone interested in World War II and seeing how one person could survive in the most extreme of conditions.