Total number of confirmed kills: 775. Photo taken in Germany, May 4, 1945.
And this hasn’t been made into a movie or mini series?
The cool thing is, there’s still one person missing: Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
She was one of the deadliest snipers of World War II, and is regarded as one of the deadliest snipers of all time. Over the course of one year (June 1941-June 1942) she racked up a count of 309 kills, 36 of which were enemy snipers. Her prescence in the picture alone would have brought the total number of kills from 755 to 1064.
Goddamn.
I don’t know much about the others but Ms. Pavlichenko was an ultimate badass
She was an award winning crack shot before the war and was turned away when she wanted to sign up to be a sniper after her university was bombed1. So she essentially double dog dares them and get what she called an ‘audition’ which was to kill 2 soldiers who defected to the enemy. They were her first two kills and after that she was sent to the front lines because dude, she’s a damn good shot and only hesitated on the first because she’d never killed anyone before
Those snipers she killed? She often had standoffs with them where neither could fuck up for risk of being shot by the other. The most famous lasted literal days, with both lying still in the snow until the nazi sniper slipped up and the light caught on the barrel of his rifle, earning him a bullet
During a battle she was in the trenches and an explosion went off, killing most of the upper command and wounding many with shrapnel, including Pavlichenko. What does she do? She straight up takes control and starts barking orders while the remaining upper command lose their shit. She got a reputation as a badass tough bitch after that
She both met and lost a husband in that year of fighting. Imagine falling in love with someone, marrying them, hearing they’d been killed and being able to carry on with the war. There’s theories that losing him was part of what spurred her on to gain such a large kill count
The nazis were so scared of her they made her offers, such as things like chocolate and other hard to access items, to change sides and work for them. She turned every one down of course and solidified her place as a Russian hero to the point that she was taken off the front line because she was seen as too good to lose. From memory, she’s the only Russian soldier to have been welcomed into the White House when she was sent on a tour overseas to help boost morale and some of the answers she gave to the press when they asked questions that were solely focused on how she didn’t fit their definition of feminine enough are absolutelykiller
These are just a handful of the shit she did/went through during the war. I just love this badass Russian lady and wish we knew more about the women who fought
“J’ai vu des plaies d’abord faciles à guérir et qu’on différait de soigner faire payer cette longue négligence. Mais, comme on aime à cueillir les fruits de Vénus, on dit toujours : demain il sera encore temps. Cependant, silencieuse, la flamme rampe jusqu’à notre coeur, et, funeste, l’arbre pousse ses racines plus profondément.”
