Erwin König Erwin König and Heinz Thorvald are names of an apocryphal Wehrmacht sniper allegedly killed by the Soviet sniper Vassili Zaitsev during the Battle of Stalingrad . König is mentioned both in Zaitsev ' s memoirs " Notes of a Sniper " and William Craig ' s 1973 non - fiction book " Enemy at the Gates : The Battle for Stalingrad " . Historical authenticity . Zaitsev ' s personal account is the only source for the story . No other historical documentation exists and no second source for the events in question exists . None of the Germans mentioned by Zaitsev including Koning , Koning ' s daughter or the German prisoner of war who Zaitsev says identified Koning have ever been identified in other records . Zaitsev said that the duel took place over a period of three days in the ruins of Stalingrad . The story of the Soviet discovery of König ' s arrival came from a German soldier who had been interrogated by the Soviet forces ( as stated in Zaitsev ' s memoirs ) . Also Zaitsev claims in his memoir to have found the enemy sniper in a run - down industrial area , finding him under a sheet of scrap metal by the glint of his enemy ' s rifle scope . He then claims to have taken the scope as a souvenir . In his own memoirs , Zaitsev refers to him as being a German sniper named Herr Koning ( Koning is Dutch for King , cognate to König in German ) , identified as the head of a sniper school in Berlin , by documents taken from his dead body . This is unconfirmed as German Heer personnel records make no mention of any German sniper called König or Koning . It was also stated by Zaitsev ( see source for spelling ) that the existence of König came from an unidentified German prisoner . At the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow there is a rifle scope that supposedly belonged to a Wehrmacht sniper called Erwin König . In a post - war visit to Berlin , Zaitsev was allegedly confronted by a woman who told him she was König ' s daughter , with Soviet authorities quickly evacuating Zaitsev to avoid any confrontation . Fictional versions . A fictionalized account of the duel in the movie " Enemy at the Gates " portrays Erwin König as the head of the Wehrmacht Sniper School . He is played by Ed Harris and is sent to Stalingrad to take on the increasingly aggressive Soviet snipers . Initially he is successful , killing four of Vasily ' s partners , but eventually he is outwitted by the Russian . König is depicted in fictional accounts as a ruthless Bavarian aristocrat pitted against Zaitsev . In the fictionalised account of these events in the film " Enemy at the Gates " , he is killed at the Stalingrad train yard by Zaitsev . American author David L . Robbins used the name of Heinz Thorvald in his 1999 novel " War of the Rats " . This story portrays Thorvald ( König ) as an SS - Standartenführer who was originally an instructor at the Wehrmacht underground headquarters in Zossen . However , aside from a few staff officers , no SS - division fought in Stalingrad and no active sniper had such a high rank . German snipers were not employed in units but were deployed as Jäger s . The Red Army , conversely , deployed snipers in large units up to battalion strength . Zaitsev was a Junior Lieutenant ( мла́дший лейтена́нт ) and eventually Captain ( капита́н ) of a Russian sniper - unit . ( Photo shows German sniper using the Mauser 98k rifle with Russian PE scope mounted . This set - up was unusual but local German Waffenmeisters ( amorers ) of infantry battalions , did mount captured Russian optics to the standard German 98k . ) References . Erwin Konig at Sniper Central