OPPapers.com

Enemy At The Gates

Enemy at the Gates was inspired by a true story and set against the siege of Stalingrad during World War II. This movie begins with the deployment of the Soviet Union army into German territory in Stalingrad on the banks of the river to the west of Stalingrad. This movie depicts the lack of respect for the military life and civilian life. The soldiers that make land alive are lined up and passed by a truck and every other soldier is given a gun and the men in between are given a clip of bullets and told to pick up the gun and continue shooting once the man in front with the gun has been killed. This shows that they are going to try and advance into enemy ground by the sheer use of numbers of men with no respect to the amount of life loss. Both sides loss a tremendous amount of men, some estimates around one point five million lives loss in the battle of Stalingrad. Besides being a turning point in the war, Stalingrad was also revealing in terms of the discipline and determination of both the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army, though this was often maintained by brutal enforcement of commands. The Soviets first defended Stalingrad against a fierce German onslaught. So great were Soviet losses that at times, the life expectancy of a newly arrived soldier was less than a day, yet discipline was maintained. Many soldiers sacrificed themselves instead of retreating or being captured. Much of this discipline was maintained due to the rise of in popularity of the Soviet sniper Vassili Zaitsev. A fellow soldier that he meets while in the field and witnesses his first acts of heroism by taking out some of the Germans top leadership along with his group of protectors. His friend a political officer by the name of Danilov promotes him to the Soviet country and turns him into a national hero. The military of the Soviet Union begins to have an onslaught of volunteers for the sniper division of the Soviet army. As stated in Wikipedia "In modern history there...