The Bizarre History of Women in WWII: Soviet Edition

Just under half a million women served in the Soviet Red Army in WWII, or as it is known in the former Soviet countries, "The Great Patriotic War". The most famous of them were snipers, but as far as we can tell from what Soviet records were made public after the fall of the USSR, only about 2,000 of them served as snipers on the front line, or at least, those were the women who received formal training. But consider this. Even if we limit ourselves to 2,000, the arguably five most well-known were responsible for the deaths of close to 700 Axis troops!

The most famous Soviet woman sniper was Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a.k.a "Lady Death", her nickname during the war. Lyudmila's tally of Nazis was 309 – an entire company's worth of Nazi invaders, all killed by one person! Lyudmila was born near Kyiv in today's Ukraine, in 1916. She became interested in shooting while she was involved in a sports club as a teenager. One of the boys in the club lorded his skill with a rifle over all the other students, and Lyudmila, who had done some shooting with her father, was determined to shut the young man's mouth. She continued to practice in private and when she realized she was much better than that boy would ever be, she challenged him to a round of target shooting. We remember Lyudmila's name – who the boy was is lost to history.

#sovietunion #history #LyudmilaPavlichenko #sovietsnipers #ussr #worldwar2 #majorannanikulina

Lets look at some other woman soldiers as we dive deep in soviet territory!

Scriptwriter: Matthew Gaskill

Video Editor & Motion Graphics: Naman Meena

Voice-over Artist: Stephen Vox

Copyright © 2021 A Day In History. All rights reserved.

[ottocarius]

Man that old woman at the end has bigger balls than most men even at 98 she’s still saying give me a rifle and let me at the enemy. Even though my country (the US) and Russia don’t get along I still like the Russian people and I respect these women for how strong and brave they were. I think even we Americans should salute these women.

[collectivetranscendence]

Wow, i had no idea about the night witches, thanks for the information!

[nickjames]

If western women were like these women, we certainly wouldn't have men in women sports and spaces. These women were strong and capable brave as hell and still feminine mostly. Another awesome Video, love the great work you and team do. 👍

[crhu]

The 1077th Anti Air at Stalingrad. Should have been included. The actual 300.

[Turusentomi]

200 russian snipers killed 700 soldiers. Simo Häyhä would have a good laught after hearing this. :D

[sacredrambles]

Dahm, I wouldn't wanna cross paths with them!

[paulroberts]

And the German military had a policy that no Soviet female soldier was to be taken prisoner. All were to summarily executed. That this mostly happened, after they were invariably raped by the soldiers. A few ended up in POW camps.

[meibing]

Sadly, the Russian women who served at the front where after the war considered immoral and "harlots" and were scorned and ostracized by the women who had stayed home during the war and shunned by Russian men who did not want them as wives.

[CCJJChannels]

These women all were terrifying, yet strangely arousing . . .

[christopherpetrov]

And Russians are making stupid superhero movies😂😂. These are complete movie plots!!

[jeremiahkivi]

Battle for Berlin was not the final battle of the war...

[AK_-xnfm]

Honestly pre war and post war the Soviet Union just used the women of the Soviet Union not only for war but also for their own cultural manipulation that went on post WW2

[ShadesApeDJansu]

Christian Finnish Royalism this is gonna be a bad one Simo Häyhä is still the best sniper in the world, most efficient Taika-ampuja "Magic Shooter" to Finns and to soviet Russia "The White Death". He must have been "popular" with the ladies since there were sniper squads trying to catch him with exploding bullets, well finally 1 exploding bullet hit him in the jaw and he was carried to death pile but he was not dead and was sent to field hospital he awakened after Mannerheim's ultimatum that the russians have to kill everyone in Finland to get it, this stopped soviet Russia and the reason why the genocide did not happen they're choice not ours.

[alviescott]

I couldnt fight for stalin or hitler there both the same to me

[ShadesApeDJansu]

Christian Finnish Frostiis Simo Häyhä really awakened when the war was over, must have felt relieved after a certain death of you and everyone you knew as finnish were one decision away from a genocide. Lots of people point to jews when thinking of genocide, well my grand-grand father got wargass and had to lubricate his whole esophagus to eat for his whole life i think gassing people starts to feel like a true genocide could have happened. We finn's still can be genocided, there is not so many of us You could tell us about the "Black Widows" the Russian Suicide female bombers they walked in with bombs and blew themselves up even in Finland. British had a female division or regiment i dont remember the size. I always find this weird, my grandma was a Lotta Svärd a finnish female do-it-all person, but mostly they needed to help the doctors as voluntary nurses Thank you for you're videos

[jimyrji]

Багато брехні, совєтскіє жінки-воєниє на справді виконували сексуальні потреби в кількості стільки великій що навіть проститутки би офігіли від такого рабського труда - "вайна все спишет". Жінки які повернулись живі усіляко скривали свою присутність на фронті, соромились навіть казати за те що були там. Бо навкруги було багато "свідків" цього сорому. Все це факт, жахлива правда яку автор цього фільму скрива і забрехав неправдивим описом.