Read a little bit about him elsewhere, seems like the Soviets didn't let him have a gun at first because they didn't trust him. They gave him binoculars and let him be a spotter. Then their village got surrounded by Nazis and Schmenkel found a rifle (probably off a dead guy) and started blasting. Killed a Nazi on his first shot. I guess one of the Nazis he killed turned out to be someone the Soviets already knew as the guy who tried to burn their base down. So that finally got the Soviets to trust him.
Also there seems to be a lot of conflicting stories and mythology surrounding this guy, probably because everything known about him came from really tired traumatized soldiers. Found another version of the story where he asked for a gun instead of finding one, so who knows.
Wait did he kill the German soldier while the soldier was trying to burn the house down, or did he just happen to kill te exact right soldier?
Read a little bit about him elsewhere, seems like the Soviets didn't let him have a gun at first because they didn't trust him. They gave him binoculars and let him be a spotter. Then their village got surrounded by Nazis and Schmenkel found a rifle (probably off a dead guy) and started blasting. Killed a Nazi on his first shot. I guess one of the Nazis he killed turned out to be someone the Soviets already knew as the guy who tried to burn their base down. So that finally got the Soviets to trust him.
Also there seems to be a lot of conflicting stories and mythology surrounding this guy, probably because everything known about him came from really tired traumatized soldiers. Found another version of the story where he asked for a gun instead of finding one, so who knows.