On This Day in History: August 8

Russian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Subscribers can listen to the audio version of today’s post here.

One thing Russians have proven themselves good at is killing Germans. Plenty of Russian women were among those with a high body count of fucking Nazis in World War II, but none were so successful as Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Soviet sniper in the Red Army. Her nickname was Lady Death. 

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 8, 1941--

What is Russian for “tomboy”? That’s how Lyudmila described herself. Born in the Ukraine to Russian parents in 1916, as a child she was a competitive athlete in numerous sports, including sharpshooting. In 1937 she entered Kiev University with the goal of becoming a teacher, but she also attended sniper school on the side. You know, just in case hordes of murderous fucking Nazis invaded her country. 

When Germany invaded in June of 1941, she was all fuck yeah let’s do some killin’ but her superiors said “No. You have vagina. Nurse job for you.” She said fuck you I can shoot better than I can nurse, and they said okay yeah I guess but we’re short of guns so here is a shovel go dig some trenches. 

Everything changed on August 8, 1941 when some poor bastard comrade of hers got partially blowed up by artillery and he was all fucking hell that hurts like a motherfucker hey Lyudmila here take my rifle and get some revenge for me, k? And she got so much fucking revenge. 

A short time later she wasted a couple of Romanians—they were allied with the fucking Nazis—from over 400 yards away. She referred to it as a baptism by fire, and her comrades said hey Lyudmila you kill invaders real good we’ll forgive you for not having a penis. 

There were 2,000 female snipers in the Soviet Red Army; only 500 survived the war. And Lyudmila almost didn’t. She was only on the front lines for ten months, and during that time she got 309 confirmed kills, including 36 snipers. That’s an average of one enemy killed every single day; she’s the most successful female sniper in history. In May of 1942 she was promoted to lieutenant, and a month later she took some shrapnel to the face and was pulled off the front line. 

As famous as she was lethal, the Soviets didn’t return Lyudmila to the front after she healed, but rather put her to work training other snipers, as well as being a propagandist for the Red Army. She even traveled to the U.S. in late 1942 and was the first Soviet citizen to visit the White House, meeting with President Roosevelt and hitting it off with First Lady Eleanor. 

On tour in America, she shamed the men saying, “you have been hiding behind my back,” trying to get greater American involvement in the European theatre of the war. The idiotic American press, instead of asking her about being a sniper, asked dumbfuck questions about makeup and nail polish. She was like there’s a fucking war on and the press said your uniform makes you like fat. I just read this paragraph to my son and he said, “I’m surprised she didn’t take them all out.”

Support keeping this daily column free and get access to subscriber only content:

Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.