Women’s History Month Lecture – The Soviet Female Snipers of World War II

Speaker – Susan Grunewald, History Department, Louisiana State University


After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, thousands of women volunteered to join the Red Army. Although at first turned away or encouraged to join the medical corps, women eventually won Soviet officials’ approval to take a more active role in combat after initial failures in stopping the Wehrmacht’s advances. This talk will examine some of the Soviet Union’s female fighters including pilots and partisans, with an emphasis on the almost 2,500 snipers.