EPISODE 52 The Lady and Her Gun

10/12/19 • 106 min

“It's just incredible that this little hand has killed Nazis, has scythed them down by the hundreds, without missing…” Charlie Chaplin

“Miss Pavlichenko's well known to fame,

Russia's your country, fighting is your game,

Your smile shines as bright as any new morning sun,

But more than three hundred Nazi dogs fell by your gun.” Woody Guthrie

“Charging together, we would dash into battle and forget about everything else in the world.” Lyudmila Pavlichenko

“Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have already managed to kill 309 of the fascist invaders. Do you not think, gentlemen, that you have now been hiding behind my back for rather too long?” Lyudmila Pavlichenko

During WW II, women in the Soviet Union had many reasons to fear German soldiers. But in some cases it was the German soldiers’ turn to be the targets of Soviet ladies. Among the many women who would fight tooth and nail and send quite a few Axis soldiers to a premature death, one stood out among the rest. Germans would know her by name, and would grow to fear her. And they had good reasons to fear her since it was by killing 309 of them that she would become the most deadly female sniper in history. Legends about her would grow both among her own comrades and among the terrified Nazi soldiers who heard rumors about this vengeful female demon who seemed to have made it her personal mission to make them pay for any outrage committed by anyone wearing their same uniform had ever. Some told stories about how a witch in some village near Odessa had cast a spell deflecting enemy bullets away from her. Others swore that she was followed by the lord of the forest himself—a wood sprite with a huge tree-like body who protected her, made her invisible and gave her the supernatural ability to move through the forest without making a sound, to know what was happening a mile away, and to see in complete darkness as well as normal people see in daylight. She was Lyudmila Pavlichenko aka Lady Death.

Among other things, in this episode: Operation Barbarossa, caught between vicious dictators, Stalin (even better than Nazis at killing his own people), Nazi guns in front of you and Soviet guns pointed at your back, a song by Woody Guthrie, Charlie Chaplin kissing her hand, Lyudmila disappoints Yoda, bringing Belgian chocolates as a gift for your girlfriend (after looting them from a corpse), love found & love lost, bloody revenge, hanging out with the American First Lady.

“It's just incredible that this little hand has killed Nazis, has scythed them down by the hundreds, without missing…” Charlie Chaplin

“Miss Pavlichenko's well known to fame,

Russia's your country, fighting is your game,

Your smile shines as bright as any new morning sun,

But more than three hundred Nazi dogs fell by your gun.” Woody Guthrie

“Charging together, we would dash into battle and forget about everything else in the world.” Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Previous Episode

EPISODE 54 Sitting Bull (Part 1)

“Sitting Bull, leader of the largest Indian nation on the continent, the strongest, boldest, most stubborn opponent of European influence, was the very heart and soul of the Frontier. When the true history of the New World is written, he will receive his chapter. For Sitting Bull was one of the Makers of America.” Stanley Vestal

“If you intend to do this for my sake, take good care of them and let them live. My father is a man and death is his.” Sitting Bull addressing his fellow tribesmen who wanted to kill some captives

“I told them I did not want their annuities, nor could I sell my country. My father lived and died here; so would I. And if our white brothers would do right, we would never have had war.” Sitting Bull

“At no other time or place in the history of the Indian Wars, before or after, would the U.S. Army voluntarily destroy a major defensive line in order to appease an enemy.” Bill Yenne

In historical terms, it was just a blink of an eye ago. In the mid-1800s, the Great Plains in the United States were still firmly in the hands of nomadic, buffalo hunting tribes. The looming threat of American expansion was still barely noticeable. But things changed quickly, and soon the tribes were locked in an existential struggle with the U.S. for control of the heartland of North America. One man rose among these tribes to lead his people to resisting the inevitable for over two decades. By the time he was 10 years old, the boy who would become the Lakota leader Sitting Bull, had killed his first bison by running him down and putting an arrow through its heart. In the opinion of his fellow tribesmen, his ability as a hunter and as a warrior was only second to his generosity in taking care of widows and orphans. In this first episode of this series, we’ll see Sitting Bull dueling man-to-man against a Crow chief, adopting a boy from an enemy tribe, avenging his father (Conan The Barbarian-style), having visions, acquiring shamanic powers, dealing with marriages and grief, leading the first round of warfare against the U.S., and much, much more.

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Next Episode

EPISODE 55 Sitting Bull (Part 2)

“I don’t want to have anything to do with people who make one carry water on the shoulders and haul manure. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hardtack, and a little sugar and coffee. The whites may get me at last, but I will have good times till then.” Sitting Bull

“Let me live deep while I live.” Robert E. Howard

“Were I to run away from the enemy, no one will consider me a man.” Kit Fox warrior society song

“A warrior I have been. Now it is all over. A hard time I have.” Sitting Bull song

In historical terms, it was just a blink of an eye ago. In the mid-1800s, the Great Plains in the United States were still firmly in the hands of nomadic, buffalo hunting tribes. The looming threat of American expansion was still barely noticeable. But things changed quickly, and soon the tribes were locked in an existential struggle with the U.S. for control of the heartland of North America. One man rose among these tribes to lead his people to resisting the inevitable for over two decades. By the time he was 10 years old, the boy who would become the Lakota leader Sitting Bull, had killed his first bison by running him down and putting an arrow through its heart. In the opinion of his fellow tribesmen, his ability as a hunter and as a warrior was only second to his generosity in taking care of widows and orphans. In this second episode of this series, we’ll see Sitting Bull emerging as the main leader for the free Lakota, fighting in a brutal intertribal battle, challenging the expansion of the Northern Pacific Railroad, saving the Cheyenne from starvation, Sun Dancing and having premonitory visions of the Little Big Horn battle, leading his people to Canada, befriending a major for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, helping Nez Perce’ refugees across the border, fighting in a duel at 49 years of age, returning to the U.S. as a POW, and much, much more.

If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices