Maksim Passar
Native name
Максим Александрович Пассар
Born30 August 1923
Nizhny Katar village, Far Eastern Krai, USSR
(located within present-day Khabarovsk Krai)
Died22 January 1943 (aged 19)
Peschanka village, Gorodishchensky District, USSR
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service/branchRed Army
Years of service1942–1943
RankSenior Sergeant
Unit117 RR/ 23 RD/ 21 A/ StalF
117 RR/ 71 GRD/ 65 A/ DonF
Battles/warsWorld War II
AwardsHero of the Russian Federation
Two Orders of the Red Banner

Maksim Aleksandrovich Passar (Russian: Максим Александрович Пассар; 30 August 1923 – 22 January 1943) was a Soviet sniper in the Red Army during World War II credited with killing 237 enemy soldiers.[1] Decades after he was killed in action during the war he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation in 2010.

Early life

Passar was born on 30 August 1923 to a Nanai family of fur hunters in Nizhny Katar (Нижний Катар) in the present-day Nanaysky District of the Russian Far East. As a young child he helped his father hunt for furred animals. From this he gained strong marksmanship skills, including the ability to shoot squirrels in the eye so that he could use as much of the fur as possible. He also developed the patience necessary to remain still observing a target in the winter cold. Having started attending school in 1933, he dreamed of going to Leningrad for higher education after graduating.[2][3][4] He was the older brother of poet Andrei Passar [ru].

World War II

After traveling 60 kilometers on foot to the Troitsk military enlistment office in February 1942 to join the army, and despite demonstrating his sharpshooting skills to the recruiters, he was initially posted as a mortarman on the Eastern Front. However, he was soon allowed to switch to become a sniper and placed in brief sniper training. He went on to participate in the Battle of Stalingrad starting in July 1942, where he became one of the best snipers. By early September 1942 he was credited with taking out 56 enemy combatants, having adopted a daily routine of stalking potential targets in his trench from dawn to dusk. Later that month on 28 September he celebrated his 100th kill, noting the date in his diary. By November he increased his tally to 152 kills, and despite being wounded in battle in December he remained on the front lines.[2][3][5]

Passar's photo and descriptions of his accomplishments as a sniper were featured in several wartime newspaper issues including Pravda, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Krasnaya Armiya. After the publicity, the German Army put a bounty of 100,000 marks for his death. In addition to his regular sniper duties he also trained other snipers, three of whom went on to tally over 100 kills each before his death. On 22 January 1943 he was killed in action while taking out machine gun crews and was buried in the mass grave in Gorodishche. His tally at the time of his death 237 enemy soldiers killed. A memorial marker with his name on the grave site mistakenly labeled him as a Hero of the Soviet Union, even though his nomination for the title in February 1943 was reduced to the Order of the Red Banner. His comrades from the war petitioned for him to receive the title later, but it was never awarded. He was eventually made a Hero of the Russian Federation on 16 February 2010.[2][3][5]

Awards

See also

References

  1. ↑ Digitized award list ; Text from award list for the Second Order of the Red Banner: « [...] On his account 237 Krauts. [...] The sniper platoon under the command of Comrade Passar destroyed 775 fascists. [...] He brought up such masters of sniping as the renowned sniper Vladimir Salbiev - he killed 160 fascists, [...] Frolov - he killed 193 Krauts, Matveev - 94 fascists, Kartuesov - 106, Vorobyev - 96, Moskovsky - 93 [...] »
  2. 1 2 3 "Пассар Максим Александрович". soviet-aces-1936-53.ru. Retrieved 2020-09-12.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Smirov, Vitaly. "Пассар Максим Александрович". www.warheroes.ru. Retrieved 2020-09-12.
  4. ↑ Волга (in Russian). Saratov: Приволжское книжное изд-во. 1971. p. 149. OCLC 2172520.
  5. 1 2 Nosachev, Nikolai (1975). Молодсть в шинели: записки комсомольского работника (in Russian). Kaliningrad: Калининградское книжное изд-во. p. 34.
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