11 Facts About Sasha Filippov

Sasha Filippov was a spy for the Red Army during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Sasha Filippov was born in 1925 in Stalingrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.

At the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, Filippov lived in the Stalingrad suburb of Dar-Gora with his father, mother, and a younger brother who was born in 1932.

Sasha Filippov found out where the headquarters for the German staff was located and proceeded to offer his services as a cobbler to the officers of the invading forces.

Sasha Filippov was informed that his services would be useful and soon he was a regular sight behind the German lines, repairing and polishing shoes and boots for the officers and soldiers.

From this information, more precise attacks could be made on troop concentrations and the Wehrmacht headquarters located in the Dar-Gora area was even shelled one night by Russian artillery, thanks to Sasha Filippov providing the exact firing coordinates.

Sasha Filippov's mother rushed out of their house to see her son being led barefoot by a German platoon through the falling snow, accompanied by two other prisoners, one of them a female.

Sasha Filippov's mother passed him some food, apparently with the thought that her son was being led off into captivity.

Early in the 1980s, researchers found that the woman hanged together with Sasha Filippov was 22-year-old Maria "Masha" Uskova, a single mother from the nearby urban-type settlement Katrichev.

Sasha Filippov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner posthumously in 1944.

Sasha Filippov is portrayed by Gabriel Thomson in the film Enemy at the Gates, in which his role and death are dramatized, as a twelve-year-old boy with some additional historical inaccuracies, such as Sasha Filippov being declared a traitor after his death.