Custom scale F-005 German sniper with a reconnaissance vehicle in a street fight, 1946

The first snipers, i.e. soldiers using a rifle with advanced optics, appeared in the German army already during World War I, operating especially on the Western Front. However, in the interwar period, the development of both sniper tactics and sniper rifles was clearly treated as secondary in Germany. Also at the beginning of World War II, German snipers played a minor role at the front and did not achieve great success. It was only the beginning of the fighting on the Eastern Front that made the German army realize that in this field it had a worthy opponent in the Red Army, who in some respects surpassed it. Interestingly, many German snipers and snipers at the beginning of the war with the USSR preferred captured Soviet equipment (Mosin rifles), equipped with optics often produced under the license of ... the German Zeiss factories! This picture, not the most cheerful for the Wehrmacht, changed gradually from the turn of 1941/1942 until it brought the desired results in 1943. It is worth adding that the German army had some very good snipers, among which you can mention e.g. Sepp Allerberger or - especially - Matthäus Hetzenauer.