Alexander Wassiljewitsch Petruschewski

Alexander Vasilyevich Petruschewski ( Russian Александр Васильевич Петрушевский ; born September 27, ^jul. / 9. October  1898 ^greg. At the station Luninets , Russian Empire ; † 21st October 1976 in Moscow , Soviet Union ) was a Soviet Colonel-General (1954) and Hero of the Soviet Union (1944).

Life

Petrushevsky was born in Luninez (Brest region, Belarus) in 1898 in the family of a railroad worker and graduated from high school. In 1915 he joined the tsarist army, in the following year 1916 he graduated from the Nikolayevsk Infantry School as a flag junior and took part in the First World War, where he achieved the rank of lieutenant.

In the Red Army

In the summer of 1918 he joined the Red Army and took part in the Russian Civil War. He successively commanded a rifle company, a battalion and a regiment on the southern front, where he was wounded. After the civil war, he commanded a battalion from 1922 and then became the chief of special forces to fight the partisans in the Bryansk province . In 1923 he graduated as part of the III. international Comintern the Higher Tactical Infantry School for Commanders. In 1927/28 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy . From July 1928 he was head of the operations department at the headquarters of the 34th Rifle Division and from November 1930 head of the headquarters of the 19th Rifle Division. From December 1931 he was in command of the Comintern's “Wystrel” shooting and tactics course. In May 1932 he became head of the tactical courses for the command cadre of the motorized troops of the Red Army. From April 1934 he acted as a teacher of tactics of mechanized troops and from July 1934 he headed the department for mechanized troops at the Frunze Military Academy. On August 14, 1935, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 20th Rifle Division. In 1938 he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff and in January of that year was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Belarusian Military District. From September 1940 he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Western Special Military District and was responsible for organizational and mobilization issues.

In World War II

On May 5, 1941 Petruschewski was as a brigade commander to the Chief of Staff of the 13th Army appointed which their headquarters in Mogilev opened (Western Special Military District). With the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa , the headquarters of the 13th Army was moved to Molodechno . As Chief of Staff of the 13th Army, Petrushevsky took part in the Bialystok and Minsk battle. On June 25, 1941, the headquarters of the 13th Army was attacked by tanks of the German Panzer Group 3 , which stood outside Minsk on June 27 . As early as June 28, Minsk had to be evacuated because of the approach of the German Panzer Group 2 , with the headquarters being attacked again and only able to move east with difficulty. On July 8, 1941, the headquarters of the 13th Army was moved back to Mogilev, on that day the army commander Lieutenant General PM Filatov was fatally wounded as a result of an air raid.

During the new German offensive, which began on July 10th with the Kesselschlacht near Smolensk , the headquarters of the 13th Army was attacked again (Lieutenant General FN Remesow was wounded) and most of the army was surrounded in the Mogilev area. After the formation of the Central Front at the end of July 1941, the 13th Army became part of this front and, after this formation was disbanded, part of the Brjansk Front . During the German offensive to Moscow in October 1941, the 13th Army was again surrounded in the Brjansk area, Major General AM Gorodnjanski and his Chief of Staff broke out and went to Kastornoje . In the winter of 1941, the 13th Army took part in the defense and recapture of Yelets in the Lipetsk district. Petrushevsky was awarded the rank of major general on December 27, 1941 for his services in the Jelezer operation . In the summer of 1942, the 13th Army participated in the Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad Operation , in early 1943 in the Voronezh-Kastornoye Operation, and in July 1943 in the Kursk Battle (as part of the second formation of the Central Front). In September 1943 the 13th Army reached the Dnieper as the first unit of the Red Army , on September 25, 1943 Petrushevsky was appointed lieutenant general. Since December 1943 he commanded the 104th Rifle Corps of the 40th Army on the 2nd Ukrainian Front , with which he took part in the Korsun-Shevchenkovsk Operation and the Uman-Botosan Operation and forced the passage to the Dniester . In the spring of 1944 he was one of the first Red Army formations to reach the Prut River . His troops built a bridgehead on the right bank of the river north of the city of Jassy . On August 20, 1944, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front went on the offensive during Operation Jassy-Kishinev . His 104th Rifle Corps, which had been transferred to the 27th Army , broke through the enemy defenses north of Jassy. After occupying Jassy, ​​the Corps moved to Focşani and Rimnik and captured the Romanian cities of Pitesti and Râmnicu Sărat . After the troops of the 104th Rifle Corps had overcome the Transylvanian Mountains, it approached the heavily fortified Romanian city of Turda. In preparation for storming the city, Petrushevsky was wounded by a nearby grenade explosion, but did not leave his post immediately. Only after the conquest of Turda did he spend several days in the hospital. After Turda, the corps also occupied the cities of Cluj and Oradea and after more than 600 kilometers advanced through Romania into the central Netherlands of the Danube and then operated on the territory of Hungary. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Lieutenant General Petrushevsky was honored on September 13, 1944 with the title Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Lenin Order and the Golden Star (No. 2568). In March 1945 his troops took part in fighting in the defense against the German Balaton offensive . In March 1945 he was appointed commander of the 46th Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front and took part in the Vienna operation . On March 17, 1945, the 46th Army's offensive towards Györ began . The Danube Flottile crossed the river at Esztergom and landed troops. On March 28, the troops captured the cities of Györ and Komorn and cleared the northern bank of the Danube to the confluence of the March. The Danube Flotilla transported more than 70,000 soldiers of the 46th Army to the north bank in 5 days, the troops attacked Vienna from the northeast, and the fighting until the city was taken continued until April 13th. Petrushevsky tried to save the city from destruction and ordered the use of artillery only to a limited extent. A few days later, at the beginning of May 1945, the 46th Army advanced to the border with Czechoslovakia, on the banks of the Vltava River, in the Budweis region , during the Prague operation . On May 11, 1945, Lieutenant General Petrushevsky's active military service ended.

post war period

After the war, Lieutenant General AW Petrushevsky continued to command the 46th Army. From June 1946 to February 1947 he was Chief of Staff of the Transcaucasian Military District . In 1947 he was appointed lecturer at the Voroshilov Military Academy, but in the same year he was appointed chief military adviser to the Bulgarian People's Army . From 1950 he was deputy commander and chief of staff of the West Siberian Military District. Since August 1953 he was military advisor to the People 's Liberation Army of China and at the same time military attaché of the USSR in the People's Republic of China , on August 21, 1954 he was given the military rank of Colonel General. In the years 1957-1959 he was head of the military academy of the Soviet army. In 1960 he retired. He last lived in Moscow and worked on the Committee of War Veterans. He died in October 1976 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Web links

• http://www.bibliotekar.ru/3-1-5-komandiry/139.htm
• http://shieldandsword.mozohin.ru/personnel/petrushevskiy_a_v.htm