Alexei Semjonowitsch Schadow

Alexei Schadow

Alexei Semyonovich Schadow ( Russian Алексей Семёнович Жадов ; born March 17, ^jul. / Thirtieth March  1901 ^greg. In Nikolskoye, Province of Oryol , † 10. November 1977 in Moscow ) was a Russian officer in the Second World War, a Soviet army commander and Colonel General , Hero of the Soviet Union (1945) and most recently Army General .

Life

He was born in 1901 in a large farming family with seven children in the Orjol province. The parents made a living by baking bread. In November 1942 his original family name Schidow was changed to Schadow at the personal insistence of Stalin . The real family name of Alexei Semjonowitsch until then was Jidow, perhaps one of his ancestors was a Jew. Since there was not enough money available for his education, Alexei was only able to complete four classes of a rural school by 1912. Then he and his older brothers had to help their parents bake bread, and he also worked as a shepherd and church clerk.

Career in the Red Army

In May 1919, Alexei Semyonovich volunteered in the Red Army . On the way to the 45th Infantry Division on the southern front, he became infected with typhus and had to be hospitalized for several months. After his recovery, he was commanded for military training in April 1920 and completed the 4th Oryoler cavalry course. He was appointed commander of a training platoon in the 1st Cavalry Army and then served as the deputy commander of a squadron. From the summer of 1920 he fought with the 62nd Cavalry Regiment of the 11th Cavalry Division as deputy commander of a cavalry squadron . On the southern front he fought the troops of Baron Wrangel and then the Ukrainian uprising under Nestor Makhno in Belarus . In 1921 he was sent to Turkestan , where he fought insurgent Basmachi groups for about three years . In the same year he joined the Communist Party. From October 1924 he commanded his own cavalry division in the 48th Rifle Division of the Moscow Military District. In 1929 he completed higher political courses in Moscow and in August 1929 became commander and political officer of the 56th regiment of the 14th Cavalry Division. In early 1934 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy of the Red Army, was appointed Chief of Staff of the 61st Cavalry Regiment of the special cavalry division named after Stalin in Moscow in May 1934 and chief of staff of this division in November 1935. From April 1936 he served as an assistant in the inspection of the red cavalry units, then he became the first deputy inspector of the cavalry of the Red Army. On June 4, 1940, he was appointed major general and commander of the 21st Turkestani Mountain Cavalry Division in the Central Asia Military District, which was stationed in the city of Chirchiq .

In the Patriotic War

During the German raid on the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was in command of the 4th Airborne Corps, which was used as a reserve on the Western Front . He did not arrive at his command until June 28, which was already on the retreat as a result of the Minsk battle . During the Smolensk Battle , his corps carried out defensive battles on the borders of the Beresina and Sosh rivers and, despite high losses, remained intact in its combat strength. On August 2, 1941, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 3rd Army (at the Central and Brjansk Fronts ) and took part in the Oryol-Brjansk Defense Operation, where he was able to maintain control of the 3rd Army headquarters during the encirclement. With great losses, large parts of the 3rd Army managed to escape from the encirclement and to reach their own lines. In December 1941 his units took part in the counterattack in the Jelez operation .

In May 1942 Schadow was appointed commander of the 8th Cavalry Corps (at the Bryansk Front). Two weeks after taking office, however, he was bombed by German aircraft in his command vehicle and suffered serious injuries. Only in September 1942 did he take over the leadership of the 66th Army on the Don Front on October 14, 1942 , which then played a decisive role in the Battle of Stalingrad . Schadow's army carried out a series of counter-attacks on the flank of German troops attempting to enter the city from the north. Later his troops took part in the encirclement of the German 6th Army . In the spring of 1943, the 66th Army was awarded the title of 5th Guard Army for its service . Schadow was on 27 January 1943, Lieutenant General and on 25 September 1944 , Colonel General transported. His 5th Guard Army fought from the summer of 1943 in the Battle of Kursk , in the Belgorod-Kharkov Operation and in the Battle of the Dnieper , then in the following spring of 1944 in the Kirovograd , Uman-Botoșaner and in July 1944 the Lviv-Sandomierz Operation . In 1945, the last year of the war, his troops were involved in the Vistula-Oder operation and the Cottbus and Prague operations . On April 6, 1945 Schadow was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union .

post war period

After the war, he continued to command the 5th Guard Army as part of the Central Group of the Armed Forces. In July, Schadow was appointed Deputy Commander in Chief of the Land Forces of the USSR and was responsible for the combat training of the troops. In 1950 he completed the higher academic courses at the Voroshilov Academy and was head of the Frunze Military Academy from 1950 to 1954. In 1954 he became Commander in Chief of the Central Army Group of the Land Forces. After the group was disbanded, he was again Deputy Commander of the Ground Forces from 1956 and had previously been appointed Army General on August 8, 1955. In 1964 he became the first deputy chief inspector in the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. Since October 1969 he was a military inspector and advisor in the group of inspectors general in the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. In addition to his military functions, he was elected a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Schadow died on November 10, 1977 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

His daughter Larissa Alexejewna Schadowa (1927–1981) was an art historian and connoisseur of the Russian avant-garde. She was married to the poet Semjon Gudsenko (1922-1953). According to documents, Alexei Semenovich was Russian, but according to some sources, he did not want his daughter to marry Semen Gudsenko, who was Jewish by nationality. Because of the Jewish origin of the son-in-law, he no longer provided his daughter with material support. After Semyon's death, Larissa married the poet Konstantin Michailowitsch Simonow .

Web links

• http://hrono.ru/biograf/bio_zh/zhadov.php
• http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=619
• https://stalingrad-battle.ru/history/people-time/4359/