Anatoly Ivanovich Gribkow

Gribkov's tomb in the Troyekurovo cemetery in Moscow

Anatoli Ivanovich Gribkow ( Russian Анатолий Иванович Грибков ; born March 23, 1919 in Duchowoje near Liski , today Voronezh Oblast ; † February 12, 2008 in Moscow ) was a senior Soviet military during the Cold War . From 1976 until his retirement in 1988 he was the Chief of Staff of the Warsaw Pact .

Life

Gribkow came from a small farming family. His home village Duchowoje is right on the Don . He had six brothers and three sisters.

Until 1937 he lived and worked in the Duchowoje collective farm . He then first attended a school for agricultural technicians, which he broke off through the placement of an advertising officer. He joined the Red Army to graduate from the tank officers school JV Stalin in Kharkov . He finished this in December 1939 shortly before the regular end, as he was commanded to serve in the war against Finland .

In the winter war against Finland, which lasted from November 30, 1939 to March 13, 1940, Gribkow was a lieutenant platoon leader in a tank unit. In the summer of 1940 he was involved in the Soviet occupation of Latvia. At the beginning of the war against Germany he served first as adjutant , then promoted to first lieutenant , as company commander of a tank brigade. After completing the course at the Frunze Academy from autumn 1941 to May 1942, which began in Moscow and was continued in Tashkent in Uzbekistan due to the evacuation of the course participants from the approaching German troops , he worked as an authorized officer of the general staff in various corps and armies. From June 1944 he was an operative in the General Staff and at the end of the war in 1945 he was a major .

In 1949 he was assigned to the Academy of General Staff on probation , from which he graduated in December 1951 as a colonel with a gold medal.

After the war he held various positions as head of operational administration in the military districts of Leningrad (since 1958 as major general ) and Kiev, as well as in the general staff in Moscow. In 1962 he was in charge of the operational preparation and implementation of the shipment of troops and missiles to Cuba . This secret operation was called Operation Anadyr and, when exposed by the USA, led to the Cuban Missile Crisis . In the mid-1960s he became commander of the 7th Guard Army in the Transcaucasian Military District. This was stationed in Armenia. From 1969 he acted as deputy commander of the Leningrad military district, from 1973 as its commander. From 1976 to 1988 he was Chief of Staff of the Warsaw Pact. This position was connected with the function of the first deputy of the Soviet chief of staff. His last rank was army general .

Along with the assumption of military leadership functions, the party and state were involved in political functions. His last functions here were a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU .

Gribkov was married to Lida Dmitrievna. He had a son (Stanislaw, born 1942) and a daughter (Alla, born 1950).

In recognition of his leadership of the secret military operation Anadyr in 1962, he was awarded the Order of Solidarity of the Republic of Cuba in 1999.

literature

• Anatoli I. Gribkow: In the service of the Soviet Union. Memories of an Army General . Edition Q, October 1997. ISBN 3-928024-92-2 .
• Anatoli Gribkow and William Y. Smith: Operation Anadyr: US and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis , Edition Q, 1993, ISBN 978-0-86715-266-1 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Calendario Marzo 1999 ( Memento of the original dated December 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Cuba a la Mano , accessed August 9, 2012 (Spanish).