Hovhannes Baghramjan

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Howhannes Baghramjan

Howhannes Baghramjan ( Armenian Հովհաննես Բաղրամյան , in scientific transliteration Hovhannes Bałramyan ; * 20 November July / 2 December  1897 greg. In Tschardachlu , Russian Empire ; † September 21, 1982 in Moscow ), outside Armenia mainly known as Russian Iwan Christoforowitsch Bagramjan ( Иван Христофорович Баграмян ) and English Hovhannes Bagramian was a Marshal of the Soviet Union .

Life

Howhannes Baghramjan was born as the son of an Armenian railroad worker family from the village of Tschardachlu (today Çənlibel ) in the Yelisavetpol Governorate , Russian Empire (today Gəncə , Azerbaijan ).

Military career

Baghramjan volunteered for the Russian Army in 1915 and fought on the Caucasus Front in the 2nd Caucasus Border Regiment of the Russian Expeditionary Corps against the Ottoman Empire . In 1917 his troop was disbanded. Three years later he joined the Red Army and took part in the Russian Civil War. He also took part in the Red Army fighting against the Turkish army in the Sarighamish and Kars regions .

Baghramjan graduated from the Leningrad Cavalry School in 1925 and from the Military Academy "MW Frunze" in 1934 . From 1934 to 1936 he served as Chief of Staff of the 5th Cavalry Division, was promoted to Colonel on November 29, 1935, and from 1938 worked as a leading instructor at the Military Academy of the Soviet General Staff . In 1940 he became chief of the operational department and deputy chief of staff of the Kiev Special Military District, on August 12, 1941 he was promoted to major general.

In the German-Soviet War

After the start of the German-Soviet War in June 1941, Baghramjan was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Southwest Front , which had its headquarters in Kiev. In western Ukraine he took part in the tank battle near Dubno-Lutsk-Rivne and in the defense of Kiev , in which his front-line commander Kirponos was killed and all front troops were surrounded by the Germans. He was one of the few experienced officers who were able to break out of the encirclement with parts of the troops.

Baghramjan then served again on the Southwest Front as Chief of Staff under Marshal Tymoshenko and took part in the fighting for Rostov in December 1941 and in the unsuccessful counter-offensive near Kharkov in the spring of 1942 . On December 27, 1941, he became a lieutenant general , and on 27 August 1943, Colonel General transported.

From April 1, 1942, Bagramjan nominally headed the headquarters of the Southwest Front under Marshal Tymoshenko. The Soviet offensive to Kharkov ended in disaster in May. The troops in the Barwenkowo bridgehead were cut off by a German counter-offensive. Despite the fact that all decisions in the course of the operations were made by Tymoshenko and Khrushchev , Stalin named Baghramyan as the main culprit for the defeat. He was only saved from the threatened military tribunal because Zhukov intervened with Stalin and found the Stawka and the General Staff to be responsible for the failure of the offensive . When, during the German offensive on the Don, the 28th Army left Rossosh to the German troops almost without a fight on July 7, 1942, Bagramjan faced another military tribunal. After Zhukov's new intervention, he was sent to the Western Front, where he briefly acted as deputy commander of the 61st Army and, on July 13, 1942, succeeded Rokossovsky in command of the 16th Army in the Shizdra area . In February 1943 he commanded the unsuccessful Schisdra operation. In mid-1943 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the 11th Guard Army (the previous 16th Army received the Guard rank ) and in July 1943 commanded the successful breakthrough in the direction of Karachev in the " Operation Kutuzov " in the area northwest of Orel .

Promoted to army general on November 17, 1943 and appointed commander of the 1st Baltic Front , he took part in the great Soviet summer offensive of 1944 in Belarus and Lithuania from the end of June 1944 . In " Operation Bagration " the German Army Group Center was almost completely wiped out. His troops broke through to the Baltic Sea and cut off 30 German divisions in Latvia on their way back. For his achievements in these missions he was awarded the title " Hero of the Soviet Union " on July 29, 1944 . In October 1944, troops from his 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts (Army General II Maslennikow ) began to block the German troops that had been cut off in Courland .

In February 1945 Baghramjan in East Prussia took over the command of the troops in Samland (39th and 43rd armies). In April 1945, during the Battle of Koenigsberg , Baghramjan, under the command of Marshal Wassilewski, smashed the German army division Samland (General Gollnick ) and, after Wassilewski's recall to Manchuria, took over the command of the 3rd Belarusian Front , which was dissolved in July 1945 has been.

post war period

Stamp issue for the
90th birthday of Baghramjan (Soviet Union 1987)

After the war he remained in command of the Baltic military district and commanded operations against nationalist partisans in Lithuania and Latvia. In 1954 he was appointed Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Defense. On March 11, 1955, he received the rank of " Marshal of the Soviet Union " and was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense. He also became head of the Military Academy of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Forces of the Soviet Armed Forces until he retired in 1968. Baghramjan died in Moscow in 1982; his urn was buried on the Kremlin wall .

Baghramjan was twice honored with the title Hero of the Soviet Union (July 29, 1944, December 1, 1977), he received the Order of Lenin , the Order of the October Revolution three times , the Order of the Red Banner three times , the Suvorov Order twice and the Order of Kutuzov once . On May 11, 1997, the government of Armenia donated a Marshal Baghramyan commemorative medal (Armenian: զինված ուժերի «Մարշալ Բաղրամյան» մեդալ). It was awarded to soldiers and civilians who took part in World War II.

literature

  • Steven H. Newton: Kursk. The German View; eyewhitness report of operation citadel by the German Commander . Da Capo Press, New York 2002, ISBN 0-306-81150-2 .
  • Harold Shukman (Ed.): Stalin's Generals . Phoenix Press, Phoenix, Ariz. 2001, ISBN 1-84212-513-3 .
  • Christopher J. Walker: Armenia. Survival of a Nation . Routledge, London 1990, ISBN 0-415-04684-X .
  • Bernd Wegner (Ed.): Two ways to Moscow. From the Hitler-Stalin Pact to "Operation Barbarossa" . Piper, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-492-11346-X .
  • Steven Zaloga : Bagration 1944. The Destruction of Army Group Center (Osprey Military Campaign Series; 42). Osprey Publ., New York 1996, ISBN 1-85532-478-4 .

Web links

Commons : Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Baghramjan, Hovhannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bagramjan, Ivan Christoforowitsch; Bagramian, Hovhannes; Բաղրամյան, Հովհաննես (Armenian); Bałramyan, Hovhannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION soviet military commander
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Tschardachlu , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1982
Place of death Moscow