Max Andreevich Reiter

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Max Andreevich Reiter

Max Reiter Andreyevich ( Russian Макс Андреевич Рейтер * 12 / 24. April 1886 Ventspils , † 6. April 1950 in Moscow ) was a Soviet Colonel-General (1943) and World War II commander of the Bryansk Front .

Life

He came from a family of Latvian farmers and spent his youth on the Zirgenhof in the province of Courland. In 1905 he graduated from a secondary school in Libau . In the Russian Imperial Army he served since 1906 as a private in the 1st Siberian Rifle Regiment of the 1st Siberian Division. In 1908 he passed a voluntary exam which gave him the right to attend military school. Then he graduated from the Irkutsk Military School in 1910 . Since January 1911 he served as a non-commissioned officer in the 1st Siberian Regiment. During the First World War he came with the 1st Siberian Infantry Division to the Russian Western Front, where he led a company and soon a battalion. At the beginning of 1916 he was seriously wounded, was sent to the hospital and was appointed an officer for special operations at the headquarters of the Caucasus Army . In September 1917 he became an officer in the staff of the 12th Army . He fell ill with typhus in early 1918 and was captured by the Germans in a hospital in Valka in February . Until February 1919 he was in the German prisoner-of-war camps in Hammerstein and Danzig. He tried unsuccessfully to escape from captivity; his return only took place through a prisoner exchange in January 1919.

Service in the Red Army

In March 1919 he volunteered in the Red Army and served in the Vitebsk Regiment of the Cheka . In August 1919 he became the commander of the 99th Rifle Regiment and in July of the 97th Rifle Regiment (both part of the 11th Petrograd Rifle Division). Since November 1919 he commanded the 32nd Rifle Brigade as a colonel . He took part in the Russian Civil War and fought on the Northern Front in Latvia and Estonia in 1919. He participated in the defense of Petrograd against the White Guard army of General NN Yudenich and in the operations against the troops of General Bulak-Balachowitsch . In the summer of 1920 his brigade was transferred to the Polish front, where he distinguished himself several times, was wounded and received his first Order of the Red Banner . At the head of his brigade he took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising (1921) in March 1921 , he was one of the first to break into the fortress and was wounded again. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the second time, which was rare in the early days of the Red Army. After the war, he continued to serve in the 11th Rifle Division: one after the other as commander of the 33rd and 31st Rifle Brigade, then as adjutant to the division commander. In 1922 he participated in the suppression of the Karelian uprising against Soviet rule that was triggered in October 1921 . He graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army in Moscow in 1923 . In September 1923 he served temporarily as commander of the 11th Rifle Division. In October 1924 he was appointed commander of the 2nd Amur Rifle Division in Blagoveshchensk . From March 1926 to December 1929 he was in command of the 36th Transbaikal Rifle Division in Chita . In 1927 he completed advanced training courses for commanders. In December 1929 he was seconded to the industrial production and commanded the Transcaucasian industrial district of paramilitary guard of industrial enterprises and the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, where he fights against saboteurs and uprisings Basmachis led. In 1931 he worked for the People's Commissariat of the OGPU as deputy head of the section for air and fire protection at the Supreme Economic Council. Then he returned to the Red Army and in September 1932 was appointed commander of the 73rd Omsk Rifle Division in the Siberian Military District . In September 1933 he was sent to study and graduated from the Frunze Military Academy by 1935 . From November 1935 he served in the 2nd Department of the General Staff of the Red Army. On February 17, 1936, he was appointed division commander, from April 1936 he was commander of the 3rd Rifle Division (renamed the 5th Rifle Division from August 1938) and was then entrusted with combat training for the Red Army in the management. In December 1938, during the Great Terror, he was released from the Red Army, but not arrested. He was one of the few Soviet communists of Latvian origin in a leading position who were not murdered in the course of the Latvian operation of the NKVD . He was rehabilitated in June 1939, but despite being reinstated in the Red Army, he remained without a position for another six months. It was not until January 1940 that he was appointed deputy commander for the military schools of the North Caucasus Military District. On June 4, 1940 he was promoted to lieutenant general, from July 1940 as deputy commander and from June 1941 temporarily as commander of the troops of the North Caucasus military district.

In the Patriotic War

In August 1941 he was appointed deputy commander of logistics on the Central Front and wounded in the Jelez operation in December 1941 . He was already appointed commander of the troops of the North Caucasian military district, but could not accept the position because he had to go to the hospital. Since February 1942 he was deputy commander for new formations on the Western Front . From March 1942 he commanded the 20th Army on the Western Front, which took part in the Rzhev-Sychevka operation . In this operation, his troops initially achieved success by breaking through the German defenses and penetrating up to 40 kilometers deep. In September 1942 Reiter was appointed commander of the Brjansk Front. He distinguished himself in the spring of 1943 in the Voronezh-Kastornoje operation , during which his troops pushed the German 2nd Army and the Hungarian 2nd Army far to the west. For this success he not only received the Suvorov Order, 1st Class, but also received the rank of Colonel General on January 30, 1943. On March 12, 1943, the Bryansk Front was disbanded and Rejter was appointed in command of the new reserve front , which was renamed the Kursk Front on March 23 . On March 28, 1943, the Brjansk Front was renamed again and Reiter remained in command. Since June 1943 he was the commander of the troops of the steppe military district and prepared the troops for the upcoming battle in the Kursk Arc . From July to September 1943 he was deputy commander of the Voronezh Front , with whose troops he was involved in the Belgorod-Kharkov operation . For unclear reasons, he was recalled from his position in September 1943, transferred to the reserve of the Führer and recalled from active command as commander of the Southern Urals military district.

post war period

From January 1946 to January 1950 he was head of the higher tactics and shooting courses at the teaching facility "Wystrel" at the military academy in Moscow named after Marshal BM Shaposhnikov . He was adopted in January 1950 and died only three months later, in April 1950 in Moscow, he was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Awards:

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Reiter, Max Andrejewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Рейтер, Макс Андреевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION soviet colonel general
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Ventspils
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1950
Place of death Moscow