Michail Stepanowitsch Schumilow

Mikhail Schumilow, in 1943 in Stalingrad

Mikhail Stepanovich Shumilov ( Russian Михаил Степанович Шумилов * 17th November 1895 in the village of Verkhne Techenskoje today Shadrinsk ; † 28. June 1975 in Moscow ) was in World War II during the Battle of Stalingrad , a Soviet army leader who in October 1943, Colonel General rose and was named Hero of the Soviet Union .

Life

Shumilov was born in 1895 in the village of Verkhne Techenskoje in Kurgan Oblast into a farming family. He helped his parents with their daily chores at an early age and graduated from a village school with distinction in 1911. Thanks to his achievements, he received a scholarship after graduation that allowed him to continue his studies free of charge. He attended a teachers' college in Chelyabinsk , where he studied until July 1916.

Early military service

Then he was mobilized for military service, sent to the Chuguyev Military School and trained as a sergeant in the 109th Reserve Regiment in Chelyabinsk for military service. In March 1917 this regiment went to the Western Front, where he fought as a company officer in the 32nd Kremenchuger Regiment . In December 1917 he was demobilized in order to be able to work as a country teacher from January 1918. He was then appointed military commissioner in March, while also completing a land surveying course. He joined the Red Army in April 1918 and took part in the suppression of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps.

In the Russian Civil War he was successively platoon leader, company commander and then deputy commander of the 4th Ural Regiment of the 29th Rifle Division. In 1919 he was appointed commander of the independent 85th Rifle Brigade, which crossed the Sywasch sector in Crimea and stormed the Perekop Isthmus . He later fought the Nestor Machno uprising in the Guljaipole area , commanded a battalion of the 58th Infantry Regiment of the 7th Rifle Division in July 1921 and then units of the 20th Rifle Regiment of the same division in the Kharkov military district .

After he had completed higher courses for political leadership in Kharkov in June 1924, he was active as a war council of the same division. After completing the Comintern's "Wystrel" shooting and tactics course, he was appointed military commissioner of the 21st Rifle Regiment of the 7th Rifle Division in the Kiev military district in November 1929. In December 1933 he was appointed chief of staff of the 96th Rifle Division, then deputy commander of the 87th Rifle Division. In November 1935 he was promoted to colonel and on June 15, 1937 the military rank of brigade commander. At the same time was appointed commander of the 7th Rifle Division of the Kiev military district. In the period from February 1938 to May 1939 he volunteered as an advisor to the Republican troops to participate in the civil war in Spain. After returning to his homeland, he was appointed commander of the 11th Rifle Corps in the Special Military District of Belarus . From January to March he took part in the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939 to 1940 as commander of the 11th Corps . On June 4, 1940 he was promoted to major general, since July 1940 his corps was under the 8th Army.

In the Great Patriotic War

At the end of June 1941, the 11th Corps under his command carried out defensive battles on the Northwest Front in Latvia . His troops withdrew as part of the 8th Army in the direction of Riga and then through Estonia on to Tartu . In August 1941, Major General Shumilov was appointed deputy commander of the 55th Army , which, under General Lasarev, defended the southern approaches to Leningrad . In December 1941 he was appointed commander of the newly established 1st Special Rifle Corps, which he was not supposed to lead actively. Instead, he was appointed deputy commander of the 21st Army on the Southwest Front in January 1942 . In this position he took part in the Battle of Kharkov in May 1942 .

In August 1942, Shumilov took command of the 64th Army , which had been defending the southwestern outskirts of Stalingrad since September. After German troops broke through on the seams of the 62nd Army and Kuporosnoye was lost, Shumilov's army repeatedly launched counterattacks against the flanks of the German attack wedges. On December 31, 1942 he was promoted to lieutenant general and in January 1943 participated as part of the Don Front in the destruction of the German 6th Army . After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, the 64th Army was transferred to the Voronezh Front and in spring 1943 led defensive battles along the Seversky Donets in the Belgorod area . By order of the High Command on April 16, 1943, his army was renamed the 7th Guard Army for its successful combat operations . Subsequently, Shumilov's troops proved their worth in July 1943 in the Battle of Kursk and the advance to the Dnieper . On October 20, 1943, he was appointed Colonel General for his leadership and six days later he was awarded the honorary title Hero of the Soviet Union. From the beginning of 1944 until the end of the war in May 1945, the 7th Guard Army was engaged in large-scale combat almost continuously and took part in the operations near Kirovograd , Uman-Botosani , Yasi-Kishinev , Debrecen , Budapest , Bratislava-Brno and the Prague Offensive . In the final phase, Shumilov was supposed to advise on the organization of the new Romanian army and tried to find a balance with the Romanian soldiers and officers opposing in the war.

post war period

After the war, Shumilov commanded the 7th Guard Army until February 1946, when he was briefly appointed commander of the 52nd Army in the Lvov military district. In June 1946 he took over the leadership of the 13th Army in the military district of the Carpathians. After making up for missing high-level certificates at the Voroshilov Military Academy, he was appointed commander of the military district on the White Sea in 1948. Then in May 1949 he became the commander of the troops of the Voronezh military district . From October 1955 he was available to the Defense Minister , in January 1956 he was dismissed from this position for health reasons. However, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on April 24, 1958, he returned to the Soviet Army and was appointed military advisor in the inspector group of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. When he foresaw his imminent death in June 1975, he wished to be buried in Volgograd, where the soldiers of his 64th Army were also buried. His will was fulfilled, the urn with his ashes was buried in Volgograd on Mamayev Kurgan .

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personal data
SURNAME	Schumilow, Michail Stepanowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Шумилов, Михаил Степанович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	soviet colonel general
DATE OF BIRTH	November 17, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH	Schadrinsk
DATE OF DEATH	June 28, 1975
Place of death	Moscow