Otakar Jaroš

Otakar Jaroš (born August 1, 1912 in Louny , † March 8, 1943 in Sokolowo ) was a Czechoslovak officer. He fell in the Battle of Sokolowo and was the first foreigner to be awarded the highest Soviet military order Hero of the Soviet Union .

Life

Jaroš was born into the family of a Czech stoker of the Imperial and Royal Railways and spent his childhood in Mělník , where he attended high school. After he had broken off this school education, he graduated from a technical school for electrical engineering in Prague , the military school for NCOs in Trnava in 1933 and the military academy in Hranice na Moravě in 1937 . From 1939 he was stationed as a platoon leader of a telegraphic unit in Prešov .

After the Munich Agreement he was demobilized as a Czechoslovak soldier and worked in Náchod as a post office clerk. In 1939 he fled via Poland to the Soviet Union , where he joined the Svoboda Army that was forming . In 1942 he entered the training camp of the First Czechoslovak Battalion in Buzuluk in the foothills of the Urals and rose to become the commander of the first company.

Lieutenant Otakar Jaroš fell on March 8, 1943 in the Battle of Sokolowo while defending his command post against a German tank attack near Kharkov . It was the first battle ever in which a foreign unit fought alongside the Red Army against the Wehrmacht .

Honors

Otakar Jaroš was posthumously promoted to captain. In accordance with the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , on March 17, 1943, as the first foreigner, he was awarded the highest Soviet honor Hero of the Soviet Union , and later the Order of Lenin and the Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion . The local school in Sokolowe and streets in Buzuluk, Kharkov and Poltava bear his name . There is a monument in Mělník .

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personal data
SURNAME	Jaroš, Otakar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Czechoslovak officer and Hero of the Soviet Union
DATE OF BIRTH	August 1, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH	Louny
DATE OF DEATH	March 8, 1943
Place of death	Sokolowo