Pavel Alexeyevich Kurochkin
Pavel Kurochkin ( Павел Алексеевич Курочкин ; born November 6 . Jul / 19th November 1900 greg. In Gornewo at Vyazma , Smolensk , † 28. December 1989 in Moscow ) was a Soviet army general .
Life
Kurotschkin came from a rural background. He initially worked as a baker's assistant and later as a railroad worker. In 1917 he joined the Bolsheviks and took July 25th . / 7th November 1917 greg. participated in the assault on the Winter Palace in Petrograd .
Early military career
After joining the Red Army he fought in the Russian Civil War , where he held a cavalry - squadron commander. In 1920 he began his first military training and graduated from the cavalry academy in 1923. After several years of service in the troops, he was assigned to the military academy "MW Frunze" , which he graduated in 1932. In the 1930s he first served as chief of staff of a cavalry corps and from 1936 commanded a cavalry division in the Moscow military district . From December 1937 to June 1939 he headed the cavalry training department. At the beginning of 1939 he took over command of the 31st Cavalry Division, but was then involved in the occupation of Eastern Poland in September 1939 with the Ukrainian Front as Chief of Staff of the 2nd Cavalry Corps. During the Finnish-Soviet winter war of 1939/40 he commanded the 28th Rifle Corps and later the 1st Army Group, from which the 17th Army was formed. In January 1941 Kurochkin was appointed Commander in Chief of the Transbaikal Military District.
In the German-Soviet War
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, he was recalled to Moscow. On July 5, 1941, he took over the leadership of the 20th Army on the hard-pressed Western Front . Two mechanized corps equipped with the new T-34 and KW-1 tanks had been added to this army. Nevertheless, the counterattack at Lepel ended in defeat, and on July 16 the Germans broke through the opposing front. Under the pressure, the 20th Army had to retreat across the Dnieper , gave up Orsha on July 16 and withdrew to Smolensk . By July 28, the 20th Army had been included in the Battle of Smolensk . Kurochkin escaped captivity and on August 8, 1941 was appointed commander of the 43rd Army drawn from the reserve . In August 1941 he became Commander in Chief of the Northwest Front , which he led until October 1942 and from June to November 1943. During the winter campaigns of 1943 and 1944, meanwhile promoted to Colonel General on August 27, 1943 , as deputy commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, he led the combined forces of the 13th and 60th Army in the Zhitomir-Berdichev operation and liberated Novgorod-Volinsk .
Between February and April 1944 he commanded the 2nd Belarusian Front and then became Commander-in-Chief of the 60th Army in the 1st Ukrainian Front, which he led until the end of the war. In July 1944, as part of the Lviv-Sandomierz operation , he and his troops led the central attack south of Brody towards the Vistula to liberate the cities of Tarnopol , Lemberg and Przemyśl . In January 1945 he took part in the Vistula-Oder operation under Marshal Ivan Konev , liberated Krakow and reached the upper Oder in the Opole region . During the Prague operation scheduled in northern Czechoslovakia (May 1945), his troops liberated Moravian-Ostrava and broke through to Olomouc . For leading his army and for courage and determination in the face of the enemy, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on June 29, 1945 .
post war period
After the end of the war, Kurotschkin headed the Cuban Military District until July 1946 and was then Deputy Commander in Chief of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and, from May 1947, Deputy Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces in the Far East.
In February 1951 Kurochkin became Deputy Director of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR "KJ Voroshilov" and in May 1954 director of the Military Academy "MW Frunze". In 1959 he was promoted to army general and received the title of professor in 1962. From May 1968 to September 1970 he was the representative of the United High Command of the Warsaw Pact in the GDR . After that he belonged to the group of inspectors general at the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.
Kurochkin had been a member of the CPSU since 1920 . In 1959 and 1961 he took part as a delegate in the 21st and 22nd Congress of the CPSU. In 1946 he became a member of the Supreme Soviet. He is the holder of various awards, including a. four Orders of Lenin , the Order of the October Revolution , 4 Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of Suvorov 1st class.
literature
- KA Залесский: Империя Сталина - Биографический энциклопедический словарь , Вече, Москва, 2000. ( online version )
- Short biography about: Kurotschkin, Pawel Alexejewitsch . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
Web links
- Article Pawel Alexejewitsch Kurotschkin in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kurotschkin, Pavel Alexejewitsch |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Курочкин, Павел Алексеевич (Russian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | soviet army general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 19, 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gornewo near Vyazma , Smolensk Governorate |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 28, 1989 |
| Place of death | Moscow |