Rodion Jakowlewitsch Malinowski

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Rodion Malinowski

Rodion Malinovsky ( Russian Родион Яковлевич Малиновский ; born November 11 . Jul / 23. November  1898 greg. In Odessa , † 31 March 1967 in Moscow ) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union and commander of Soviet ground forces . Malinowski was Defense Minister of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1967 .

Life

Malinowski, who according to some researchers was of Karaim origin on his father's side , attended school until he was 12 years old and then worked as a farm worker and delivery boy. After the beginning of the First World War in 1914 he managed to join the Russian Army as a minor . He was wounded, promoted to private and came to France on the Western Front in 1916 with the Russian Expeditionary Force . There, too, he was wounded and promoted to sergeant. After the October Revolution , Malinowski stood up for the Bolsheviks and was therefore arrested by the French authorities. Until the end of the war he served with the Légion Russe and was awarded the Croix de guerre .

In August 1919, on his return to Russia, he joined the Red Army and served until the end of the civil war in the Far East, where he fought against the troops of the white admiral Kolchak . In 1927 he was battalion commander and began studying at the Frunze Academy , which he graduated with honors in 1930. He then found use as chief of staff and later as commander of the 2nd Cavalry Division. After four years in the operational administration of the General Staff of the Red Army, he commanded a cavalry corps in Bessarabia . Under the name "Colonel Malino" he worked as a military advisor on the side of the Republican government in Spain. He then became major subject teacher at the Frunze Academy with the rank of major general .

In 1941 he was appointed commander of the 48th Rifle Corps of the 9th Independent Army in the Odessa military district. In August he took over command of the 6th and 12th Armies of the Southern Front , which he led from December 1941. In 1942 he was Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Guard Army, which in the Battle of Stalingrad thwarted the German attempt to detach the trapped German 6th Army . In February 1943, promoted to Colonel General, he took command of the southern front , which was newly formed in January . In the further course of the war he was promoted to army general and led the Southwest Front from March 1943 , which was renamed the 3rd Ukrainian Front in October . From May 1944 Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Ukrainian Front , he carried out Operation Jassy-Kishinev together with Marshal Tolbuchin at the end of August 1944 . In September 1944 he was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union and accepted the surrender of the Romanian troops. His front advanced through Transylvania and Hungary, began the battle for Budapest at the end of October 1944 and stood on the Slovakian border in spring 1945 . From April 1945 he was chairman of the Allied Control Commission for Romania until in August 1945 he was given command of the Transbaikal Front , which he led together with the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army against the Japanese Kwantung Army .

After the end of the war, Malinowski remained in this part of the Soviet Union as Commander in Chief of the Transbaikal Military District and from 1947 as Commander in Chief of the Troops of the Far East. In 1954 he replaced Nikolai Krylov as Commander in Chief of the Far Eastern Military District. During the Korean War , he was closely associated with North Korean and Chinese operations.

Malinovsky succeeded Ivan Konev as Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of the USSR and First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR in March 1956 . A year later he replaced Georgy Zhukov as Minister of Defense of the USSR. Malinowski held this office until his death.

As a member of the CPSU since 1926, Malinowski was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union since 1946 and, since 1959, also a member of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR . From 1952 to 1967 he belonged to the Central Committee of the CPSU, initially as a candidate and from 1956 as a full member. He was one of the few winners of the Soviet Union's highest military award, the Order of Victory , and was twice honored as Hero of the Soviet Union . In addition, six times he was awarded the Order of Lenin , the Order of Suvorov 1st Class, the Order of Kutuzov , the George Cross 4th stage of the Order of St. George (September 1915) as well as many other Soviet and foreign orders and medals. In 1963 he received the honorary citizenship of Wroclaw .

In the last few years of his life, Malinowski suffered from diabetes and heart failure. After his death, his urn was buried on the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

The military academy of armored troops was later given his name, as has the town of Malynovsky in Odessa since 1977. The Floridsdorfer Bridge in Vienna was named after him from 1946 to 1956. He left his wife, Raissa, and four children, three sons and a daughter.

literature

  • Klaus Dorst, Birgit Hoffmann: Small Lexicon of Soviet Armed Forces. 1st edition, military publishing house of the GDR 1987.
  • Army leader of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945. 1st edition, Military Publishing House of the GDR 1978, 1st half volume, pp. 233–277.
  • John Erikson: Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky. In: Harold Shukman (editor): Stalin's Generals. Grove Press, New York City 1993.
  • David M. Glantz: The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945. August Storm, Frank (Editor), London 2003.
  • Mark Shteinberg: Evrei v voinakh tysiachiletii. Moscow, Jerusalem 2005, pp. 316-318.
  • Joseph E. Thach Jr .: Malinovskii, Rodion Yakovlevich. In: The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. Vol. 21.
  • Alexander Werth: Russia at War 1941–1945. Droemer / Knaur, 1964, English Russia At War, 1941–1945. Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., New York City 1999.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maciej Łagiewski : Honorowi Obywatele Wrocławia w latach 1870-1992. In: Dzieje Wrocławia w datach. Wrocław 1992, ISBN 83-86221-00-3 .
  2. ↑ Малиновський район. Одеська область, м Одеса.
personal data
SURNAME Malinowski, Rodion Jakowlewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Малиновский, Родион Яковлевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet Marshal and Minister of Defense
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Odessa
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1967
Place of death Moscow