Vasily Nikolayevich Gordov

Vasily Nikolayevich Gordov ( Russian Василий Николаевич Гордов ; November 30 ^{. Jul} / 12. December 1896 ^greg. In the village Matwejewka, District Menzelinsk , Russian Empire - 24. August 1950 in Moscow ) was a Soviet colonel general and army commander in World War II .

Life

WN Gordow, who came from a poor peasant family, was born in 1896 in the village of Matveevka, today the Menselinsk district in the Ufa governorate , Republic of Tatarstan .

Early military career

During the First World War in 1915 his entry into the tsarist army, where he quickly was made sergeant rose. In 1917 he joined the Red Army and in 1918 worked in the headquarters of the 12th Army on the Northern Front. During the civil war he fought as a platoon , company and battalion commander , he was then regimental commander on the Eastern and Western Fronts. He took part in the fighting against the grassroots democratic formations Machnos ( Machnowschtschina ). In July 1921 he became deputy commander of the 53rd Rifle Regiment of the 18th Rifle Brigade and from June 1923 he was battalion commander in the 18th Rifle Regiment of Kursk . In 1925 he completed a commanding course at the High Tactical School of the Red Army. Since 1925 he acted as a trainer for the Mongolian People's Army . In August 1926 he became deputy commander of the 241st Kaluga Rifle Regiment . In the summer of 1927 he attended the shooting and tactical training courses "Wystrel" of the Comintern and in September 1927 he became the deputy commander of the 16th Rifle Regiment. In 1931 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy and in February 1932 was appointed assistant to the department head of the Directorate for Combat Training of the Red Army. In January 1933 he became chief of staff of the Moscow Military Infantry School. In May 1935 he was appointed chief of staff of the 18th Rifle Division and on June 15, 1937, he was appointed commander of the 67th Rifle Division. From July 1939 he served as the deputy chief of staff of the Kalinin Military District, was promoted to colonel on November 29 and confirmed as acting chief in this position in January 1940. In July 1940, he moved to the Volga Military District in the same position . He was appointed brigade commander on May 17, 1939 and took part in the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, serving as Chief of Staff of the 7th Army until December 6, 1939 , and being promoted to major general on June 4, 1940 .

In World War II

At the beginning of World War II, Major General Gordov was Chief of Staff of the 21st Army and from 7 to 24 August 1941 he was appointed Deputy Commander of this Army (63rd and 66th Rifle Corps), which had been relocated to Gomel . As part of the first formation of the Brjansk Front , he led the Battle of Gomel against the German 2nd Army . After the army commanders VI Kuznetsov and FI Kuznetsov left the army, Gordow was appointed long-term commander of the 21st Army on October 15. The 21st Army had been subordinated to the Southwest Front and had to surrender the city of Belgorod on October 24 when the German 6th Army withdrew . From mid-December 1941 to January 1942, the army troops took part in the counter-offensive towards Kursk and Obojan .

On July 22, 1942, Gordow was appointed lieutenant general and until August 1942 he commanded the troops of the Stalingrad Front , whose troops defended the Don Arch when German troops approached and during the Kessel Battle at Kalatsch . Marshal Tymoshenko , who spoke out in favor of General AS Chujanov, but was overruled by party functionary Georgi Malenkov, opposed his appointment . In his new position, Gordow made leadership errors in the organization of the defense on the new front west of the Don from Kletzkaya via Roshkowskaya to Nizhne-Kalinowka and was removed again after 19 days. On August 12, 1942, he was replaced by General Al Yeremenko and deputy commander of the same front. In September 1942 he was seriously injured in a bomb attack. After he was placed in the reserve of the High Command until October 18, he took over the 33rd Army deployed on the Western Front .

In March 1943, the 33rd Army took part in the final Battle of Rzhev and then played an important role in the Smolensk Operation . The troops of the 33rd Army, together with the formations of the 49th Army, led the main blow and liberated the city of Spas-Demensk . On September 9, 1943, Gordow was promoted to Colonel General for this success. In the course of the further fighting in the direction of Vitebsk and Orsha, his army achieved less success because they could not break through the German defense. In addition, the losses of the 33rd Army during these five months made up more than 50 percent of the total losses on the Western Front . In early 1944, Gordow ordered a court martial against Captain A. Trofimow, the agitator of the political department of the 274th Rifle Division. The Military Council of the Western Front qualified this decision as the arbitrary of the army commander and reversed it. This conclusion was confirmed by the decision of a special commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party under Secretary GM Malenkov, who turned to Joseph Stalin with a proposal to remove Gordov from his command . In March 1944, Gordow was removed from his office and made available to the Red Army Personnel Office. On April 2, 1944, Gordow was appointed commander of the 3rd Guard Army . At the head of this army he took part in the Lemberg-Sandomierz offensive and advanced with his troops to the Vistula . During the Vistula-Oder operation, the 3rd Guard Army broke through the defense of the German troops and occupied Kielce on January 15th . On January 17th, his units went over the Pilica and Warthe and were able to reach the Oder on January 28th . From April to May 1945 his troops took part in the Berlin and Prague operations . By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on April 6, 1945 Vasily Nikolayevich Gordov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union .

post war period

From July 1945 to July 1946 he was the commander of the Volga Military District. Since March 1946 he was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at the 2nd Congress and retired in November 1946 due to illness. On January 12, 1947 year he was arrested on the orders of Stalin. The reason for the arrest were wiretapped conversations between Gordov and his wife Tatiana Vladimirova and Generals GI Kulik and FT Rybalchenko , in which he sharply criticized the situation in the country and the policies of his leadership. On August 24, 1950, he was sentenced to death by the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR for attempted terrorist attack against the leadership of the USSR. The sentence was carried out in Lefortovo Prison on the same day . By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 29, 1951, he was deprived of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and all state awards. The ashes were buried in Moscow's Donskoy cemetery . After Stalin's death, he was rehabilitated on April 11, 1956 by the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which overturned the August 24, 1950 judgment based on new evidence. On July 5, 1960, his former rank as Hero of the Soviet Union was restored.

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personal data
SURNAME	Gordow, Vasily Nikolayevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Гордов, Василий Николаевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	soviet colonel general
DATE OF BIRTH	December 12, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH	Matveevka village, Menselinsk district , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH	August 24, 1950
Place of death	Moscow