Vasily Ivanovich Kuznetsov

Vasily Iwanowitsch Kuznetsov ( Russian Василий Иванович Кузнецов ; * 3 January ^July / 15 January 1894 ^{greg. In} the village of Ust-Usolka, Solikamsk in the Perm Governorate ; † June 20, 1964 in Moscow ) was a Soviet colonel-general during World War II and several times a Soviet colonel-general Army leader of the Red Army .

Life

Coming from a working-class family, he worked as an accountant in Solikamsk Zemstvo from 1912 to 1915. He was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army in April 1915 during World War I. From March 1916 he graduated from the officers' school in Kazan and was appointed lieutenant (Podporuchik) in July and fought on the Southwest Front in Infantry Regiment 305 until December 1917. After the October Revolution , he joined the Red Army in August 1918 and served in the Russian Civil War first as company commander and later as deputy regimental commander. From October to December 1920 he fought on the southern front with the 264th Rifle Regiment against White Guards under Wrangel and against the Machnovshchina . After the war, he graduated from the officers' college in Oranienbaum in 1920. He completed the “Wystrel” leadership course (1920) at a faculty of the Frunze Military Academy . In October 1923 he was appointed commander of the 89th Rifle Regiment and joined the Communist Party in 1928 . He studied at the Frunze Military Academy in 1936. In October 1936 he was appointed commander of the 99th Rifle Division and in July 1937 the commander of the 16th Rifle Corps. On March 13, 1938 he was promoted to division general and on February 9, 1939 to Komkor (corps commander).

In the Patriotic War

With the beginning of the war (September 1939) he received the supreme command of the 3rd Army , which took part in the invasion of Poland as part of the Belarusian Front (Army General MP Kowaljow ) and occupied the area around Vitebsk and Polotsk . On June 4, 1940, he was appointed lieutenant general. On June 22, 1941, the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , Kuznetsov's 3rd Army was stationed in Belarus as part of the Western Front . His troops were beaten and surrounded in the Grodno area. At the beginning of July he was able to break out of the Wolkowysk pocket with about 500 men of his formation and reach the Soviet lines at Rogachev. This achievement was commended by Stalin in Order No. 270, and at the end of August he received the supreme command of the 21st Army in the Gomel area. Defeated in the Roslavl-Nowozybkower operation , he and his troops were pushed south via Mosyr and again encircled by German troops in the Battle of Kiev . He escaped the ring around Pirjatin and was able to break out with parts of his army towards Sumy to the east. Then in October 1941 he was appointed as the new chief of the military district of Kharkov for a short time to commander of the newly formed 58th Army. On November 23, during the Battle of Moscow, he was given the command of the 1st Shock Army at Jachroma, which took part in the successful counter-offensive across the Volga-Moscow Canal in early December 1941 . His units together with the 30th Army (General Lelyushenko ) liberated Klin and Solnechnogorsk .

In February 1942, his army moved north and took part in the Demjansk operation . In July 1942, General Kuzensow was given command of the 63rd Army in the Stalingrad area. This formation proved its worth in the counter-offensive on the Don sector and was renamed the 1st Guard Army in November 1942 . For the achievements of his troops, he was awarded the Suvorov Order, 1st class. On March 25, 1943 he was promoted to colonel general . As a result, his 1st Guard Army successfully took part in the battles on the Donets , in the battle for the Donbass region and in the Battle of the Dnieper . On December 15, 1943, Kuznetsov was appointed deputy to Army General Bagramjan as commander of the 1st Baltic Front . In this capacity he took part in the 1944 Belarusian Operation , the Baltic Operation and the Battle of East Prussia . At the end of February 1945 this command was dissolved and on March 16, Kuznesow was given command of the 3rd Shock Army on the central Oder section. The army was involved in the Battle of the Seelow Heights as part of the 1st Belarusian Front under Marshal Zhukov . On April 30th, his units stormed the Reichstag during the battle for Berlin . Soldiers of the 150th Rifle Division (General Shatilow ) hoisted the Red Army's victory banner on this building. On May 29, 1945, Kuznetsow was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (No. 6460) for his achievements .

post war period

After the war he remained in East Germany until May 1948 as the commander of the 3rd Shock Army. In 1948 he attended the Voroshilov Academy and graduated there. From 1948 to 1953 he acted as chairman of the central committee of the DOSAAF , from 1953 to 1957 he was the commander of the troops of the Volga military district. He was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1946 to 1950 and from 1954 to 1958 . Until his retirement in 1960, he also served as a military advisor in the Ministry of Defense. Vasily Ivanovich died in 1964 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

literature

• Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume 13 .-- Soviet Encyclopedia, Moscow 1973, p. 561.
• The Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945: / Editor MM Kozlow, Soviet Encyclopedia, Moscow 1985, p. 387.
• KA Zalessky: Biographical encyclopedic dictionary. Moscow, Veche, 2000.

Web links

• Biography on www.warheroes.ru
• hrono.ru/biograf