Vasily Chuikov

Василий Иванович Чуйков Vasily Chuikov
Lieutenant General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (prior to 1943)
Nickname	"The Man of Iron Will" "The Stone"
Born	February 12, 1900 Serebryanye Prudy, Tula oblast, Russian Empire
Died	March 18, 1982 (aged 82) Moscow, Soviet Union
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Years of service	1917–1972
Rank	Marshal of the Soviet Union
Unit	Soviet 8th Guards Army (formerly designated 62nd Army)
Commands held	Red Army Ground Forces, Civil Defense
Battles/wars	World War II Battle of Stalingrad Battle of Berlin
Awards	, Distinguished Service Cross
Other work	1961 until his death, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (Russian: Васи́лий Ива́нович Чуйко́в) (February 12, 1900 – March 18, 1982) was a Russian lieutenant general in the Red Army during World War II, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), who after the war became a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Early life and career

Born into a peasant family in the village of Serebryanye Prudy, he joined the Red Army during the Russian Revolution of 1917^{[citation needed]} and later attended the Frunze Military Academy. Chuikov commanded the 4th Army in the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and during the Russo-Finnish War of 1940. He was then sent to China as an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. In May 1942 the USSR recalled their military advisor, according to Chuikov's memoirs this was due to Nationalist China claiming the USSR was providing military aid as part of an attempt to draw the USSR into the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Second World War

On returning to Moscow, Chuikov was placed in command of the 64th Army (later 7th Guards), on the West bank of the Don river. The 64th Army took part in the fighting withdrawal to Stalingrad, and shortly before the Battle of Stalingrad itself began, Chuikov was made commanding general of the more important 62nd Army, which was to hold Stalingrad itself, with the 64th on its Southern flank.

It was at Stalingrad that Chuikov developed the important tactic of “hugging the enemy,” by which under-armed Soviet soldiers kept the German army so close to them as to minimize the superior firepower enjoyed by the Wehrmacht. Chuikov had witnessed firsthand the Blitzkrieg tactics the Nazis had used to sweep across the Russian steppe, so he used the Germans' carpet-bombing of the city to draw panzer units into the rubble and chaos where their progress was impeded. Here they could be destroyed with Molotov cocktails and Russian artillery operating at close range. This tactic also rendered the German Luftwaffe ineffective, since Stuka dive-bombers could not attack Red Army positions without firing upon their own forces.^[1][2]

After the victory at Stalingrad, the 62nd was redesignated as the Soviet 8th Guards Army. Chuikov then commanded the 8th Guards as part of 1st Belorussian Front and led its advance through Poland, finally heading the Soviet offensive which conquered Berlin in April/May 1945.

Chuikov's advance through Poland was characterized by massive advances across difficult terrain (on several occasions, the 8th Guards Army advanced over 40 miles in a single day). On May 1, 1945, Chuikov, who commanded his army operating in central Berlin, was the first Allied officer to learn about Adolf Hitler's suicide, being informed by General Hans Krebs who came to Chuikov's headquarters under a white flag. He accepted the surrender of Berlin's forces from General Helmuth Weidling.

Chuikov appeared in the documentary film Berlin (1945), directed by Yuli Raizman.

Later life

After the war ended Chuikov stayed in Germany, later serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany from 1949 until 1953, when he was made the Commanding General of the Kiev Military District. While serving at that post, on March 11, 1955 he was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union. From 1960 to 1964 he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Army's Ground Forces. He also served as the Chief of the Civil Defense from 1961 until his retirement in 1972. From 1961 until his death, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

He was a major consultant for the design of the Stalingrad battle memorial on Mamayev Kurgan, and was buried there after his death at the age of 82.

Memoirs in translation

• The Beginning of the Road: The Story of the Battle for Stalingrad, London, 1963.^[3]
• Chuikov, Vasili; David P. Barrett (translator) (2003). Mission to China: Memoirs of a Soviet Military Adviser to Chiang Kaishek. Eastbridge. ISBN 978-1891936104.
• Chuikov, Vasili (1978). The end of the Third Reich. Moscow: Progress. ISBN 978-0828504539.

In popular culture

• Chuikov was briefly featured in the 2004 German-Austrian movie Downfall (Der Untergang), dealing with the fall of Berlin in 1945. He was portrayed by a Russian actor Aleksandr Slastin.
• Dana Kramer-Rolls' novel, Home is the Hunter, has Star Trek character Pavel Chekov refer to Chuikov as his ancestor (although "Vasily" is spelled as "Vassili").
• Chuikov is a character in Robert Conroy's Red Inferno: 1945. The novel follows his career alongside Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov in a fictional situation where the Soviet Union attacks America and the remaining Allied nations. Towards the end of the novel an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress dropped a nuclear bomb near the city of Paderborn, Germany, where he was stationed. The fictional bomb killed him, Zhukov, and a large portion of the Soviet military's elite forces.

Honours and awards

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Russian Wikipedia.

Soviet Union

• Hero of the Soviet Union, twice (19 March 1944, 6 April 1945)
• Order of Lenin, nine times (26 October 1943, 19 March 1944, 21 February 1945, 11 February 1950, 11 February 1960, 12 February 1970, 11 February 1975, 21 February 1978, 11 February 1980)
• Order of the October Revolution (22 February 1968)
• Order of the Red Banner, four times (1920, 1925, 1944, 1948)
• Order of Suvorov, 1st class, three times (28 January 1943, 23 August 1944, 29 May 1945)
• Order of the Red Star (1940)
• Honorary arms with golden national emblem of the Soviet Union (22 February 1968)
• Medal in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
• Medal for the Defence of Stalingrad
• Medal For the Victory Over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945
• Medal for 20 years of victory
• Medal for 30 years of victory
• Medal "For the capture of Berlin"
• Medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw"
• Medal "Veteran of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Medal "20 years of Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army"
• Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy"
• Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"

Foreign

• Order of Merit for the Fatherland in gold, twice (East Germany)
• Grand Cross of the Star of People's Friendship (East Germany)
• Cross of Grunwald, 2nd class (Poland)
• Gold Cross of the Virtuti Militari (Poland)
• Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Poland)
• Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia)
• Two orders of China
• Distinguished Service Cross (United States)

Awards of other countries

See also

• German–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk

References

1. ^ Craig, William (1973). Enemy at the Gates: the Battle for Stalingrad. New York: Penguin Books (ISBN 0-14-200000-0 & ISBN 1-56852-368-8).^{:90, 91}
2. ^ Beevor, Antony (1998). Stalingrad. New York: Viking (ISBN 0-14-024985-0).^{:128, 129}
3. ^ Keegan, John. The Battle for History: Re-fighting World War Two (Barbara Frum lecture series), Vintage Canada, Toronto, 1995. Republished by Vintage Books, New York, 1996.^:121

External links

• (Russian) Memoirs by Vasili Chuikov: Сражение века Battle of the Century – Describes his experiences during the Battle of Stalingrad.
• (Russian) Memoirs by Vasili Chuikov: Конец третьего рейха The End of the Third Reich – Describes his experiences during the last months of the war, ending with the Battle of Berlin.
• (Russian) Biography on the website dedicated to the Heroes of the Soviet Union/Russia.