Zhukov, Marshal Georgi

Zhukov, Marshal Georgi (1896–1974),Red Army officer, a one-time NCO (non-commissioned officer) in the Imperial Russian cavalry who, when war broke out in Europe in September 1939, was dealing the Japanese Kwantung Army a sharp defeat on the Halha River or Khalkin-Gol (Gol means river in Mongolian) in Outer Mongolia (see Japanese–Soviet campaigns). In January 1941 Stalin selected him to be chief of the general staff, a posting which he regarded with misgivings since he had neither training nor interest in staff work. In late July 1941, apparently because he was too outspoken, Stalin dismissed him from the general staff but retained him in the Stavka, the general headquarters committee responsible for strategic planning.

In early September, Zhukov was deploying reserve armies west of Moscow when Stalin ordered him to take over Leningrad front (army group), which appeared about to lose the city. Zhukov arrived at the same time as the German commander received an order to isolate but not enter Leningrad; consequently, in a few days he appeared to have worked a miracle. Needing another miracle in October, as the Germans approached Moscow, Stalin gave Zhukov West front to halt them. Two weeks after he arrived, rain and mud stopped German Army Group Centre for three weeks 65 km. (40 mi.) west of Moscow. Resuming the advance in mid-November, German spearheads closed in on the Soviet capital, one getting within 20 km. (12.5 mi.) of the suburbs before a drastic freeze stopped them on the night of 4 December. Two days later, using reserve armies Stalin had mustered during the pause, Zhukov counter-attacked. Thereafter, he stayed on the offensive until the thaw in March 1942, driving deep bulges in the German lines but not achieving his assigned objective, the destruction of Army Group Centre.

Expecting another attack towards Moscow, Stalin kept him at West front during the summer, while two German army groups moved swiftly towards the Caucasus (see German–Soviet war, 4). Finally, on 27 August, Stalin summoned him to Moscow, named him deputy supreme commander and gave him and the chief of the general staff, A. M. Vasilevsky, a free hand to deal with the situation in the south. The result was Operation URANUS, which destroyed the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and together with its successor, SATURN, forced a German retreat to the River Donets. In January 1943, Zhukov received his marshal's star, the first awarded in the war.

In the spring of 1943 Zhukov and Vasilevsky planned and organized Operations KUTUZOV and RUMYANTSEV in the Kursk sector, and in July, they co-ordinated the six fronts deployed there. When the battle at Kursk merged into the first Soviet summer offensive, he co-ordinated First and Second Ukrainian fronts in the drive to and across the River Dnieper between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk. After the First Ukrainian front commander was wounded in late February 1944, Zhukov took command of the front and in the next month and a half drove into the gap 400 km. (250 mi.) wide between the Carpathians and the western edge of the Pripet marshes.

In June and July, after supervising the deployment for the operation, Zhukov and Vasilevsky each co-ordinated fronts in BAGRATION (see German–Soviet war, 9), which, owing in good part to Hitler's refusal to permit a timely retreat, destroyed Army Group Centre. Zhukov then marched his fronts, First and Second Belorussian, through the ensuing gap and closed to the River Vistula north and south of Warsaw in August. In November, Stalin gave him command of First Belorussian front, on the most direct line to Berlin and told him he would no longer be needed for higher level planning and co-ordination.

Out of bridgeheads on the Vistula, Zhukov, with Konev's First Ukrainian front on his left and Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian on his right, began the drive towards Berlin on 12 January 1945. He reached the River Oder, 57 km. (35 mi.) east of Berlin, in fourteen days, but Stalin ordered him to stop there and divert forces north towards the Baltic coast. Stalin, seeming almost to have forgotten Berlin, prolonged the halt more than two months.

The fall of Berlin, although it made him a world figure, was not Zhukov's most brilliant victory. Begun on 16 April as a triumphal march, it bogged down first in the swamps along the Oder, then on the heights behind the river, and did not end until 2 May, after Konev and Rokossovsky had joined it from the south and the north.

On 1 August 1945, as military governor of the Soviet zone, Zhukov became the Soviet member of the Allied Control Council for Germany (see Allied Control Commissions).

Earl Ziemke

Bibliography

Chaney, O. P. , Zhukov (Norman, Okla., 1971).
Zhukov, G. K. , Memoirs (London, 1971).