Georgy Zhukov Born: Soviet Marshal Who Defeated Hitler

Georgy Zhukov rose from peasant origins to become the Soviet Union's most decorated military commander, his victories at Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin breaking the Wehrmacht's back on the Eastern Front. Born in Strelkovka, Russia, in 1896, the son of a shoemaker, he was drafted into the Imperial Russian cavalry in 1915 and served in World War I before joining the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. He rose through the ranks during the interwar period, survived Stalin's purges that decimated the officer corps in the late 1930s, and first demonstrated his tactical brilliance at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia in 1939, where he defeated a Japanese invasion force using combined arms tactics that would become his signature. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Zhukov was the only senior commander who consistently delivered results during the catastrophic early months. He organized the defense of Leningrad, planned the counterattack at Moscow that stopped the German advance in December 1941, and coordinated the encirclement at Stalingrad that destroyed the German Sixth Army. His planning of Operation Bagration in 1944 destroyed the German Army Group Centre in what remains the most complete military defeat in modern history. He commanded the final assault on Berlin in April 1945 and accepted Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8. Stalin, threatened by Zhukov's popularity, demoted him after the war to command minor military districts. Khrushchev briefly rehabilitated him as Defense Minister before dismissing him in 1957. Zhukov spent his final years in relative obscurity, writing memoirs that were censored by the government. He died on June 18, 1974, at seventy-seven.