1. Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky was a Soviet and Polish general who served as a top commander in the Red Army during World War II and achieved the ranks of Marshal of the Soviet Union and Marshal of Poland.
63 Facts About Konstantin Rokossovsky
1. 2.
Konstantin Rokossovsky served as Defence Minister of Poland from 1949 to 1956.
3.
Konstantin Rokossovsky served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, and in 1918, joined the Red Army and fought with distinction during the Russian Civil War.
4.
Konstantin Rokossovsky rose to hold senior Red Army commands by 1937, when he fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and was branded a traitor, imprisoned and tortured.
5.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was commander of the front that defeated the Axis at the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, and that summer played a vital role in the Battle of Kursk.
6.
In 1944, Konstantin Rokossovsky was instrumental in planning and executing parts of Operation Bagration, and was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union that June.
7.
Konstantin Rokossovsky served as deputy chairman of its Council of Ministers from 1952 to 1954.
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Konstantin Rokossovsky's family had moved to Warsaw following the appointment of his father as the inspector of the Warsaw Railways.
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The Konstantin Rokossovsky family were members of the Polish nobility, and over generations had produced many cavalry officers.
10.
Orphaned at 14, Konstantin Rokossovsky started working in a stocking factory.
11.
Much later in his life, the government of the Polish People's Republic used this fact for propaganda, claiming that Konstantin Rokossovsky had helped to build Warsaw's Poniatowski Bridge.
12.
When Rokossovsky enlisted in the Imperial Russian Army at the start of the First World War, his patronymic Ksaveryevich was Russified to Konstantinovich.
13.
On joining the Kargopolsky 5th Dragoon Regiment, Konstantin Rokossovsky soon showed himself a talented soldier and leader.
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Konstantin Rokossovsky served in the cavalry throughout the war, ending with the rank of a junior non-commissioned officer.
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Konstantin Rokossovsky was wounded twice during the war and awarded the Cross of St George.
16.
Konstantin Rokossovsky received Soviet Russia's highest military decoration at the time, the Order of the Red Banner.
17.
Konstantin Rokossovsky set himself up as dictator in Outer Mongolia.
18.
Konstantin Rokossovsky quickly moved south from Irkutsk and met up with allied Sukhbaatar Mongol forces; together the units defeated Urgern-Sternberg's army, which retreated in disarray after a two-day engagement.
19.
Konstantin Rokossovsky met his future wife in Mongolia: Julia Barminan was a high school teacher who was fluent in four languages and who had studied Greek mythology.
20.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was reassigned to Mongolia, where he was a trainer for the Mongolian People's Army.
21.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was noted for having a rivalry with Zhukov throughout World War II.
22.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was among the first to realize the potential of armoured assault.
23.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was an early supporter of the creation of a strong armoured corps for the Red Army, as championed by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky in his theory of "deep operations".
24.
Konstantin Rokossovsky held senior commands until August 1937 when he became caught up in Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and was accused of being a spy.
25.
Blyukher was arrested shortly after Konstantin Rokossovsky and died in prison without 'confessing'.
26.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was variously accused of having links to Polish and Japanese intelligence and having committed acts of sabotage under Article 58, section 14; "conscious non-execution or deliberately careless execution of defined duties", a section added to the penal code in June 1937.
27.
The charges against Konstantin Rokossovsky stemmed from the case of the "Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Military Organization of the 11th Mechanized Corps".
28.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was implicated after the arrest of Corps Commander Kasyan Chaykovsky who, like Konstantin Rokossovsky, served in the Far East in the early 1930s.
29.
The Intelligence Chief of the Transbaikal Military District accused Konstantin Rokossovsky of meeting with Colonel Komatsubara, the head of the Japanese military mission in Harbin in 1932, when he was commander of the 15th Cavalry Division in Trans-Baikal.
30.
Konstantin Rokossovsky did not dispute the fact of the meeting but said that it was to resolve issues regarding Chinese prisoners.
31.
When Konstantin Rokossovsky was arrested by the NKVD, his wife and daughter were sent into internal exile.
32.
Konstantin Rokossovsky thought the officer to be "naive", refusing to acknowledge Stalin's role in creating the treacherous environment.
33.
Konstantin Rokossovsky described Rokossovsky's refusal to sign a false confession:.
34.
Konstantin Rokossovsky said that he would sign [a confession] if Adolph was brought for a confrontation.
35.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn reports that Konstantin Rokossovsky endured two mock shooting events, where he was taken out at night by a firing squad as if to be executed, but then returned to prison.
36.
Konstantin Rokossovsky never discussed his trial and imprisonment with his family.
37.
Konstantin Rokossovsky told his daughter Ariadne that since then, he always kept a gun, because he would not surrender alive if they came to arrest him again.
38.
Konstantin Rokossovsky was reinstated in the Communist Party in 1940.
39.
Konstantin Rokossovsky's release coincided with a relaxation of the Great Purge ushered in by the execution of NKVD chief Nikolay Yezhov on 4 February 1940, who was replaced by Lavrentiy Beria.
40.
When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 Konstantin Rokossovsky was serving as the commander of the 9th Mechanized Corps with the 35th and 20th Tank Divisions, and the 131st Motorized Division under his command.
41.
At first, Konstantin Rokossovsky had to resort to pulling together a fighting group from reserve units and retreating stragglers, but over the coming days it became a more substantial force.
42.
Nonetheless, under attack from north and south Konstantin Rokossovsky was unable to prevent Hoth's 20th Motorized Infantry from capturing bridgeheads over the Dnepr on the 27th, sealing the pocket.
43.
The encircled armies fought intense breakout battles, and on the 28th Timoshenko ordered Konstantin Rokossovsky to reopen the corridor by recapturing the bridgeheads.
44.
Konstantin Rokossovsky is credited with slowing the German attack, and holding the Yartsevo corridor open for long enough to prevent the capture and destruction of a considerable numbers of Soviet troops.
45.
Konstantin Rokossovsky went over Zhukov's head, and spoke directly to Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov, now Chief of the General Staff in Zhukov's place; reviewing the situation Shaposhnikov immediately ordered a withdrawal.
46.
Konstantin Rokossovsky revoked the order of the superior officer, and ordered Rokossovsky to hold the position.
47.
In March 1942 Konstantin Rokossovsky was badly injured by a piece of shrapnel.
48.
On 13 July 1942 Konstantin Rokossovsky was given his first operational level command, a sign of his growing stature.
49.
On 28 September 1942, at Zhukov's urging, Konstantin Rokossovsky was given overall command of the 65th Army, 24th Army and 66th Army, that were brought together as the Don Front as part of Stalin's much criticized reorganization of the Southern Front in preparation for the planned Soviet counterattack at Stalingrad: "Operation Uranus".
50.
Konstantin Rokossovsky had at his disposal roughly 212,000 men, 6,500 guns, 2,500 tanks, and 300 aircraft, to be used against an assortment of 200,000 defenders short on food, fuel, and ammunition, including Soviet "Hiwis", Romanians and Germans; in one example, nearly half the 6th Army's 297th Infantry Division fighting force were Soviets, however its artillery detachment was rationed to one and a half shells a day.
51.
On 8 January 1943, Konstantin Rokossovsky ordered a cease-fire and sent a delegation to offer terms of surrender but Paulus did not respond, and resistance continued for the better part of the month.
52.
Konstantin Rokossovsky's command was moved to the north of the salient and was re-designated as a new front, which was twinned with the Voronezh Front, holding the south approaches.
53.
The Central Front was then renamed 1st Belorussian Front, which Konstantin Rokossovsky commanded during the Soviet advance through Byelorussia and into Poland.
54.
Konstantin Rokossovsky disagreed with Stalin, who demanded in accordance with Soviet war practice a single break-through of the German frontline.
55.
Konstantin Rokossovsky held firm in his argument for two points of break-through.
56.
Stalin ordered Konstantin Rokossovsky to "go and think it over" three times, but every time he returned and gave the same answer "two break-throughs, comrade Stalin, two break-throughs".
57.
Stalin once said: "I have no Suvorov, but Konstantin Rokossovsky is my Bagration".
58.
In November 1944, Konstantin Rokossovsky was transferred to the 2nd Belorussian Front, which advanced into East Prussia and then across northern Poland to the mouth of the Oder at Stettin.
59.
Konstantin Rokossovsky is one of two foreign Marshals to receive the rank of Marshal of Poland, with other being Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch.
60.
Konstantin Rokossovsky played a key role in the regime's suppression of an independent Poland through Stalinization and Sovietization in general, and in the Polish Army in particular.
61.
Konstantin Rokossovsky returned to the Soviet Union, which restored his Soviet ranks and honours; and in July 1957, following the removal from office of Defence Minister Zhukov, Nikita Khrushchev appointed him Deputy Minister of Defence and commander of the Transcaucasian Military District.
62.
Konstantin Rokossovsky died on 3 August 1968, of prostate cancer in Moscow, aged 71.
63.
Konstantin Rokossovsky's ashes were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on Red Square.