Konstantin Rokossovsky
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky (Russian: КОНСТАНТИН КОНСТАНТИНОВИЧ РОКОССОВСКИЙ, Polish name Konstanty Rokossowski) (December 21, 1896 - August 3, 1968), Soviet military commander and Polish Defence Minister, was born in the town of Velikie Luki near Pskov in northern Russia. His father was a Polish railway worker, his mother Russian. Soon after his birth the family moved to Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) and he was raised in Warsaw. Orphaned at 14, he worked as a stonemason. When World War I broke out he joined the Russian Army.
Rokossovsky served as a non-comissioned officer in a dragoon regiment until the Russian revolution of 1917, when he joined the Bolshevik Party and soon after the Red Army. He became a commander during the Russian Civil War. During the fighting against the White Guard armies of Aleksandr Kolchak he was twice awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
After the Civil War Rokossovsky studied at the Frunze Military Academy and became a senior cavalry commander in the Red Army. During the 1920s his division was stationed in the Mongolian People's Republic. In 1929 he took part in defending the Chinese Eastern Railroad against warlords by agreement with the Chinese government. He held senior commands until 1937, when he was caught up in Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and accused of "connections with foreign intelligence."
Arrested as a Polish spy, Rokossovsky was beaten senseless by NKVD interrogators and imprisoned. Brought before a "special military tribunal," he was told that the proof of his guilt was the testimony of a fellow "conspirator," Adolf Yushkevich.
"Can the dead give evidence?" Rokossovsky asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Adolf Kazimirovich was killed in 1920 at Perekop," Rokossovsky answered, "I mentioned to the interrogator that I served with him, but neglected to mention his death."
This exchange apparently saved Rokossovsky's life, but he was sent to a labour camp where he remained until March 1940, when he was released without explanation and restored to the rank of a Corps Commander in the Kiev Military Region. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in July 1941 he was appointed commander of the 4th Army stationed near Smolensk. During the bitter fighting in the winter of 1941-42 Rokossovsky played a key role in the defence of Moscow under Georgy Zhukov.
In early 1942 Rokossovsky was transferred to the Bryansk Front. He commanded the right flank of the Soviet forces as they fell back before the Germans towards the Don and Stalingrad in the summer of 1942. During the Battle of Stalingrad Rokossovsky, commanding the Don Front, led the northern wing of the Soviet counter-attack that encirled Von Paulus's army and won the decisive victory of the Soviet-German war.
In 1943, after becoming commander of the Central Front, Rokossovsky successfully conducted defensive operations on the Kursk salient, and then led the counterattack west of Kursk which defeated the last major German offensive on the eastern front and allowed the Soviet armies to advance to Kiev. He was then transferred to the 1st Belorussian Front, which he commanded during the Soviet advance through Byelorussia and into Poland. He commanded Operation Bagration, which took Soviet forces to the east bank of the Vistula opposite Warsaw by mid 1944. For these victories he was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
While Rokossovsky's forces were stalled on the Vistula, the Warsaw Uprising broke out in the city, led by the Polish Home Army (AK) on the orders of the Polish government in exile in London. Since the objective was to liberate the city from the Germans before the arrival of the Soviet forces and prevent the establishment of a Communist government, Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to give the rising no assistance, orders which he obeyed, although as a Pole he must have had mixed feelings about them, particularly since several members of his family still lived in the city.
After the fall of Warsaw in January 1945, 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 (Szczecin). At the end of April he linked up with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's forces in northern Germany while the forces of Zhukov and Ivan Koniev captured Berlin.
With the end of the war Rokossovsky remained in command of Soviet forces in northern Poland and Germany. In October 1949, when a fully Communist government under Boleslaw Bierut was established in Poland, Rokossovsky was appointed Minister of National Defence, with the additional title Marshal of Poland, and in 1952 he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Poland. Although Rokossovsky was of Polish parentage, he had not lived in Poland for 35 years, and he was generally seen in Poland as Stalin's agent in subordinating the country to Soviet domination.
When Communist reformers under Wladyslaw Gomulka came to power in Poland in 1956, Rokossovsky was forced to resign his positions and leave the country. He returned to the Soviet Union where his Soviet ranks and honours were restored, and in July 1957, following the removal from office of Defence Minister Zhukov, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence and Commander of the Transcaucasian Military District by Nikita Khrushchev. In 1958 he was appointed chief inspector of the Ministry of Defense, a post he held undtil his retirement in April 1962. He died in August 1968 aged 74 and is buried on Red Square near the Kremlin.
