Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (, ; – 18 March 1982) was a Soviet military commander and

Marshal of the Soviet Union Marshal of the Soviet Union (, ) was the second-highest military rank of the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin wore the uniform and insignia of Marshal after World War II. The rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union was created in 1935 and abolished in ...

. He is best known for commanding the 62nd Army which saw heavy combat during the

Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad ; see . rus, links=on, Сталинградская битва, r=Stalingradskaya bitva, p=stəlʲɪnˈɡratskəjə ˈbʲitvə. (17 July 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and for being the commanding general to receive the surrender of the German troops defending Berlin. Born to a peasant family near Tula, Chuikov earned his living as a factory worker from the age of 12. After the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

of 1917, he joined the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and distinguished himself during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. After graduating from the

Frunze Military Academy The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (), was a military academy of the Soviet and later the Russian Armed Forces ...

, Chuikov worked as a

military attaché A military attaché or defence attaché (DA),Defence Attachés
''Geneva C ...

and intelligence officer in China and the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Chuikov commanded the 4th Army during the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

, and the 9th Army during the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

against Finland. In December 1940, he was again appointed military attaché to China in support of Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists in the war against Japan. In March 1942, Chuikov was recalled from China to defend against the German invasion of the Soviet Union. By September, he was assigned command of the 62nd Army in defense of

Stalingrad Volgograd,. geographical renaming, formerly Tsaritsyn. (1589–1925) and Stalingrad. (1925–1961), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga, covering an area o ...

. Tasked with holding the city at all costs, Chuikov adopted keeping the Soviet front-line positions as close to the Germans as physically possible. This served as an effective countermeasure against the Wehrmacht's

combined-arms Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects—for example, using infantry and armour in an urban environment in which each supports the other. ...

tactics, but by mid-November 1942 the Germans had captured most of the city after months of slow advance. In late November Chuikov's 62nd Army joined the rest of the Soviet forces in a counter-offensive, which led to the surrender of the German 6th Army in early 1943. After Stalingrad, Chuikov led his forces into Poland during

Operation Bagration Operation Bagration () was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation (), a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern ...

and the Vistula–Oder Offensive before advancing on Berlin. He personally accepted the unconditional surrender of German forces in Berlin on 2 May 1945. After the war, Chuikov served as Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (1949–53), commander of the

Kiev Military District The Kiev Military District (; , abbreviated ) was a military district of the Imperial Russian Army and subsequently of the Red Army and Soviet Armed Forces. It was first formed in 1862, and was headquartered in Kiev (Kyiv) for most of its exist ...

(1953–60), Chief of the

Soviet Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republi ...

and Deputy Minister of Defense (1960–64), and head of the Soviet Civil Defense Forces (1961–72). Chuikov was twice awarded the titles

Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...

(1944 and 1945) and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by the United States for his actions during the Battle of Stalingrad. In 1955, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Following his death in 1982, Chuikov was interred at the Stalingrad memorial at

Mamayev Kurgan Mamayev Kurgan () is a dominant height overlooking the city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) in Southern Russia. The name in Russian means "tumulus of Mamai". The formation is dominated by a memorial complex commemorating the Battle of Stali ...

, which had been the site of heavy fighting.

Early life

Born into a peasant family in the village of Serebryanye Prudy in the Tula region south of Moscow, Chuikov was the eighth of 12 children and the fifth of eight sons. At the age of 12, he left school and his family home to earn his living in a factory in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, turning out spurs for cavalry officers. Jones, p. 73 Chuikov and all his brothers became soldiers and fought in the

. Jones, p. 72

Early military career

During the turmoil of the

Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, Chuikov became unemployed. Later the same year, an older brother arranged for Chuikov to be recruited into the

Red Guards The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

. The year after, in 1918, he joined the

. In October 1918, Chuikov saw active service when he was sent to the Southern Front as a deputy company commander to fight against the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

. In the spring of 1919, he became commander of the 40th Regiment (later renamed the 43rd), part of the 5th Army under

Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominen ...

facing the White Army under Kolchak in Siberia. Jones, p. 74 Chuikov's record of service during the Civil War was distinguished. In the fighting from 1919 to 1920 he received two awards of the

Order of the Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner () was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was the highest award of S ...

for bravery and heroism. He was wounded four times—one, in Poland in 1920, left a fragment in his left arm that could not be operated on. It led to partial paralysis and caused him to lose use of his arm temporarily. Chuikov carried this war wound for the rest of his life, and it eventually led to

septicaemia Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage of sepsis is followed by suppression of the immune system. Common signs and s ...

breaking out in 1981, causing a nine-month illness and finally his death. Jones, p. 75 He left his regiment in 1921 to continue his studies at the

, from which he graduated in 1925. On account of his excellent academic performance, Chuikov was invited to stay at the Frunze Military Academy for another year to study Chinese language and history in the Orient Studies Department. In the fall of 1926, Chuikov joined a Soviet diplomatic delegation that toured

Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...

Changchun Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, on the Songliao Plain. Changchun is administered as a , comprising seven districts, one county and three county-level cities. At the 2020 census of China, Changchun ha ...

, Port Arthur,

Dalian Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

and

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, cities in northeastern and

northern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling, Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone ...

. After completing his studies in the fall of 1927, Chuikov was dispatched to China as a military attaché. Chuikov traveled extensively in

southern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

, became fluent in Chinese, and gained a deeper understanding of Chinese politics and culture. In 1929, during the China Eastern Railway Incident, Chuikov was forced to leave China after the Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

on 13 July. Chuikov was assigned to the newly formed Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army in

Khabarovsk Khabarovsk ( ) is the largest city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China–Russia border, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, about north of Vladivostok. As of the 2021 Russian c ...

and worked on military intelligence, reporting to

Vasily Blyukher Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher (; 1 December 1889 – 9 November 1938) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union. In 1938, Blyukher was arrested during the period of military purges under Joseph Stalin. He was tortured an ...

, the commander of the Far Eastern Army. The Soviet Far Eastern Army defeated the Northeastern Army of

Zhang Xueliang Zhang Xueliang ( zh, t=張學良; June 3, 1901 – October 15, 2001), also commonly known by his nickname "the Young Marshal", was a Chinese general who in 1928 succeeded his father Zhang Zuolin as the commander of the Northeastern Army. He is bes ...

, and Chuikov participated in negotiations that restored Soviet control of the China Eastern Railway.

World War II

Chuikov commanded the 4th Army in the

in 1939. He commanded the 9th Army in the Russo-Finnish War of 1940. Chiang Kai-shek with Soviet military advisors

In December 1940, Chuikov was appointed the chief Soviet military representative to the

and adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, the

Nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

leader, in

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

. Prior to his departure for China, he was summoned to meet

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and

Semyon Timoshenko Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko (; ; – 31 March 1970) was a Soviet military commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, and one of the most prominent Red Army commanders during the Second World War. Born to a Ukrainian family in Bessarabia, ...

, who instructed him to ensure that China remain engaged in the war with Japan so Japan could not challenge the Soviet Union in the Far East and allow the Soviet Union to focus on the German threat from the West.Dieter Heinzig
''The Soviet Union and Communist China, 1945–1950: The Arduous Road to the Alliance'', M.E. Sharpe, 2004
p. 21 Stalin told Chuikov to prioritize support for Nationalists over the Chinese Communists so as to ensure Chinese unity against Japan. Chuikov arrived in China with a large supply of Soviet armaments for the Nationalist Army, including tanks, artillery, fighter and bomber aircraft, and trucks. In January 1941 when the Nationalists attacked the Communists in the Southern Anhui Incident in breach of their nominal alliance, Chuikov was criticized by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

for failing to stop Chiang's aggression against the Chinese Communists. Chuikov insisted that the Nationalists could not use Soviet weaponry against the Communists, met with Communist leaders

Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 unti ...

and Ye Jianying, but in keeping with Stalin's directives, continued to support the Nationalist war effort against Japan, even after the signing of the

Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact The , also known as the , was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II, ...

in April 1941. In the Second Battle of Changsha in September 1941, he advised Chiang to relieve the Japanese siege on

Changsha Changsha is the capital of Hunan, China. It is the 15th most populous city in China with a population of 10,513,100, the Central China#Cities with urban area over one million in population, third-most populous city in Central China, and the ...

by attacking the strategic city of

Yichang Yichang ( zh, s= ), Postal Map Romanization, alternatively romanized as Ichang, is a prefecture-level city located in western Hubei province, China. Yichang had a population of 3.92 million people at the 2022 census, making it the third most pop ...

some 400 km to the north, and the strategy succeeded. In March 1942, he was recalled to the USSR, which by then was at war with Germany.

Battle of Stalingrad

On 11 September 1942, General Chuikov was summoned to South Western Front Headquarters to discuss the defense of Stalingrad. In a meeting with South Western Front Commander Lieutenant General Andrey Yeryomenko and Commissar

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

, Chuikov was appointed as commander of 62nd Army and charged with the defense of the city of Stalingrad itself, directly on the western bank of the Volga River. Chuikov would later recount this in a 1943 interview:

"… I was told that I was to take command of 62nd Army. My mission: defend Stalingrad. …After Nikita Sergeyevich told me to go to Stalingrad, he asked me: "What are your thoughts?" Yeryomenko also wanted to know. He's known me a long time. Well, what could I say? I said: "I understand my orders just fine, and I'll carry them out. I'll do what I can. I'll either keep them out of Stalingrad or die trying". There were no more questions after that. They offered me tea, but I declined, got in my car, and drove to Stalingrad."

Chuikov arrived in Stalingrad on 11 September 1942 and occupied Hill 102.24 where he set up his command post, and immediately set about preparing the defense of Stalingrad proper. The 62nd Army in Stalingrad faced threat of envelopment by fast-moving panzer and motorized infantry elements of German 6th Army. In the north, a German strike-force advanced out of the west via Kalach on the Don to a point located just north of Spartakovka and Rynok, and in the south a second strike-force advanced from out of the west toward the Tsimlyanskaya and Kotelnikovo axes. Along the front from Kuporosnoye and Orlovka to Rynok, General Chuikov defended against a German main thrust advancing from the northwest and directed at both Gumrak Airfield as well also the train station in the center of the town, and a second additional German strike-force advancing from the southwest directed against Olshanka and the grain elevator. General Chuikov enacted Joseph Stalin's order no. 227 "not one step back" and immediately stabilized the threatened 62nd Army.

"When I got to army headquarters I was in a vile mood. I only saw three people: comrade Gurov, Chief of Staff Krylov, and Chief of Artillery Pozharsky. Three of my deputies had fled to the east bank. But the main thing was that we had no dependable combat units, and we needed to hold out for three or four days. The divisions had their respective headquarters on the Volga, and we were still forward on this hill. We were in this tunnel alongside the Tsaritsa River, while all the command posts were farther back. This turned out to be the right decision. And then there's one thing that went well, if we can use such a word. We immediately began to take the harshest possible actions against cowardice. On the 14th (September) I shot the commander and commissar of one regiment, and a short while later I shot two brigade commanders and their commissars. This caught everyone off guard. We made sure news of this got to the men, especially the officers. If you go down to the Volga, they said, then you'll find Army HQ right ahead of you. And so they went back to their places. If I'd gone across the Volga myself, they'd have shot me when I got ashore, and they'd have been right. The needs of the day determine what needs to be done."

The determination that Chuikov instilled in his men enabled the 62nd Army to defend the city against all odds.

"Stalingrad will decide the fate of the motherland. The men understood this. The men were in such a mood that if they'd been wounded, even with a broken spine, they had tears in their eyes as they were being taken to the east bank. They'd say to their comrades who had brought them out: I don't want to go. Better to be buried here. They considered it shameful to go wounded to the other bank. This echoed comrade Stalin's order."

Chuikov was concerned about maintaining communications with his troops.

"We moved to another command post closer to where the enemy would be attacking. And we stayed there. We knew that every extra meter of telephone wires increased the risk of our communications being broken. The most criminal, most dangerous thing for a commander, especially a senior commander, is when you lose control and communications. Most of all, we were afraid of losing control of our troops. I may not be able to send one of my commanders any reinforcements, but it's enough for me to grab the phone and say the right thing, that's all he needs."

It was at Stalingrad that Chuikov developed the important tactic of "hugging the enemy", by which Soviet soldiers kept the German army so close to them as to minimize the airpower enjoyed by the Wehrmacht. Chuikov had witnessed firsthand the

blitzkrieg ''Blitzkrieg'(Lightning/Flash Warfare)'' is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with ...

tactics the Wehrmacht 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 cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see '') is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a Fuse (explosives), fuse (typically a glass bottle filled wit ...

s, antitank rifles, and Soviet artillery operating at close range. This tactic also rendered the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

ineffective, since Stuka dive-bombers could not attack Red Army positions without endangering their own forces.

"Our soldiers knew that the closer they were to the enemy, the better. They stopped being afraid of tanks. The infantrymen would get in a trench, ravine, or building, and start shooting the enemy infantry who were advancing behind the tanks. The tanks would move through, and we'd leave them to our artillery, which was two to three hundred meters back from the front lines and would fire when they came within twenty to fifty meters. And we didn't let their infantry through. The Germans would think that this area was already cleared, that it was dead ground. But that dead ground came back to life. And we had our Katyushas and artillery."

The fierce defense of Stalingrad by the 62nd Army slowed the German advance and forced Axis forces to pull units from the flanks outside the city to reinforce the urban assault. By mid-November, German forces had taken most of the city and pinned Chuikov and the remaining defenders in several small pockets against the Volga River. In interviews in 1943, Chuikov said he was not informed of the Operation Uranus counter-offensive but could sense one was being planned.

"We had sensed that our high command was preparing a major attack, but we didn't know where exactly. We had sensed this from the very beginning of November. We were being given less and less help. We'd been used to talking to people from front HQ every day, but now they'd all vanished. Khrushchev wasn't here, and Yeryomenko came only once..."

On 19 November 1942, Soviet forces launched a massive double pincer attack to the north and south of Stalingrad, exploiting the weakened Axis flanks and encircling the German Sixth Army, part of the Fourth Army and the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies in a vast pocket stretching nearly 80 km from Stalingrad to Kalach-on-Don. On 22 November, Chuikov's 62nd Army switched to an offensive posture, counter-attacking to recapture neighborhoods and preventing German forces from leaving the city to fight elsewhere in the pocket. The German Sixth Army surrendered on 2 February 1943.

Poland and Germany

After the victory at Stalingrad, the 62nd Army was redesignated the Soviet 8th Guards Army. Chuikov then commanded the 8th Guards as part of

1st Belorussian Front The 1st Belorussian Front (, ''Pervyy Belorusskiy front'', also romanized " Byelorussian"), known without a numeral as the Belorussian Front between October 1943 and February 1944, was a major formation of the Red Army during World War II, bein ...

and led its advance through Poland. During the Vistula–Oder offensive, the troops of the 8th Guards under Chuikov participated in breaking the enemy's defense in depth, and liberated

Majdanek concentration camp Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had three gas chambers, two wooden gallows, ...

on the outskirts of the Polish city of

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

. The 8th Guards liberated the city of

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

, seized the fortress city of

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

by storm, seized a bridgehead on the left bank of the

Oder River The Oder ( ; Czech and ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and its largest tributary the Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows through west ...

and fought for two months to maintain and expand the bridgehead in the Kustrin area, before finally heading the Soviet offensive which conquered

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

while the Western Allied forces were wiping out what was left in Southern and Western Germany in April/May 1945. Chuikov's advance through Poland was characterized by massive advances across difficult terrain n several occasions, the 8th Guards Army advanced over in a single day On 1 May 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 had come to Chuikov's headquarters under a white flag. Krebs, under orders from Goebbels, sought conditions for surrender more favorable to the Germans, which Chuikov had no authority to grant and so rejected any terms. On 2 May, he accepted the unconditional surrender of Berlin's forces from General Helmuth Weidling who had taken command, with the suicide that morning by Gen. Krebs. Chuikov appeared in the documentary film ''

'' (1945), directed by

Yuli Raizman Yuli Yakovlevich Raizman (; December 15, 1903 – December 11, 1994) was a Soviet and Russian film director, screenwriter and Pedagogy, pedagogue. People's Artist of the USSR (1964) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1973). Career In 1924 he became a ...

Later life

After the war, Chuikov continued to command the 8th Guards Army in Germany, later serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany from 1949 until 1953, when he was made commander of the

. While serving at that post, on 11 March 1955 he was promoted to

. From 1960 to 1964, he was the Commander-in-Chief of the

Soviet Ground Forces The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

. 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 The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the Central committee, highest organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Congresses. Elected by the ...

. In 1969, Chuikov led the Soviet delegation attending the funeral of

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

.Vasily I. Chuikov Dies, Washington Post
1982-03-20 He was a major consultant for the design of ''

The Motherland Calls ''The Motherland Calls'' () is a colossal neoclassicism, neoclassicist and socialist realism, socialist realist war memorial sculpture on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia. Designed primarily by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich with assistance fro ...

'', a memorial on

commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad, and was buried there after his death on 18 March 1982, at the age of 82. After Chuikov's death a piece of paper with a handwritten prayer was found among his belongings: "Oh, the One who can turn night into day and earth into a flower garden. Make every difficult thing easy for me. And help me". Stalingrad graf Tsjoeikov

Memoirs in translation

* ''The Beginning of the Road: The Story of the Battle for Stalingrad'', London, 1963. * *

Honours and awards

USSR * honorary citizen of VolgogradВ последний путь // газета "Красная звезда" от 23 марта 1982 n official obituary article about death of Marshal V. I. Chuikov/ref> Foreign

References

Bibliography

External links