Konstantin Rokossovsky

Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky (9 December [O.S. 21 December] 1896 – 3 August 1968) 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. He also served as Defence Minister of Poland from 1949 to 1956.

Rokossovsky was born to a Polish noble family in Warsaw in present-day Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, or according to other sources in Velikiye Luki in present-day Russia. He 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. 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. After Soviet failures in the Winter War, Rokossovsky was released from prison in 1940 and returned to command of an army corps.

Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Rokossovsky played key roles in the Battle of Smolensk and defense of Moscow, where he led the 16th Army to victory. He 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. In 1944, Rokossovsky was instrumental in planning and executing parts of Operation Bagration, and was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union that June. His 1st Belorussian Front reached the outskirts of Warsaw by July 1944, when its command was transferred to Georgy Zhukov. Rokossovsky commanded the 2nd Belorussian Front during the Vistula–Oder Offensive into Germany and final victory.

After the war, Rokossovsky was the commander of the Soviet forces in Poland from 1945 to 1949, when he was given the title of Marshal of Poland and became the Defence Minister of the newly-established Polish People's Republic. He also served as deputy chairman of its Council of Ministers from 1952 to 1954. After being forced out of his post in 1956 when Władysław Gomułka became leader during the Polish October, Rokossovsky returned to the Soviet Union, where he lived out the rest of his life until his death in 1968.