Nikolai Yezhov
1895 – 1940 · aged 45
NKVD director under Joseph Stalin (1895-1940)
- Born
- 1 May 1895 · Kaunas
- Died
- 4 Feb 1940 · Moscow
Life timeline
Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.
- 1 May 1895BornBorn in Kaunas
- 1914 – 1918WarWorld War I
- 1936 – 1938RolePeople's Commissar for Internal Affairs
- 1937AwardOrder of Lenin
- 1938AwardJubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"
- 1938 – 1939RolePeople's Commissar for Water Transport of the USSR
- 4 Feb 1940DiedDied in Moscow
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Meanwhile in the world
Major world events during their lifetime (1895 – 1940).
- 18961896 Summer Olympics
- 1898Spanish–American War
- 1904 – 1905Russo-Japanese War
- 1915 – 1923Armenian genocide
- 1917Balfour Declaration
- 1917February Revolution
- 1917October Revolution
- 1917 – 1922Russian Civil War
- 1919 – 1920Paris Peace Conference
- 1920Treaty of Versailles
- 1933 – 1945The Holocaust
- 19341934 FIFA World Cup
- 19361936 Summer Olympics
- 1937 – 1945Second Sino-Japanese War
- 19381938 FIFA World Cup
- 1938Munich Agreement
- 1939 – 1940Winter War
- 1939 – 1945World War II
- 1940 – 1945Auschwitz concentration camp
Biography
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Russian: Николай Иванович Ежов, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof]; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940), also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet secret police official, who served under Joseph Stalin as head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, at the height of the Great Purge. He is believed to have had mixed Lithuanian and Russian ancestry. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture, and executions during the Great Purge. However, he later fell out of favor with Joseph Stalin and was arrested. During his interrogation, Yezhov confessed to various alleged anti-Soviet activities, including making "unfounded arrests" during the Great Purge. He was executed in 1940 shortly after his arrest and conviction, and was later blamed for many of the excesses commited during the Great Purge.
Text from the Wikipedia article Nikolai Yezhov, CC BY-SA 4.0
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