Andrei Yeremenko (14 October 1892-19 November 1970) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union who fought in World War I, the Russian Civil War, and World War II.
Biography[]
Andrey Yeryomenko was born on 14 October 1892 in Markovkha in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). In 1913 he was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army and served in the war with Austria-Hungary in the southwest and with the German Empire in Romania during World War I. In 1935 he graduated the Leningrad Cavalry School and the Frunze Military Academy, and Yeremenko led the Soviet 6th Cavalry Corps in the invasion of Poland in 1939 in the opening campaign of World War II. He replaced General of the Army Dmitry Pavlov as leader of the Belorussian Special Military District/Soviet Western Front in July 1941 after the disastrous Battle of Bialystok-Minsk and he was wounded in the defense of Smolensk from Nazi Germany.
Transferred to the Bryansk Front due to his wounds, Yeremenko aided Mikhail Kirponos' Soviet Southwestern Front in the struggle for Kiev against the Germans. In October 1941 he launched a defense of Moscow with his front and took over the 4th Shock Army in January 1942. He helped to create a salient at Rzhev during the Soviet General Offensive of early 1942, but was wounded by a Luftwaffe bomb and was again moved; however, he refused to leave his men until the battle was over.
His performance in the winter offensives restored Josef Stalin's confidence in him and he took part in the defense of Stalingrad during Operation Blue. As leader of the Southeastern Front, Yeremenko made Vasily Chuikov the leader of the Soviet 62nd Army during the Battle of Stalingrad, and Chuikov led the Soviets to victory. Yeremenko's front was renamed the Stalingrad Front, which pushed into Germany in the March 1943 winter offensive as the Soviet Southern Front. Yeremenko later took over the Kalinin Front and later the Separate Coastal Army, the latter of which he commanded in the invasion of the German-held Crimea. In April 1944 he took over the 2nd Baltic Front and captured Riga in Latvia, but he was transferred to the 4th Ukrainian Front on 26 March 1945. Yeremenko's army liberated much of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the final phases of World War II, and many Czech streets bear his name.
In 1958 he became Inspector-General of the Ministry of Defense, mainly a ceremonial role. Yeremenko retired the same year, and died in Moscow at the age of 78.