Konstantin Rokossovsky (21 December 1896-3 August 1968) was a Field Marshal of the Soviet Union who commanded the 2nd Byelorussian Front during World War II, most famous for his roles in Operation Bagration and the Liberation of Warsaw in 1944 and 1945.
Biography[]
Konstantin Rokossovsky was born on 21 December 1896 in Warsaw, Congress Poland to a noble Polish father and a Belarusian mother in the Russian Empire. He was a cavalryman during World War I, and he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 during the Russian Civil War, leading a cavalry squadron against Alexander Kolchak's White Army in the Urals. In the early 1930s he led the 7th Samara Cavalry Division, and he was tortured during the Great Purge, but in 1940 he was released from prison. During Operation Barbarossa, he commanded a motorized division, and in September 1941 he took over the Soviet 16th Army. In February 1943, he was given command of the Soviet Central Front (later the 1st Byelorussian Front), fighting at the Battle of Kursk and Operation Barbarossa. He used anti-blitzkrieg strategies to push into Poland, and in January 1945 he liberated his hometown of Warsaw from Nazi Germany. At the end of the war, Rokossovsky was given command of all Red Army forces in Poland, and in June 1945 he put down the Poznan protests with 10,000 soldiers, killing over 74 people. He died in 1968.