Georgy Zhukov

His war ran through the main turning points of the Eastern Front: the Battle of Moscow in 1941, the counteroffensive at Stalingrad in 1942, the Battle of Kursk in 1943, and in April 1945 the Battle of the Seelow Heights and the Battle of Berlin. Each battle has its own page; this one follows the man.²

What was Georgy Zhukov famous for?

Zhukov is famous as the Soviet Union's foremost commander of World War II. From August 1942 he was Deputy Supreme Commander, and he planned or coordinated the great Soviet operations from Moscow to Berlin. He was four times Hero of the Soviet Union and twice received the Order of Victory.³

On the night of 8 to 9 May 1945 he accepted Germany's unconditional surrender at Karlshorst in Berlin, and on 24 June 1945 he reviewed the Victory Parade on Red Square. The historian David Glantz calls him the Red Army's “Greatest Captain” of the war and Stalin's closest wartime military confidant.⁴

From peasant to marshal

Zhukov was born on 1 December 1896 (19 November in the old Russian calendar) in the village of Strelkovka in Kaluga province, into a poor peasant family. At eleven he was apprenticed to a furrier in Moscow. Conscripted into the cavalry in 1915, he served in World War I, joined the Red Army in 1918 and fought in the Civil War.⁵

Between the wars he rose through the cavalry to command a division and then a corps. In 1939 he took command of the Soviet forces in Mongolia, and in August 1939 they defeated the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol; he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 August. In June 1940 he took over the Kiev Special Military District, and in January 1941 he became Chief of the General Staff.⁶

1. 1 December 1896Born into a poor peasant family in Strelkovka, Kaluga province.⁷
2. 1915Conscripted into the cavalry of the Russian army.⁸
3. 1918Joins the Red Army.⁹
4. August 1939Defeats the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia.¹⁰
5. January 1941Becomes Chief of the General Staff.¹¹
6. September to October 1941Commands the Leningrad Front, then takes over the defense of Moscow on 10 October.¹²
7. 18 January 1943Becomes the first general of the war promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.¹³
8. April 1945Leads the 1st Belorussian Front into the Berlin operation.¹⁴
9. 8 to 9 May 1945Accepts the German surrender at Karlshorst.¹⁵
10. 24 June 1945Reviews the Victory Parade on Red Square.¹⁶
11. 1946Removed from his post and sent to command the Odessa Military District.¹⁷
12. 1955 to 1957Serves as minister of defense until October 1957.¹⁸
13. 1969Publishes his memoirs.¹⁹
14. 18 June 1974Dies in Moscow.²⁰

Zhukov's greatest victories

Zhukov's greatest victories were Khalkhin Gol against Japan in 1939, the defense of Leningrad and Moscow and the winter counteroffensive of 1941 to 1942, the Stalingrad counteroffensive of November 1942, the Battle of Kursk in 1943, the liberation of Belorussia in 1944, and the Vistula-Oder and Berlin operations of 1945.²¹

In September 1941 Stalin sent him to the besieged city of Leningrad, where his Leningrad Front stopped the German advance. On 10 October he was recalled to take over the front before Moscow. His Western Front held the German drive on the capital and in the winter of 1941 to 1942 went over to a counteroffensive that drove the Germans back.²²

In August 1942 he became Deputy Supreme Commander. With the General Staff he helped plan Operation Uranus and, as a representative of the Stavka, the Soviet high command, coordinated the fronts in the counteroffensive at Stalingrad in November 1942. On 18 January 1943 he became the first general of the war to be made a Marshal of the Soviet Union.²³ › Operation Uranus, 1942

In the same weeks he took charge of Operation Mars against the German forces west of Moscow. David Glantz, who wrote its history, calls it the failed companion piece to the Stalingrad counteroffensive and titled his book on it Zhukov's Greatest Defeat.²⁴

In 1943 he coordinated the fronts that met the German offensive at Kursk and then advanced to the Dnieper. In 1944 he commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front in the liberation of right-bank Ukraine and coordinated two fronts in the offensive that destroyed German Army Group Center in Belorussia.²⁵

Did Zhukov take Berlin?

Yes. From November 1944 Zhukov commanded the 1st Belorussian Front, which took Warsaw, crossed Poland in the Vistula-Oder offensive and in April 1945 led the Berlin operation, with Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front attacking from the south. On 2 May 1945 the Berlin garrison surrendered. David Glantz calls it a victorious but costly battle.²⁶

The attack on Berlin began before dawn on 16 April 1945 from the bridgehead at Küstrin, with the 1st Polish Army among Zhukov's forces. Searchlights were meant to blind the German defenders on the Seelow Heights but confused his own troops instead, and the attack stalled. The heights fell on 19 or 20 April, depending on the source.²⁷ › Battle of the Seelow Heights, 1945

Meanwhile Konev's front broke through to the south and turned its tank armies north toward Berlin. The city was encircled, and on 2 May its commander, General Helmuth Weidling, surrendered the garrison.²⁸

The surrender signed at Reims on 7 May had not been signed by the German High Command, so the act was repeated at the Soviet headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst on the night of 8 to 9 May 1945. Zhukov accepted the surrender for the Red Army from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, with the British airman Arthur Tedder representing Eisenhower. Zhukov then became the first commander of the Soviet occupation forces in Germany.²⁹

On 24 June 1945 Zhukov reviewed the Victory Parade on Red Square on horseback, while Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky commanded it. The rest of the war in the east is told in the greatest battles of the Eastern Front.³⁰

Why did Stalin demote Zhukov?

In 1946 Zhukov was accused of exaggerating his own role in the war and of illegally taking war trophies. He lost his post as commander of the Soviet ground forces and was sent to command the Odessa Military District, later the Ural district. David Glantz sees it as Stalin removing a potential opponent.³¹

After Stalin's death in March 1953 he returned as deputy minister of defense, and from February 1955 to October 1957 he was minister. In 1957 his support helped Nikita Khrushchev defeat a challenge in the party leadership, but his power then alarmed the party. In October 1957 he was removed and denounced, and in March 1958 he was retired.³²

How did Zhukov die?

Zhukov died in Moscow on 18 June 1974, aged 77, after years of forced retirement in which he wrote his memoirs, published in 1969 as Reminiscences and Reflections (in Russian Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya). His ashes were placed in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on Red Square.³³

His reputation recovered after Khrushchev's own fall in 1964. Today an equestrian statue of him stands on Manege Square, beside the Kremlin and Red Square.³⁴

Was Zhukov a good general?

Historians rate him highly but not uncritically. David Glantz calls him a superb strategist and practitioner of operational art who nonetheless displayed frequent tactical blemishes, unsparing of himself, his subordinates and his men. The Encyclopedia of World Biography notes that fellow generals found him arrogant and ruthless, yet all acknowledged his military feats.³⁵

See how he stands among the war's commanders in our guide to the greatest battles of World War II and the greatest military commanders in history.

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