MARSHAL GEORGY ZHUKOV

“Where you find Zhukov, you find victory” - this is a phrase coined in the Soviet Army during World War Two. Indeed, Georgy Zhukov was the commander and the person, who made the Victory Day closer. 

Georgy Zhukov was born on December 1st, 1896 in a small village of Strelkova in the Kaluga region south of Moscow. Like most of the peasant population of the country, the Zhukov family was desperately poor. They lived in an old house, which had only one room and two windows. Who could guess then, that the boy born in poverty would someday reach the highest peak of military fame?

In 1915, when the First World War was raging on, Georgy Zhukov, then a nineteen-year-old fellow, received his conscripted call-up papers and was posted to a cavalry squadron. This was exactly the point from where his rise to military fame began.

Georgy Zhukov was probably the most talented Russian general and later marshal of World War Two and certainly the most successful one. Zhukov was one of the few generals to survive Stalin's purges of the Red Army. His first victory was in the Battle of Halhin-Gol in May-August 1939 during the war with Japan. His next military success was the defense of Leningrad, during the first autumn of the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941. Zhukov was then promoted and led the Western front in the defense of Moscow, holding back the Nazis once again. In 1942 Zhukov directed the defense of Stalingrad and the succeeding counteroffensive, which trapped and destroyed the 6th German Army in 1943. Having played a major role in the three great battles of World War Two which saved the Soviet Union, Zhukov was appointed a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Army. He went on to plan or command most of the great victories which turned the Nazis back. On May 8, 1945 Georgy Zhukov was the Soviet Representative at the official German surrender.

Marshal Georgy Zhukov went down in history as an outstanding military leader who contributed heavily to the allied victory in World War Two.