Born on Feb. 12 [Jan. 31, Old Style], 1900, Serebryannye Prudy, near Moscow, Russian Empire. Died on March 18, 1982, Moscow, Russia,
U.S.S.R.
Chuikov worked as a mechanic apprentice from the
age of 12. At the age of 18, after the Russian Revolution, he joined the Red Army. His first taste of battle in the Civil War occurred at Tsaritsyn (later named Stalingrad; now Volgograd), and by the following year, in
1919, he was a member of the Communist Party and a regimental commander.
He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in the 1920s and was a military advisor to Chiang Kai-Shek from 1926-37.
He took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) and in the Russo-Finnish War (1939-40),
Chuikov was a peasant's. He wore a uniform so rumpled that he was sometimes mistaken for an enlisted man. His unkept black hair kept falling over his forehead and his smile displayed rows of gold - capped teeth. In his boyhood he had been both a shop apprentice and a bellhop. But war was his natural element, and he had risen to regimental command in the fighting against the Whites.
When the Germans launched Barbarossa, Chuikov was in Chungking, serving as a military adviser to Chaing Kai - shek a part of an old Sino - Russian agreement to oppose Japanese expansion. But nothing could keep him from the battle at home, or from making his presence felt. He was volatile, abrasive and ruthless, and it was much more than mere bombast when, on being offered the command of the Sixty - second Army on the 12th of September 1942, he assured Yeremenko: "We shall hold the city or die there."
His tactics were to place units in isolated parts of the city and have pockets of resistance. This led the Germans to overestimate the numbers engaged in fighting in the city. Chuikov's men lost ground but the Sixth Army's reserves of equipment, fuel and men were being exhausted in the house-to-house fighting. During Yeremenko's and Rokossovsky's offensive at Stalingrad his armies stood firm.
The 62nd Army was promoted due to its success in Stalingrad to 8th Guards Army.
Chuikov had the distinction of receiving the surrender of Berlin from General Krebs. After the war he was Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Military Forces in Germany from 1949-53.He headed the Kiev military district 1953–60, and thereafter held a variety of military assignments in Moscow.
He was a candidate member of the
Communist Party's Central Committee from 1952 to 1961 and a full member from 1961 until he died.
In 1955 Marshal's stars were given to six more well-merited WW II generals: Eremenko, Bagramian, Chuikov and others
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