zhukov, geoRgi konStAntinovichGeorgi Zhukov
some 61,000 casualties. On 29 August 1939, Zhukov
was awarded the Golden Star by the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-
lics and given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. De-
spite this, he was not given a command in the short-lived
Russo-Finnish War (1939–40) until late in the conflict
when, in January 1940, he was named as chief-of-staff of
the Soviet force. It was during this period that the Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin purged the ranks of the Red Army,
executing thousands of the military’s best commanders
and soldiers. Zhukov survived the purges, and in May
1940, he was promoted to general of the Red Army and
placed in command of the Kiev Special Military District.
In February 1941, he was named as chief of the general
staff of the Red Army, and deputy people’s commissar
of the defense of the USSR, serving as the second high-
est military officer in the nation under General Semyon
Timoshenko, the minister of defense.
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany launched Op-
eration Barbarossa, its all-out invasion of the Soviet
Union. Although many of Stalin’s military officers had
warned him that such an attack was likely, he had cho-
sen to ignore this advice and allowed the purges of the
ranks to continue unabated. When the invasion began,
he panicked and ordered Zhukov to take on the nation’s
defense as the Nazis headed eastward. Despite evidence
that the German forces were moving toward Moscow to
take the Soviet capital, Stalin sent Zhukov south to Kiev,
believing that the Germans wanted to seize the Ukrai-
nian oil fields first. In October 1941, Stalin replaced
Timoshenko with Zhukov to serve as commander of the
entire western front, which was being hammered by the
German onslaught. Zhukov built up lines of defense in
front of Moscow as the Germans moved on that city; his
resistance to the Nazis saved the city and made Zhukov a
national hero. Historian William J. Spahr writes: “Even
before Moscow, he had demonstrated the leadership style
and skills that he applied throughout the war. Iron will
and determination, the uncanny ability to anticipate the
enemy’s future course of action and to skillfully apply
all available assets, and the courage to withstand [Sta-
lin’s] ire when making contrary recommendations made
him a tower of strength in a crisis. But in combination
with his own vanity, these qualities would also earn him
numerous enemies, not only among Stalin’s support-
ers and sycophants but also within the senior military
leadership.”
Following the Russian victory at Moscow, Zhu-
kov helped to save the city of Stalingrad from falling
to the Germans. Encircling the German Sixth Army,
he was able to hit the surrounded troops with massive
firepower and eventually force a surrender that left over
half a million Germans dead or captured. He also led
the way in preparations for the defense of Leningrad
in the north (now once again named St. Petersburg),
which held out for more than three years against the
German siege; and the defense of the Caucasus region,
setting the stage for the massive tank battle at Kursk
(5–13 July 1943), which was won by the Soviets. Zhu-
kov then planned offensives against the demoralized
German army as they were pushed back out of Russia
and across Eastern Europe. He prepared the strategy
that resulted in the drive on Berlin (May 1945), culmi-
nating in the collapse of Nazi Germany and the end of
the Second World War in Europe. On 8 May 1945, he
went to Berlin to accept the surrender of the remnants
of the collapsed Nazi regime from Field Marshal Wil-
helm Keitel.
Zhukov had been named as first deputy people’s
minister of defense of the Soviet Union in August 1942,
and on 18 January 1943, he was made marshal of the So-