Leontii Kotliar

Born June 3 (16), 1901, in Tomsk; died Dec. 28, 1953, in Moscow. Soviet military commander; colonel general of the engineer troops (1944); Hero of the Soviet Union (Apr. 28, 1945). Member of the CPSU from 1921.

Kotliar entered the Soviet Army in 1920. He graduated from the Leningrad Military Engineering School in 1922 and from the F. E. Dzerzhinskii Military Technical Academy in 1930. He was chief of a section of the engineer troops of the Kiev Military District from 1938 to 1940 and chief of administration of the Main Directorate of Military Engineering of the Red Army from 1940 to 1941. In the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Kotliar served as chief of the Main Directorate of Military Engineering and chief of the Red Army Engineer Troops. He became inspector-general of the Engineer Troops Inspection in April 1942 and chief of the engineer troops of the Voronezh, Southwestern, and Third Ukrainian fronts (1942–45). He participated in the defense of Moscow and in the liberation of Bulgaria, Hungary, and Austria. He was appointed chief of the V. V. Kuibyshev Military Engineering Academy in September 1945 and became chairman of a subdepartment of the academy in 1951. Kotliar was awarded four Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Bogdan KhmePnitskii First Class, and various medals and foreign orders.