Rodimtsev, Aleksandr Ilich

Born Feb. 23 (Mar. 8), 1905, in the village of Sharlyk, now in Orenburg Oblast; died Apr. 13, 1977, in Moscow. Soviet military leader, colonel general (1961). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (Dec. 22, 1937, and June 2, 1945). Member of the CPSU from 1929. Son of a peasant.

Rodimtsev joined the Red Army in 1927. In 1939 he graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and then completed courses at the Military Academy for the Command and Navigation Staff of the Air Force in 1941 and the Higher Academic Training Courses at the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1947. In 1936–37 he fought in the civil war in Spain on the side of the republican government. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–15, Rodimtsev commanded the 5th Airborne Brigade in 1941, the 87th and 13th guards rifle divisions from 1941 to 1943, and from 1943 until the end of the war the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps on the Southwestern, Don, Stalingrad, Steppe, Voronezh, and Second and First Ukrainian fronts.

After the war, Rodimtsev held important positions in the armed forces. In 1951–52 he was deputy commander of the troops of the Eastern Siberian Military District, from 1953 to 1956 chief military adviser to the Albanian Army and military attaché in Albania, and from 1956 to 1960 first deputy commander of the troops of the Northern Military District. From 1960 to 1966, Rodimtsev held other important military posts. In 1966 he became a military consultant to the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense.

Rodimtsev was a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at the third convocation. He was the author of Mashen’ka From the Mousetrap (1964) and Under Spanish Skies (2nd ed., 1974). Rodimtsev was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, four Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Kutuzov Second Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii First Class, two Orders of the Red Star, various other medals, and orders and medals from foreign countries.