Pavel Rotmistrov

Born June 23 (July 6), 1901, in the village of Skovorovo, now in Selizharovo Raion, Kalinin Oblast. Soviet military leader; chief marshal of the armored troops (1962); doctor of military science (1956); professor (1958). Hero of the Soviet Union (May 7, 1965). Member of the CPSU from 1919.

Rotmistrov joined the Red Army in 1919. He graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1931. He fought in the Civil War and in the suppression of the anti-Soviet mutiny at Kronstadt in 1921. During the Great Patriotic War, Rotmistrov was chief of staff of the III Mechanized Corps (June-September 1941) and commander of the 8th Tank Brigade (1941–2), the 3rd Guards Tank Brigade (January-April 1942), the VII Tank Corps (April-December 1942), the III Guards Tank Corps (December 1942–February 1943), and the Fifth Guards Tank Army (February 1943-August 1944). He served on the Western, Northwestern, Kalinin, Stalingrad, Voronezh (during the battle of Kursk the Fifth Guards Tank Army delivered a coun-terstrike near Prokhorovka), Southwestern, Second Ukrainian, and Third Byelorussian fronts. From August 1944 until the end of the war, he was deputy commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army.

After the war, Rotmistrov was commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Soviet Group of Forces in Germany and then commander of forces in the Far East from 1945 to 1948. From 1948 to 1956 he was head of the subdepartment of armored and mechanized troops at the K. E. Voroshilov Higher Military Academy. From 1956 to 1958, Rotmistrov was deputy head of the academy’s subdepartment of strategy and operational art. From 1958 to 1964 he served as chief of the Military Academy of Armored Troops, and from 1964 to 1968 as assistant minister of defense of the USSR in charge of higher military educational institutions. From June 1968 he was inspector general of the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.

Rotmistrov was awarded five Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Orders of Suvorov First and Second Class, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of the Red Star, various medals, and five foreign orders and several foreign medals. He wrote various scientific articles and the book Time and Tanks (1972).