Georgy Zhukov (1896 - 1974) was a Soviet military commander, who skillfully led the Red Army during the crucial battles on the Eastern Front of World War II. After the death of Stalin, he was appointed minister of defense by Nikita Khrushchev in 1955. He had also fought in the First World War as a soldier in the Imperial Russian Army and, as an officer, in the Russian Civil War that broke out in 1917.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was born on December 1, 1896, in the village of Strelkovka, Kaluga Oblast. He was the son of a poor peasant and he started working in 1907, at the age of 11, as apprentice to furrier. In 1915, he joined the Imperial Russian Army and served in the First World War. In October 1918, he also joined the Soviet Army, taking part in the civil war from 1918 to 1920 as a platoon commander. In 1920, he graduated from cavalry courses.
In 1941, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Georgy Zhukov was commander of the Reserve Front, from August to September 1941, and of the Leningrad Front, from September to October 1941. In August 1942, he was appointed first deputy people's commissar of defense of the USSR and deputy supreme commander in chief. During the Battle of Stalingrad, he coordinated the movement of the Don, Southwestern, and Stalingrad Front.
Georgy Zhukov also commanded the Soviet troops during the Russian counter-attack that forced the lifting of the siege of Leningrad in 1943. He also coordinated the actions of the Central, Voronezh, and Steppe Front during the Battle of Kursk in 1943. From November 1944 to May 1945, he commanded the First Byelorussian Front, which carried out the Vistula-Oder Operation, later taking part in the Battle of Berlin. After the war, Zhukov was commander of the Soviet Troop Group in Germany.
