Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky was born on December 21, 1896, in Warsaw, Congress Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Ksawery Wojciech Rokossowski, was a railroad engineer; his mother, Antonina Ovsyannikova, was a school teacher. Konstantin Rokossovsky joined the army in 1914 and fought in World War I as a non-commissioned officer. In October 1917 he joined the Red Guards and later the Red Army. Thus, he participated in the Russian Revolution and fought in the Civil War that ensued between 1918–20 as commander of a horse cavalry troop, a detached horse cavalry battalion, and a detached horse cavalry regiment. He graduated from the Advanced Cavalry Training Courses for the Command Staff in 1925 and the Advanced Training Courses for the Higher Command Staff at the M. V. Frunze Academy in 1929. He took part in the fighting on the Chinese Changch-un Railway as commander and commissar of the 5th Detached Kuban’ Horse Cavalry Brigade.
During World War II, Rokossovsky commanded the IX Mechanized Corps (until July 11, 1941) and the Sixteenth Army on the Western Front (August 1941–July 1942). He also commanded the Briansk Front (July-September 1942); he led the Don Front during the Battle of Stalingrad from September 1942 to February 1943; the Central Front (February-October 1943), participating in the Battle of Kursk; commander of the Byelorussian Front (October 1943–February 1944); as commander of the First Byelorussian Front (February-November 1944), he took part in Operation Bagration; and as commander of the Second Byelorussian Front (November 1944 until the end of the war), he fought in the Battle of Berlin. Thus, forces under Rokossovsky’s command fought in the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk and in the Byelorussian, East Prussian, Eastern Pomeranian, and Berlin operations.
On June 24, 1945, Rokossovsky commanded the Victory Parade in Moscow. Between 1945 and 1949 he was commander in chief of the Northern Group of Forces. In October 1949, at the request of the government of the Polish People’s Republic and with the authorization of the Soviet government, Rokossovsky went to Poland and was appointed minister of national defense and deputy chairman of the Polish Council of Ministers; he was given the military rank of marshall of Poland. Rokossovskii was elected a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party and a deputy to the Sejm.
In 1956, Konstantin Rokossovsky returned to the USSR. He was deputy minister of defense of the USSR from November 1956 to June 1957; chief inspector and deputy minister of defense of the USSR from July to October 1957; commander of the troops of the Transcaucasian Military District in 1957–58; deputy minister of defense and chief inspector of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR from January 1958 to April 1962; and inspector general of the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR from April 1962. On August 3, 1968, he died in Moscow, Russia, at the age of 71.
