Grigory Shtern

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Grigory Mikhailovich Shtern
Colonel General
Commands held1st Red Banner Army
Far Eastern Front
8th Army
Battles/wars
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union

Grigory Mikhailovich Shtern (

Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and the Winter War. The Soviet authorities accused him of treason and had him shot during Stalin's military purge
of 1941.

Career

Shtern was born into a

military advisor to the Spanish Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War between January 1937 to April 1938.[1]

After returning from Spain, Shtern became chief of staff of the Far Eastern Front,[2] commanded by Vasily Blyukher, who would soon be executed in the Great Purge. During the July and August 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan, Shtern was given command of operations after Blyukher's initial counterattack failed. He attacked the Japanese troops on the disputed ridge with numerically superior forces and slowly pushed them back. The pressure of the Soviet attack forced the Japanese to a cease-fire on 11 August as they could not hold the ridge without widening the conflict. On 31 August Stalin decided to abolish the Far Eastern Front as he felt it had not "proved its worth", and Shtern was given command of the new 1st Red Banner Army.[3] On 9 February 1939 he was promoted to Komandarm 2nd rank.[2]

After a series of border incidents in the spring and early summer of 1939 escalated into the

General Staff.[4] According to British military historian Geoffrey Roberts, Shtern played a central role in planning the Soviet counterattack in August, but Zhukov was its chief organizer and executor. Shtern was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 August 1939, for his "courage and bravery in the performance of military duties"[2] at Khalkhin Gol.[5]

During the

Colonel General on 5 June 1940. He was appointed commander of the Far Eastern Front on 22 June 1940.[1]

Shtern was arrested on 7 June 1941 during a new purge of the Red Army. After being struck by the notorious torturer Lev Shvartzman with an electric cable with such force that it severed his right eye,[6] he "confessed" that he had belonged to a Trotskyist conspiracy within the Red Army from 1931, and that he was a German spy. He was shot without trial on 28 October. Shtern was posthumously rehabilitated in August 1954.[1][7]

Awards and honors

[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Kilin & Raunio 2007, p. 113.
  2. ^ a b c d Ufarkin, Nikolai. "Штерн Григорий Михайлович". www.warheroes.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-06-26.
  3. ^ Ziemke 2004, pp. 211–214.
  4. ^ Roberts 2012, pp. 54–55.
  5. ^ Roberts 2012, pp. 59–60.
  6. ISBN 0-300-10780-3
    .
  7. ^ Bortakovsky 2012, p. 214-215.

Bibliography

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grigory_Shtern&oldid=1188689517"