Ivan Yakubovsky

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Ivan Ignatyevich Yakubovsky
Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Buried
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Allegiance Soviet Union
Warsaw Pact
Service/branchArmy
Years of service1932–1976
RankMarshal of the Soviet Union (1967-1976)
Commands held
Battles/warsWorld War II
AwardsHero of the Soviet Union (twice)
Signature

Ivan Ignatyevich Yakubovsky (Russian: Ива́н Игна́тьевич Якубо́вский; 7 January 1912[1] – 30 November 1976) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice made a Hero of the Soviet Union and serving as commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact from 1967 to 1976.

Life

Early life

Born as the sixth child of a peasant family of Belarusian[2] ethnicity in the Mogilev Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), he was employed in their village and graduated from a rural school. From 1930 he worked as section-secretary on the Makaryevsky village council, then at a plant. He graduated from two courses at the Orsha School in 1932.

Military service

Pre-war

Enlisting in the

27th Omsk Red Banner Rifle Division (Vitebsk
).

In 1935 he graduated from training courses in Leningrad, before serving in the

Belorussian Military District as a platoon commander, company commander, battalion chief of staff and training battalion commander of various armoured units. Commanding a tank company in the Red Army's September 1939 Polish campaign as part of the troops on the Belorussian front, he also served in the 1939–40 Winter War
.

World War II

Yakubovsky entered the war in its early days on the western border as commander of a tank battalion, fighting heroically in the most difficult defensive battles in Belarus. His unit was one of the last

Donets Basin in the summer of 1942 and in the defensive and offensive phases of the Battle of Stalingrad, fighting on the Southern, Southwestern
, Stalingrad and Don fronts and rising to colonel on 30 November 1942.

In spring 1943 the brigade was transferred to the

Kiev and Fastiv. For his heroism at Fastiv, where his unit destroyed 30 enemy tanks in a single day, Yakubovsky was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.[4]
In spring 1944, at the head of his tank brigade, Col Yakubovsky successfully operated in Proskurovo-Chernivtsi offensive.

In June 1944 he became deputy commander of 6th Guards Tank Corps within 3rd Guards Tank Army. He participated in the

Prague
operations and rising to Major-General of Tank Troops (20 April 1945).

Cold War

Yakubovsky, far left, with East German politicians and officers, 1960.

After the war, he continued to serve as deputy commander of the tank corps in the

Belorussian Military District then in April 1952 became commander of armoured and mechanized forces in the Carpathian Military District
. Rising to Lieutenant-General of Tank Forces (3.05.1953), he commanded a Tank Army (December 1953 to April 1957) then a mechanized army (from April 1957).

In July 1957 he became First Deputy Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, later being promoted to Colonel-General (18.08.1958). In April 1960 he was appointed Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, being in post in the midst of the Berlin Crisis of 1961, when the threat of armed conflict in Europe dramatically escalated. During the crisis, in August 1961, Ivan Konev, Commander in Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, was appointed Marshal of the Soviet Union and Yakubovsky was transferred to the post of his first deputy, while continuing to manage the daily operations of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. After stabilizing the situation in April 1962, Army General Yakubovsky again returned to the post of Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In January 1965 he was made Commander of the Kiev Military District.

On 12 April 1967 he was made First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR (simultaneously with the appointment of Andrei Grechko as Minister of Defense) and Marshal of the Soviet Union, whilst from July that year he contiguously held the post of supreme commander of the forces of the Warsaw Pact.[citation needed] In this capacity, he directed military preparations for the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.[citation needed]

Death

Yakubovsky died of cancer on 30 November, 1976 at the age of 64, and his ashes was buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Awards

Soviet awards
Foreign awards

Commemorations

Kiev Higher Tank Engineering College was named after him in 1977 and streets have been named after him in

Kiev, Minsk, Fastiv and his birthplace of Gorki
.

Memoirs

  • Земля в огне (Earth on fire); Moscow, 1975;
  • За прочный мир на земле (For a lasting peace on earth); Moscow, 1975

Notes

  1. ^ Old style: 25 December 1911
  2. ^ Герои страны
  3. ^ 121st Tank Brigade of the Armed Forces of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.
  4. ^ Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР «О присвоении звания Героя Советского Союза генералам, офицерскому, сержантскому и рядовому составу Красной Армии» от 10 января 1944 года // Ведомости Верховного Совета Союза Советских Социалистических Республик : газета. — 1944. — 19 января (№ 3 (263)). — С. 1

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ivan Yakubovsky.
Military offices
Preceded by Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization
1967–1976 		Succeeded by

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