Rotmistrov general of tank troops biography. Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov

(06.07.1901 - 06.04.1982)

The title of Honorary Citizen of the city of Kalinin was awarded on June 23, 1971 for great services in the defeat of the Nazi troops, participation in the liberation of Kalinin and the Kalinin region and in connection with the 70th anniversary of his birth.

Born in the village of Skovorovo, Ostashkovsky district (now Selizharovsky district). In 1916 he graduated from the Selizharovsky Higher Primary School, worked for railway in Peno, a timber rafter in the upper reaches of the Volga, a loader in Samara.

In the Red Army since 1919. Member of the Civil War. He graduated from the Moscow Joint School named after the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1924), the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze (1931). He commanded a rifle regiment, taught at the academy.

Pavel Alekseevich met the Great Patriotic War in the Baltic states as the chief of staff of the 3rd mechanized corps. In September 1941, Colonel Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 8th Tank Brigade on the Northwestern Front. In October, a brigade consisting of a tank regiment and a motorized rifle battalion made a 250 km march from Valdai to Dumanovo in a day and on October 14 approached the village of Kalikino near Kalinin. Concentrating on the Leningrad highway in the Mednoe-Kalinin section, together with other parts of the operational group of General Vatutin, the brigade fought for several days with the enemy, who occupied Kalinin and tried to reach the rear of the troops of the North-Western Front through Mednoe-Torzhok.

For successful actions during the Kalinin offensive operation, the 8th tank brigade in January 1942 was transformed into the 3rd guards brigade, its commander Colonel P.A. Rotmistrov was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Since April 1942, Pavel Alekseevich was the commander of the 7th tank corps, in July 1942 he was awarded the rank of major general tank troops. His tank corps participated in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Since February 1943, General Rotmistrov commanded the 5th Guards Tank Army, which took part in the tank battle near Prokhorovka. In October 1943, Pavel Alekseevich was awarded the rank of Colonel General of the Tank Forces. At the beginning of 1944, the tank army under his command participated in the Kirovograd operation and in the defeat of the enemy's Korsun-Shevchenko group.

From August 1944 until the end of the war - Deputy Commander of the Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Red Army, then commanded the armored forces in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, later - the Far Eastern Military District. In 1953, P.A. Rotmistrov graduated from the Academy of the General Staff and was left there for military-pedagogical and military-scientific work.

From 1958 to 1964 - Head of the Military Academy of Armored Forces. In 1962 awarded military rank Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces. In 1964-1968. - Assistant to the Minister of Defense of the USSR for higher military educational institutions. Since June 1968, P.A. Rotmistrov has been the General Inspector of the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

For the skillful leadership of the troops, courage, courage, heroism shown in the fight against the Nazi invaders, and in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, P.A. Rotmistrov was awarded the title of Hero on May 7, 1965 Soviet Union. He was awarded five Orders of Lenin, the Order October revolution, four orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov I and II degrees, Kutuzov I degree, the Red Star, as well as five foreign orders and medals.

Pavel Alekseevich came to his native places, corresponded with fellow countrymen. In 1971, P.A. Rotmistrov was awarded the title "Honorary Citizen of Kalinin".

In Tver, near the Gorbaty Bridge, a memorial sign was erected to the soldiers of the 8th tank brigade, commanded by P.A. Rotmistrov.

In 1919 he joined the Red Army and was enrolled in the Samara workers' regiment. Participated in the battles near Bugulma. In the same year he became a member of the party. He graduated from military engineering courses, after which he was sent to the 42nd stage battalion of the 16th Army on the Western Front. Rotmistrov participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, was wounded, after the hospital he returned to the village.

After graduating from the Smolensk infantry school, he was sent to Ryazan as a political instructor of a company of the 149th Infantry Regiment, then he was transferred to Vladimir as a political instructor of the divisional cavalry reconnaissance. In 1922, Rotmistrov was admitted to the military united school of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

In 1924, the commander of a platoon of the 31st regiment of the 11th rifle division. After 4 years, he began studying at the Academy. Frunze. He graduated from it in 1931 and was appointed to the post of chief of the first part of the headquarters of the Trans-Baikal Rifle Division in Chita. In 1933, Rotmistrov was appointed head of the 1st sector - deputy head of the operational department of the OKDVA headquarters.

In 1937 he commanded a rifle regiment. In October 1937, Rotmistrov surrendered the regiment, arrived in Moscow as a teacher of tactics at the Military Academy of Motorization and Mechanization of the Red Army. In December 1940, Rotmistrov was appointed deputy commander of the 5th Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps of the Baltic Special Military District.

At the end of May 1941, Pavel Alekseevich was appointed chief of staff of the 3rd mechanized corps. In this position, he met the war. For two months, the 3rd mechanized corps retreated with the troops of the 11th army in the Siauliai direction, where the corps headquarters was surrounded. Upon exiting the encirclement, the corps was disbanded. Colonel Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 8th tank brigade operating on the Northwestern Front. At the beginning of 1942, the formation of the 7th Tank Corps began, with Rotmistrov appointed commander. At the end of June 1942, the corps was transferred to the 5th Panzer Army. When advancing to the area of the city of Yelets, the tank corps immediately attacked the 11th German tank division and defeated it. On August 25, 1942, the corps was transferred to the 1st Guards Army. During the counteroffensive at Stalingrad, the 7th Panzer Corps distinguished itself in the area of the Rachkovsky farm. Then the corps as part of the 2nd Guards Army participated in the defeat of the Kotelnikovskaya grouping of the Don Army Group.

He commanded a mechanized group consisting of 3 corps. In mid-February, Rotmistrov was appointed to the post of commander of the 5th tank army being formed, with this army Rotmistrov participated in the tank battle near Prokhorovka. Then the 5th Panzer Army, under the command of Colonel-General of the Tank Troops Rotmistrov, took part in the battle during the crossing of the Dnieper as part of the Steppe Front. From October 1943, she advanced on Pyatikhatki, Krivoy Rog, and liberated Kirovograd.

In January 1944 Rotmistrov participated with the army in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation. On February 21, 1944, Rotmistrov was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Armored Forces, and in August 1944 he was appointed to the post of Deputy Commander of the Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Red Army. With the end of the Great Patriotic War, Marshal of the Armored Forces Rotmistrov served as commander of armored and mechanized troops in the group of Soviet troops in Germany from 1945 to 1948. In 1948, he was appointed to the post of commander of armored and mechanized troops for Far East.

In 1956, Rotmistrov was transferred to Moscow and appointed head of the department at the Academy of Armored and Mechanized Troops. He is doing a lot of scientific work, in 1956, after defending his dissertation, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Military Sciences, and in 1958 he was awarded the title of professor. Since 1958, Rotmistrov has been Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for higher military educational institutions. In 1962, Rotmistrov was awarded the military rank of Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces. In 1968, Rotmistrov, for health reasons, moved to the group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

Best of the day

In 1965 Rotmistrov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Rotmistrov was awarded 5 Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, 4 Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov 1st degree, the Red Star, many medals and foreign orders. Rotmistrov author of the series scientific works and memoirs: "Time and Tanks", "Steel Guard", etc. Rotmistrov died in 1982, was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Information from archives. Tank armies near Kursk lost 1200 T-34, KV tanks. And the Germans 400 tanks. Stalin wanted to bring Rotmistrov to justice for this, but the army commanders helped him out and Rotmistrov himself lied - they say the Germans lost the same amount. Stalin retreated. The T-34 tanks by this time were technically much inferior to the German ones in all respects except speed. Rotmistrov was afraid to openly tell Stalin about this and passed the note through Zhukov to the tank builders. Only in 1944 did the modernized T-34-85 tank appear, which somewhat leveled the situation.

Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was born in the village of Skovorovo, now in the Selizharovsky district of the Tver region, in a large peasant family(had 8 brothers and sisters). Russian. He graduated from a four-year rural school. In 1916 he graduated from the Higher Primary School. He worked on the railway in Peno, as a timber rafter in the upper reaches of the Volga. In 1917 he came to Samara, where he worked as a loader.

Civil War

In the Soviet Army since April 1919 (he was enlisted in the Samara Workers' Regiment), participant civil war. Then he joined the RCP (b). Participated in battles against the troops of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, in the liquidation of the Melekes uprising, in the Soviet-Polish war. Sent to study at the Samara Soviet Engineering Courses. He fought near Bugulma in the Samara Workers' Regiment, then in the 42nd stage battalion of the 16th Army of the Western Front. After the Civil War in 1921, he took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. Rotmistrov was among the first to break into the fortress. He was wounded in battle, but was able to personally destroy a machine-gun point. In 1921, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the courage shown during the storming of Fort No. 6 during the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising.

interwar time

He graduated from the 3rd Smolensk infantry school, served in Ryazan as a political instructor in the 149th and 51st rifle regiments. Since 1924, after graduating from the 1st Military Combined School named after. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee commanded a platoon, a company. In March-October 1928 - commander of the battery of the 11th artillery regiment. He was deputy battalion commander of the 34th Infantry Regiment in the Leningrad Military District. In 1931 he graduated from the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze. Since 1931 - served as chief of the first part of the headquarters of the 36th Trans-Baikal Rifle Division (Chita). Since March 1936 - head of the first department of the headquarters of the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army. In June 1937, Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 63rd Red Banner Regiment. M. V. Frunze of the 21st Twice Red Banner Primorsky Rifle Division. S. S. Kameneva.

In October 1937, he was recalled from the Far East and appointed as a teacher of tactics at the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army. I. V. Stalin. In 1939 Rotmistrov defended his PhD thesis. In 1939, he was expelled from the CPSU (b) on charges of having links with "enemies of the people", but did not wait for the subsequent arrest, but appealed against the decision of the party bureau of the academy. A few months later, by decision of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was reinstated in the party, exclusion from the party was replaced by a severe reprimand. A year later, P. A. Rotmistrov defended his dissertation on one of the problems of using tanks in war and received a PhD in military sciences.

At the beginning of 1940, he was seconded to the front of the Soviet-Finnish War to gain combat experience in the use of tank troops. Officially sent to the front as commander of the reserve group of the North-Western Front, but at his own request he was sent to the troops as the commander of a tank battalion in the 35th light tank brigade of the 7th army. Participated in battles during the breakthrough of the "Mannerheim Line" and near Vyborg. Soon he becomes the chief of staff of this brigade. For successful fighting in the Soviet-Finnish war, the brigade was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Alekseevich received the Order of the Red Star.

In the Great Patriotic War

In North-west

During the Great Patriotic War, P.A. Rotmistrov fought on the Western, Northwestern, Kalinin, Stalingrad, Voronezh, Steppe, Southwestern, 2nd Ukrainian and 3rd Belorussian fronts. Member of the border battles of 1941.

In December 1940, Lieutenant Colonel P. A. Rotmistrov was appointed deputy commander of the 5th Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps of the Baltic Special Military District in Alytus, Lithuanian SSR.
Since May 1941 - Chief of Staff of the 3rd Mechanized Corps, located in Kaunas. In this position he met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

The 3rd mechanized corps was stationed in Lithuania, near the cities of Kaunas and Alytus. It was armed with light tanks with weak weapons. Already on the fifth day of the war, the Germans surrounded the headquarters of the corps and the headquarters of the 2nd Panzer Division, which was part of the corps. For more than two months, Rotmistrov with a group of soldiers and officers left the encirclement through the forests of Lithuania, Belarus and Bryansk.

In September 1941, Colonel Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 8th Tank Brigade of the 11th Army of the Northwestern Front.

From the memoirs of P. A. Rotmistrov:

In October 1941, a brigade consisting of a tank regiment and a motorized rifle battalion marched 250 kilometers from Valdai to Dumanovo in a day and on October 14 approached the village of Kalikino near Kalinin (now the city of Tver). Concentrating on the Leningrad Highway in the Mednoye-Kalinin section, together with other parts of the operational group of General Vatutin, the brigade fought for several days with the enemy, who occupied Kalinin and tried to reach the rear of the troops of the North-Western Front through Mednoye-Torzhok.
On October 16, the enemy delivered a strong blow from the area of the Doroshikha railway station to Nikolo-Malitsa. They manage to quickly break through the defenses of the 934th Infantry Regiment and reach the Medny area by the end of the day. Rotmistrov was ordered to go to Polustov (8 km northwest of Medny) and prevent further enemy advance to Torzhok. When performing this task, after part of the tanks and motorcycles of the enemy broke through to Maryino and captured the crossing over the river. Logovezh. Rotmistrov decided to withdraw the brigade to the Likhoslavl region.
This was the most critical moment in the Kalinin defensive operation.
In a combat report addressed to Colonel-General I.S. Konev, P.A. Rotmistrov justified his decision as follows:

Colonel General Konev in a telegram addressed to Lieutenant General Vatutin demanded:

Lieutenant General Vatutin, having assessed the situation and the position of the remaining formations of the task force, demanded from Rotmistrov:

Then, as part of the Kalinin Front, the brigade participated in the winter counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Moscow, distinguished itself during the liberation of the city of Klin. Then, together with the troops of the 30th Army, she was again transferred to the Kalinin Front. With battles, she reached Rzhev. In January 1942, the brigade received the Guards banner for the mass heroism of its personnel and became known as the 3rd Guards Tank Brigade, and its commander, Colonel Rotmistrov, was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Corps commander

In April 1942, Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the emerging 7th Tank Corps, which was formed in March 1942 in the Kalinin area on the basis of the 3rd Guards Tank Brigade. At the end of June, in connection with the enemy’s breakthrough into the Ostrogozhsk region and the threat of Voronezh being captured by the Germans, the corps was hastily transferred by rail to the Yelets region and transferred to the 5th Panzer Army under the command of Major General A. I. Lizyukov.

The army was instructed to launch a counterattack on the advancing enemy tank grouping on Voronezh. When advancing to the area of the city of Yelets, the tank corps immediately attacked the 11th German tank division and defeated it. But due to inept and hasty organization, the counterattack did not achieve its goal. Three well-equipped tank corps were brought into battle at two-day intervals, which prevented a decisive turning point in the combat situation. In July 1942, Rotmistrov was promoted to the rank of Major General of Tank Forces.

On August 25, 1942, the corps fought as part of the 1st Guards Tank Army on the Stalingrad Front. In September, the corps received an order, together with the 1st Guards Army, to attack the enemy and break through to Stalingrad. The unprepared strike ended in disaster - in three days of fighting, out of 180 tanks, 15 remained in service. The remains of the corps were put into reserve.

After the Soviet Army surrounded the German troops of Paulus in the Stalingrad region, on December 12, 1942, the Nazi command launched a counterattack from the Kotelnikovsky region. It threw tank, infantry and cavalry divisions into battle. To defeat this enemy grouping, the 2nd Guards Army was advanced. It was reinforced by the 7th Panzer Corps. From December 12 to December 30, 1942, Rotmistrov's corps took part in the defeat of the enemy's Kotelnikovskaya grouping. Heavy and bloody battles for the capture of the well-fortified railway station Kotelnikovo and the village of Kotelnikovsky lasted two days. The corps captured the one who had importance village and station. On final stage operations, on December 28 at 16.00, part of his forces - the 87th tank and 7th motorized rifle brigades managed to capture the German airfield located 1 km from the village on the move. The blow was so swift that the enemy could not only offer serious resistance, but even come to his senses. German planes returning from missions continued to land on the already captured airfield. For the courage and perseverance shown personnel corps in these battles, on December 29, the formation was transformed into the 3rd Guards Tank Corps and it was given the honorary name "Kotelnikovsky".

In January 1943, the corps successfully participated, together with the 2nd Guards Army, in the defeat of the group of troops of Field Marshal E. Manstein, who was trying to unblock the encircled Stalingrad grouping of the enemy, and the liberation of the city of Rostov-on-Don.

Army commander

February 22, 1943 For the skillful command of the corps a, P. A. Rotmistrov received the next military rank of lieutenant general of the tank troops, the Order of Suvorov 2nd degree (No. 3) and a new position - the commander of the newly created tank formation of a homogeneous composition - the 5th Guards Tank Army .

During Battle of Kursk this army took part in a defensive battle in the zone of troops of the Voronezh Front. On July 12, 1943, the army under the command of Rotmistrov took part in a counterattack, known in Soviet historical science as "the largest tank battle near Prokhorovka." In fact, army troops in full strength unsuccessfully attacked the positions of two incomplete German tank divisions, losing 53% of their 642 tanks and self-propelled guns during the day of the battle. Only the intercession of Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky then saved Rotmistrov from the wrath of I. V. Stalin. A commission headed by G. M. Malenkov was hastily sent to the troops to investigate the reasons for the defeat of the army. Rotmistrov was saved only by the quick restoration of the army's combat readiness and the fact that it was again thrown into battle before the end of the commission's work, and in new battles he managed to distinguish himself.

In September 1943, the army under the command of Colonel-General Rotmistrov took part in the battle for the Dnieper, in the Pyatikhatskaya, Znamenskaya operations, liberated the cities of Pyatikhatki, Krivoy Rog, Kirovograd. In January 1944, the army participated in the Kirovograd operation and the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky operation, where on January 28, in the Zvenigorodka area, it closed the encirclement around the enemy grouping (10 divisions and 1 brigade) and for seven days repulsed the enemy’s fierce attacks on the outer encirclement ring, preventing a breakthrough of reinforcements to the encircled troops. On February 17, the encircled group of Germans was completely liquidated. For the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command in February 1944, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Armored Forces. In March 1944, he also showed himself well in the Uman-Botoshansk operation, for a month of fighting in the conditions of spring thaw, having fought over 300 kilometers and crossing the Prut River on the move.

Then the army was transferred from the 2nd Ukrainian to the 3rd Belorussian Front, where it took part in the Belorussian offensive operation. The offensive of the troops of this front began on June 23. When there was success in the zone of action of the 5th Combined Arms Army, Marshal of the Armored Forces Rotmistrov immediately brought his tanks into the gap to develop this success in the Bogushevsky direction. The next day, the army entered the Minsk highway, 50 kilometers west of Orsha. By the end of the same day, the regional center Tolochin was liberated.

On the night of July 1, Rotmistrov's troops, in cooperation with the 11th Guards and 31st armies, overcoming the stubborn resistance of the enemy, broke into Borisov and completely liberated the city from the enemy by morning. The next day, having traveled more than 60 kilometers, the forward detachments of the army started fighting for the northern and northeastern outskirts of Minsk. After the liberation of the capital of Belarus, Rotmistrov's tankers attacked the enemy grouping in the area of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. On July 13, the Vilnius garrison of the Wehrmacht was liquidated, and the capital of Lithuania was taken. Having successfully proved himself when encircling the enemy in the Minsk region, Rotmistrov then could not break through on the move (the breakthrough was carried out within two days) to Vilnius and, at the request of the front commander I. D. Chernyakhovsky, was removed from the post of army commander.

Later career

In August 1944, Rotmistrov was appointed to the post of deputy commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army and did not participate in hostilities until the end of the war.

Post-war service

After the Great Patriotic War, Rotmistrov was the commander of armored and mechanized troops in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and then in the same position in the Far East. Since 1948 - Deputy Head of the Department of the Higher Military Academy named after K. E. Voroshilov.

In 1953, Rotmistrov himself graduated from the Higher Military Academy named after K. E. Voroshilov, after which he became the head of the department in it, and conducted military-pedagogical and military-scientific work. Doctor of military sciences (1956), professor (1958). In 1958 - 1964 he was the head of the Military Academy of Armored Forces. In order to improve educational process actively maintained contact with the troops, often organized creative conferences to improve military scientific work, participated in the development of works on the use of tank troops in battle, operations and war as a whole, as well as the prospects for their development.

For services to the Armed Forces in the development of military theory, education and training of officers, in 1962, P. A. Rotmistrov was awarded the military rank of Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces.

On May 7, 1965, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 10688) for his skillful leadership of the troops, personal courage and courage shown in battles with the German invaders.

Since 1964, Rotmistrov was an assistant to the Minister of Defense of the USSR for higher military educational institutions, since 1968 - in the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

Pavel Alekseevich maintained constant contact with fellow countrymen: he came to his native places, corresponded with workers and youth of the Upper Volga region. He is an honorary citizen of the city of Kalinin and the village of Selizharovo.

Private life

From 1944 to 1982 he lived in the center of Moscow, in house 8 on Gorky Street. There is a memorial plaque on the house.

Military ranks

July 21, 1942 Major General of Tank Troops
December 29, 1942 Lieutenant General of Tank Troops
October 20, 1943 Colonel General of Tank Forces
February 21, 1944 Marshal of the Armored Forces
April 28, 1962 Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces

Awards

Hero of the Soviet Union (05/07/1965)
6 Orders of Lenin
Order of the October Revolution (06/22/1971)
4 orders of the Red Banner (1921, 11/3/1944, ..., 02/22/1968)
Order of Suvorov 1st class (02/22/1944)
Order of Kutuzov 1st degree (08/27/1943)
Order of Suvorov 2nd degree (01/09/1943)
Order of the Red Star (3.07.1940)
Order "For Service to the Motherland in Armed Forces USSR "3rd degree (1975)
Medals
foreign orders.

Memory

He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
In Tver, near the Gorbaty Bridge, a memorial sign was erected to the soldiers of the 8th tank brigade, commanded by Rotmistrov.
A memorial plaque dedicated to Rotmistrov on the building of the Military Academy of Armored Forces (now the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Moscow, 21st Krasnokursantsky pr., 3/5).
In Moscow, a memorial plaque was installed on the house (Tverskaya st. 8, building 1) in which he lived.
A street in Minsk (in the Shabany microdistrict) is named after Rotmistrov.
The Chelyabinsk Higher Military Automobile Command and Engineering School (Military Institute) (Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsky Prospekt 28) is named after Rotmistrov
P. A. Rotmistrov is an honorary citizen of the city of Kalinin.

Bibliography

Tank battle near Prokhorovka. M., 1960;
Tanks at war. M., 1975;

Pavel Rotmistrov was born on June 23 (July 6), 1901 in the village of Skovorovo, Tver province (now Selizharovsky district, Tver region) in large family. In addition to him, 8 more brothers and sisters grew up in the family. His father worked as a blacksmith in his village,

Pavel graduated from a four-year rural school. In 1916 he graduated from the Selizharovsky Higher Primary School. Labor activity he started on the railway in Peno, then he rafted timber in the upper reaches of the Volga. In 1917 he moved to Samara, where he worked as a loader.

During the Civil War in April 1919, he was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army and enlisted in the Samara Workers' Regiment. He took part in the battles against the troops under the command of Admiral Kolchak, in the liquidation of the Melekes uprising and in the Soviet-Polish war. He was sent to study at the Samara Soviet Engineering Courses.

Rotmistrov received his primary military education after graduating from the 3rd Smolensk Infantry School of Red Commanders, after which he served in Ryazan as a political commissar.

In 1924 he graduated from the Military Joint School named after the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, after which he served in the Leningrad Military District in various command positions. In October 1928 he was sent to study at the M.V. Frunze Military Academy. After graduating from the academy, Rotmistrov was appointed to the post of chief of the first part of the headquarters of the 36th Trans-Baikal Rifle Division, stationed in Chita. In subsequent years, he served in units stationed in the Far East.

In October 1937, while in the position of commander of a rifle regiment, Rotmistrov was recalled to Moscow and appointed to the post of teacher of tactics at the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army named after I.V. Stalin. In the same place, in 1939, he defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate of military sciences on one of the problems of using tanks in war.

During the years of the Soviet-Finnish war at the beginning of 1940, Rotmistrov was sent to the front as commander of the reserve group of the North-Western Front. He took part in the battles during the breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line, as well as in the battles near Vyborg. In December 1940, Lieutenant Colonel Rotmistrov was appointed to the post of deputy commander of the 5th Panzer Division, which is part of the 3rd Mechanized Corps, Baltic Military District), which was stationed in Alytus, Lithuanian SSR. In May 1941 he was appointed chief of staff of the 3rd mechanized corps. The corps was stationed in the area of the cities of Kaunas and Alytus of the Lithuanian SSR, and it was armed with light tanks with weak weapons.

During the Great Patriotic War, commander of a tank brigade and corps, commander of the Guards Tank Army.

In August 1944, he was appointed deputy commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army and did not participate in hostilities until the end of the war.

In 1948, he was appointed to the post of deputy head of the department of the Higher Military Academy named after K. E. Voroshilov.

In 1953, he graduated from the Higher Military Academy named after K. E. Voroshilov and remained at the academy as the head of the department, conducted military-pedagogical and military-scientific work.

From 1958-1964, Rotmistrov was the head of the Military Academy of Armored Forces.

Since 1964, Rotmistrov was an assistant to the Minister of Defense of the USSR for higher military educational institutions, since 1968 he has been a member of the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

Hero of the Soviet Union, Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov - one of the outstanding Soviet military leaders, was in the army from the first day of World War II. He participated in the biggest battles: Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, in the liberation of Ukraine and Belarus, became the first marshal of the armored forces of the Red Army after the encirclement of a large Wehrmacht group in February 1944 near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky.

Commander of the Battle of Prokhorov

Rotmistrov went down in military history primarily as a key participant in the Battle of Prokhorov, commander of the most powerful formation that operated in the area of this station in July 1943 - the 5th Guards Tank Army. This battle played a significant role in the fate of the commander. In the summer of 1943, due to the heavy losses of his army in just one day of battle on July 12 and for not fulfilling a combat mission, according to his own recollections, he not only nearly lost his post as commander, but also miraculously escaped a military tribunal 1 . After the war, everything changed. In 1962, he was awarded the personal military rank of Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces. Three years later he was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union 2. At that time, Pavel Alekseevich himself began to assert that on July 12, his guardsmen, it turns out, not only fully realized the plan of the Soviet command, but also solved the main task facing the troops of the entire Voronezh Front 3 .

The real results of the combat work of the tankers were in post-war years relegated to historical oblivion

Of course, during the battles near Prokhorovka, Rotmistrov’s guards fought steadfastly and courageously, the commander himself acted energetically and did everything in his power to ensure that the troops achieved their extremely difficult goals. Particularly significant was their contribution to the disruption of the plan of the command of the German Army Group "South" to destroy half of the 69th Army - the 48th Rifle Corps in the area between the Seversky and Lipovoy Donets on July 13-16, 1943, as well as in holding a 40-kilometer rear army strip defense. However, due to a number of circumstances, primarily for ideological reasons, it was these real results of the combat work of tankers that were pushed into historical non-existence in the post-war years. Rotmistrov's contribution to the creation of the most powerful and well-prepared formation of the Red Army - the 5th Guards Tank Army, was replaced, including by his own efforts, with the legend of him as the winner in the "biggest battle of the Great Patriotic War" 4, which started especially actively infiltrate public consciousness in the 1960s The peak of propaganda hype came at the beginning of the 1970s, when the myth of Prokhorovka became canonical.

distinguished guests

It was at this time, in the winter of 1971, that Rotmistrov visited Prokhorovka for the first and only time and then became its first honorary citizen. Pavel Alekseevich arrived in the Belgorod region as part of a large delegation of cultural figures, scientists and military leaders. Among them were direct participants in the Battle of Kursk: Air Marshal S.A. Krasovsky, who at that time headed the 2nd air army Voronezh Front and Colonel General I.M. Chistyakov, former commander of the 6th Guards Army, which defended the Oboyan-Prokhorovka direction. All of them were already on a well-deserved rest, so the trip was organized not by the USSR Ministry of Defense, but by the All-Union Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. Its purpose was to promote the feat of our people during the Great Patriotic War on the eve of the holiday on February 23 - the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy. The guests met with the public and youth of Belgorod, traveled to the regional centers - the city of Shebekino and the village of Ivnya 5 . For the marshal, the leadership of the Belgorod region specially organized a trip to Prokhorovka.

In order not to offend the hospitable hosts, the marshal politely kept silent about the unfortunate misunderstanding

On February 17, on the road Yakovlevo - Prokhorovka, at the sign marking the border of the Prokhorovka district, its leaders and representatives of the working people met the illustrious military leader and his wife Elena Konstantinovna who accompanied him with bread and salt. On the way to the village, the guests visited an altitude of 254.2, where in 1968 enthusiasts, with the support of the district leadership, allegedly restored the observation post of the commander of the 5th Guards Tank Army. In fact, in 1943, the command post of the 9th Guards was located here. airborne division 5th Guards Army. But, probably, in order not to offend the hospitable hosts, the marshal politely kept silent about this unfortunate misunderstanding. Then there was a meeting in the district House of Culture with the public and party and economic activists. It was here that the first secretary of the Prokhorovsky District Committee of the CPSU G.A. Goryachev and chairman of the executive committee of the district council S.P. Kurgansky presented the former commander with a diploma and a scarlet ribbon with the inscription "Honorary citizen of the village of Prokhorovka." Pavel Alekseevich became the first to whom this high title was awarded by the inhabitants of the village.

The event was widely covered both in the regional and district press 6 , but the central newspapers of the country passed it over in silence, because. it had the status of local importance. This is probably why neither in the military history literature, nor on reference sites where you can find biographical information P.A. Rotmistrov, there is no such information about him. There is only a mention that Pavel Alekseevich was an honorary citizen of the city of Kalinin (now Tver). And in Prokhorovka itself today, unfortunately, nothing reminds of this remarkable event.

Traditional bread and salt was handed to the guest twice

In the course of collecting material about the Battle of Kursk and its participants, at first I managed to get acquainted only with newspaper publications. After some time, we managed to find the original decision of the executive committee of the Prokhorovka village council of workers' deputies of the Prokhorovskiy district of the Belgorod region dated February 17, 1971 on conferring a high rank on the former commander "for great merits shown in the battles during the liberation of the village of Prokhorovka from Nazi invaders in July 1943". It has survived in a single copy and is published for the first time.

Anxiety of the meeting hosts

Until that day, major military leaders (army commanders and above) had not visited a small provincial regional center, therefore, its leaders had no experience in preparing a meeting of guests of this level. Excitement was clearly felt, inconsistencies were noted between the leadership of the district and the village. Thus, traditional bread and salt was handed to the guest twice - at the border of the district and at the entrance to Prokhorovka. And Pavel Alekseevich received the ribbon and diploma of an honorary citizen not from the chairman of the executive committee of the village council, but from the hands of the leaders of the district and the district party organization, although formally this, in general, should not be so.

Nervousness can also explain the gross error that crept into the document cited above. Prokhorovka was liberated from the invaders for the first and only time on February 6, 1943 by the forward detachment of the 183rd Rifle Division of the 40th Army of the Voronezh Front 7 . Everyone knew about it, even schoolchildren born after the war. Therefore, neither the 5th Guards Tank Army, which began to form according to the directive of the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense of February 22, 1943 8 , nor P.A. Rotmistrov, at that time the commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Corps 9, which operated on the Stalingrad Front, had nothing to do with this event. In the summer of 1943, the station was defended first by troops of the 69th Army, and then by the 9th Guards Airborne Division of the 5th Guards Army. It was the paratroopers who, on July 11, at the critical moment of the battle for the station, held back parts of the SS corps in front of the outskirts and did not allow the enemy to occupy it.

Probably, the confusion during the preparation of the meeting is also connected with the fact that the decision to award the high rank was not properly fixed in the future, i.e. the book of honorary citizens was not issued, where a photograph and a description of merits would be placed. Although in the future this title was awarded to several more participants in the Battle of Kursk. For example, in 1973 former member Military Council of the 5th Guards Tank Army, Lieutenant General P.G. Grishin. And the original decision itself is now kept not in the administration of Prokhorovka, as it should be in an official document, but in the museum's funds.

The final events were the meeting of the marshal at the railway school N 71, as the only educational institution village, with its students and a visit to the village of Charming, which in the summer of 1943 was at the epicenter of the battle. Everywhere the guest was greeted warmly, with great enthusiasm. So, during the passage of Pavel Alekseevich and Elena Konstantinovna to the school along the main street, he was accompanied and greeted by hundreds of residents, and in front of them, to the sound of a drum roll and the sounds of a bugle, the pioneers of the squad named after General of the Army N.F. Vatutin. And during the meeting, the marshal was received by her honorary pioneer. This, at first glance, a somewhat naive celebration, however, was sincere, coming from the hearts of people. Less than three decades have passed since the May days of the 45th, most of the Prokhorovites remembered the years of terrible hard times, many themselves participated in the battles of the Great Patriotic War, and for them the marshal was the personification of the Great Victory over fascism, which the Red Army won with colossal efforts and a huge price.

marshal gift

Pavel Alekseevich was touched by the warm, cordial reception of the Prokhorovites. As the participants of those meetings recalled, only one thing upset the former commander - a bare, snowy field, where the famous tank battle July 12, 1943, and not a single monument on it. Therefore, when leaving, he promised to help worthily perpetuate the feat of the guardsmen on Prokhorovka land.

About a year later, railway platforms arrived at the station, first with a T-34-85 tank, and then with two 57-mm ZiS-2 anti-tank guns, which were intended to build a monument to the fallen tankers and artillerymen. According to the former leaders of the Prokhorovsky district, with whom I had a chance to talk on this topic, such a decision at that time, of course, was only within the power of the marshal, since repeated official addresses to the Ministry of Defense and the central party organs remained unsuccessful.

The combat vehicle came from the Central Asian Military District. She left the assembly line after the war and, having served the due date, was excluded from the combat strength, but was in working order. At the end of February 1973, the tank, accompanied by heavy equipment, under its own power reached the place of eternal parking and drove onto the pedestal at the famous height of 252.2 southwest of Prokhorovka 11. And on July 11, 1973, the first memorial to the participants in the legendary battle was solemnly opened 12 . And for twenty-two years it remained the only monument here, until the moment when, in May 1995, a white-stone monument to the People's Artist of Russia V.M. Klykov.

The marshal could not come to the celebrations dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Prokhorov battle, but a representative delegation headed by Lieutenant General P.G. arrived from the council of veterans of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Grishin. The information that Rotmistrov was personally involved in the construction of the monument quickly became known to the general public. The commander's gift is still remembered today.

Stay P.A. Rotmistrov in Prokhorovka was filmed by several photojournalists, including an employee of the Kommunist newspaper, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War N.E. Pogorelov. In addition, during a meeting at school, a number of interesting pictures were taken by an amateur photographer, also a participant in the war, a teacher German language B.M. Chursin. Nikolai Yegorovich and Boris Mitrofanovich, unfortunately, are no longer alive, but their photographs have been preserved. Most of them are published today for the first time.

Concluding the story about one of the episodes in the life of Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov, I want to emphasize that he was a man of difficult fate, with a complex, contradictory character. The results of his activities in command posts during the Great Patriotic War to this day, not without reason, cause heated debate. Nevertheless, we, the children of post-war generations, must remember the main thing - he was a soldier of our Fatherland, who devoted his whole life to protecting it.

Notes
1 Sverdlov F.D. Unknown about the Soviet generals. M., 1995. S. 56.
2 Heroes of the Soviet Union. Brief biographical dictionary. T. 2. M., 1988. S. 374.
3 Sverdlov F.D. Decree. op. S. 56.
4 Military History Journal. 1971. No. 5. S. 54.
5 Belgorodskaya Pravda. 1971. February 16. C. 3.
6 Belgorodskaya Pravda. 1971. February 19. S. 3; Communist. 1971. February 18. S. 1; February 23. pp. 2-3.
7 Belgorod Land during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945. M., 2011. S. 189-200.
8 Russian archive: Great Patriotic War. General Staff during the Great Patriotic War: Doc. and mat. 1943 T. 23. M., 1999. S. 61.
9 Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Encyclopedia. M., 1985. S. 622.
10 Zamulin V.N. The Bitter Truth About Prokhorovka: "The Greatest Tank Battle" or Tank Battle. M., 2013. S. 158-160.
11 Communist. 1973. March 1. C. 2.
12 Communist. 1973. June 11. S. 2, 3.