Antonov, Alexej Innokentievič

general armiji Alexej Innokentjevič Antonov

Anton's family tradition predestined his military career. His father and his grandfather were artillery officers. He was born on September 9, 1866 during his father's stay in the garrison of the Belarusian city of Grodno. In his youth he learned to speak Polish fluently and to speak German, French and English well. In 1916 he was called up for the war and as a recruit he was called up for a six-month course at the Peter and Paul Military School. At the beginning of 1917, Antonov's regiment was deployed to fight on the southwestern front, commanded by the legendary general Alexei Brusilov. He spent half a year at the front and took away many experiences and injuries. After the war, his regiment was disbanded. Then he did not resist and joined the fighting against the Allied expeditionary forces. He got into the fight as an aide to the chief of staff of the 3rd Brigade on the southern front near Lugansk in Ukraine, where the brigade fought with the White Cossacks. He gradually became chief of staff of the 45th Rifle Brigade of the 15th Rifle Division.


After the end of the Civil War, he experienced a period of uncertainty. The year 1928 was a turning point for him: he joined the Communist Party, which was a necessary condition for further progress, and then enrolled at the Frunze Military Academy. Here he was given the first opportunity to expand his knowledge and deepen his knowledge of military operations. He met promising officers here Rokossovsky and Zacharovem. After successfully completing his studies in 1931, Antonov was appointed Chief of Staff of the 46th Rifle Division. She then returned to the academy for a six-month course. Upon graduating from the academy, he was rated as an "excellent operations officer for the staff", able to manage the staff at the front level and possibly able to serve in the general staff. He returned to his original position for a while, but in August 1935 he was transferred as Chief of Staff of the Kharkiv Military District. A month later, he took part in a bilateral exercise of the recently established Kharkiv and Kiev military areas. Antonov was awarded Voroshilov for his work during the maneuvers. Praise was in fact a recommendation for Antonov to take the first course at the Academy of the General Staff in 1936, where he met a selected group of young promising officers. The course was originally supposed to last 18 months, but after a year, the best students were placed in places vacated by the victims of the Stalinist purges. In connection with this, Antonov was appointed in the summer of 1937 Chief of Staff of the Moscow Military Region, which then commanded Budyonny, one of the closest Stalin's friends. In December 1938, Antonov returned as a lecturer to the Faculty of General Tactics at the Frunze Academy. The change in command cadres was related to the replacement of officers in places vacated by purges. In February he was appointed senior lecturer, in January 1941 deputy head of the faculty. 4.6. In 1940 he was promoted to lieutenant general. In January, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Special Military Region of Kiev. As head of the organizational-mobilization department, he began to work closely with Colonel Ivan Bagramjan. The special Kiev region lay on the main progress axis of the German army group South, which was to conquer the rich natural resources of Ukraine and then attack the Caucasus. During the attack there were 57 divisions and 13 brigades, 16,000 cannons and mortars, 850 tanks of 1,300 aircraft, under the command of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. In terms of numbers, Soviet troops concentrated in the Kiev region were almost equivalent. The fatal mistake was the lack of mobile armor that could withstand German tanks.


For Antonov, those 15 months after the German invasion were the saddest in his entire career.The hard-won and rare moments of victory were largely overshadowed by the defeats that accompanied the German attack through Ukraine to the foothills of the Caucasus. At the end of August, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Southern Front with the main task of defending the position on the Dnieper. At the beginning of October, however, Kleist's 1st Panzer Division broke through the Soviet defenses and stood on the Don until the end of October. 27.12. In 1941 he was promoted to lieutenant general for the successful fight for Rostov. In June 1942, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the North Caucasian Front, where his commander became Budyonny. Because Antonov wanted to unite the North Caucasus nations against the Germans in August 1942, which Beria did not like, he got into a conflict with him. Thanks to Beria, he felt it in the post-war years, when Beria prevented him from any hope of promotion. On December 11, 1942, he was called to Moscow, where he met Štěmenek, the deputy chief of operations. It was the beginning of their inseparable partnership. Surprisingly, Antonov had a good reputation with Stalin. After he joined the General Staff, everything started to change for the better. The operations department began to be the driving force behind the high command. The first major strategic operation in which Antonov participated was the Battle of Kursk. Another confirmation that he was popular with Stalin was his promotion on April 4, 1943 to colonel general and then on August 27, 1943 to army general. On February 18, 1945, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff in place of Vasilevsky.


For the rest of the war in Europe, Antonov mostly prepared and led the attack on Berlin. In Potsdam, at a conference, Antonov was the head of the Soviet delegation and his deputy was Admiral Kuznetsov. He headed the General Staff until the beginning of 1946. His main task was to demobilize 5 million men and reintegrate them into the destroyed Soviet economy. In March 1946, however, Vasilevsky returned, and Antonov became his deputy. In 1949 he was transferred to the Transcaucasian region as its commander. It was a step backwards from the political process, but for him it was years of peace and quiet. In 1954 he was again called to the General Staff as the first Deputy Chief. It was a prelude to his appointment as Chief of Staff of the Warsaw Pact in May 1955.


He died 16.5. 1962 for a heart attack in his office.

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