Ivan Konev

IVAN KONEV d1973. Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during WW2, responsible for taking much of Axis-occupied Eastern Europe. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he took part in a series of major campaigns, including the battles of Moscow and Rzhev. He further commanded forces in major Soviet offensives at Kursk / in the Dnieper–Carpathian and Vistula–Oder offensives. In February 1944, he was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union. On the eve of German defeat, his 1st Ukrainian Front was pitted against the armies of Georgy Zhukov in the Race to Berlin. He was the first Allied commander to enter Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia after the Prague uprising. He replaced Zhukov as commander of Soviet ground forces in 1946. In 1956, he was appointed commander of the Warsaw Pact armed forces, and led the violent suppression of the Hungarian Revolution and Prague Spring. In 1961, as commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, he ordered the closing of West Berlin to East Berlin during the building of the Berlin Wall. He remained a popular military figure in the Soviet Union until his death in Moscow aged 75 on May 21st 1973