Konstantin Rokossovsky

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Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky (9 December [O.S. 21 December] 1896 – 3 August 1968) was a Soviet and Polish general who served as a top commander in the Red Army during World War II and achieved the ranks of Marshal of the Soviet Union and Marshal of Poland. He also served as Defence Minister of Poland from 1949 to 1956. Rokossovsky was born to a Polish noble family in Warsaw in present-day Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, or according to other sources in Velikiye Luki in present-day Russia. He served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, and in 1918, joined the Red Army and fought with distinction during the Russian Civil War. Rokossovsky rose to hold senior Red Army commands by 1937, when he fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and was branded a traitor, imprisoned and tortured. After Soviet failures in the Winter War, Rokossovsky was released from prison in 1940 and returned to command of an army corps. Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union...

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