Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov

Marshal of the Soviet Union (1955) and twice Hero of the Soviet Union, commander of the 62nd Army that held Stalingrad. Born on 12 February 1900 in the village of Serebryanye Prudy, Tula province. He joined the Red Army in 1918 and commanded a regiment in the Civil War; between 1927 and 1937 he served repeatedly as a military adviser in China. In September 1942 he took command of the 62nd Army defending Stalingrad. The army held a narrow strip along the Volga and fought for individual buildings and city blocks. Chuikov is associated with the tactic of "hugging" the enemy, which neutralised German air and artillery superiority by closing the fighting distance to grenade range. In April 1943 the 62nd Army became the 8th Guards Army. Under Chuikov it fought from Stalingrad through the Donbass, right-bank Ukraine, Lublin and Poznan to Berlin. On 2 May 1945 the surrender of the Berlin garrison was accepted at his headquarters. After the war he commanded the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and was Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces from 1960 to 1964. He died on 18 March 1982 and, by his own wish, was buried on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd — the only Marshal of the Soviet Union not buried in Moscow.