Background
Mikhail Yefimovich Katukov was born on 17 September 1900 in the village of Bolshoe Uvarovo in Kolomensky Uyezd, Moscow Governorate, now in the Ozyory Urban Okrug of Moscow Oblast, to an impoverished peasant family of five children.
Mikhail Katukov
officer commander military leader
Mikhail Yefimovich Katukov was born on 17 September 1900 in the village of Bolshoe Uvarovo in Kolomensky Uyezd, Moscow Governorate, now in the Ozyory Urban Okrug of Moscow Oblast, to an impoverished peasant family of five children.
Katukov graduated from the primary rural school. In 1912 he was sent to relatives in Saint Petersburg, where he worked as a messenger boy in a dairy shop, and later in the factories of the city. Katukov participated in the October Revolution in 1917, after which he returned to Bolshoe Uvaravo to take care of his family after his mother's death.
He graduated from Mogilev infantry courses, courses "Shot" in 1927, advanced training courses for commanders at the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army in 1935. Higher Academic Courses at the Academy of the General Staff in 1951.
Katukov entered the Red Army as a private in 1919. He served during the Russian Civil War, and later served as a tank formation commander before the war. In 1935 he graduated from the Stalin Military Academy and in July 1936 he was promoted to captain. In October 1938 came his first major command as acting commanding officer of the 5th Light Tank Brigade of the 45th Mechanized Corps. He survived the purges.
On the onset of the war he took command of the 4th Tank Brigade. In the battle of Moscow in 1941, it was Katukov's Tank Brigade, then part of the 1st Guards Rifle Corps, that checked the advance of Guderian's Panzergruppe 2 near Tula. To honor this achievement it became the 1st Guards Tank Brigade. Later during Operation Mars in December 1942, Katukov's command managed a deep penetration into the German lines in the Rhzev salient. In January 1943 he took command of the 1st Guards Tank Army, a post he held for the duration of the war. In the battle of Kursk, Katukov's command was one of the two armies that were hardest-hit by the initial German advance on the southern shoulder. Through the use of well-defended and sited strong-points, dug in tanks, and judicious use of counterattacks, Katukov managed to extract a high toll from the German attackers breaking through the defensive system.
He commanded his tank army in the Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive, the Vistula-Oder Offensive, and the Battle of Berlin.
Following the war he became commander of the mechanized forces of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and later Inspector General of the Army.
No religious basis is needed in order to display ethical behavior. Religions encourage war and violence to promote their religious goals.
