Allied Commanders of World War Two/Marshal Zhukov, Final

"Georgi Zhukov" Part 4/Final

During the summer of 1942, Hitler planned on capturing the the Soviet oilfields of the Caucasus and on taking the city of Stalingrad on the Volga River; thus cutting off the north/south river route for Soviet supplies. What is termed "the Battle of Stalingrad" was really a series of battles beginning with the German advance to the city and their ensuing attempts to capture the city with Stalin's name.* The Soviet defenders barely held on, but the worn out German forces could not fully capture Stalingrad. With Zhukov in overall command of the region, a massive offensive was planned to destroy the southern flank of the German and Axis front, and in November 1942, the Soviets struck, bringing on another chapter to the Stalingrad battle. Rumanian forces (German allies), on either side of the German forces in the city, were shattered by the Soviet attack, and the German 6th Army, along with some Rumanian units, were surrounded. Now began another phase of the battle; the reduction and final surrender of the German forces in Stalingrad, which took place in early February 1943. Interestingly, when the German forces were surrounded in Stalingrad, Zhukov was transferred north to the Leningrad sector to try organize an attack to relieve the besieged metropolis, which was not successful, although the Soviets did manage to get a quantity of supplies through to the city.

Zhukov went south again, this time to plan a defensive battle against an expected large German offensive around the city of Kursk. Large Soviet defensive works created serious problems for the German attack, and with the invasion of Sicily by the Western Allies, Hitler broke off the offensive in the Kursk area, his forces, especially his armored forces, badly depleted. Then came the Soviet counter thrust, and the Germans never really recovered. Zhukov remained in charge of large Soviet forces headed into Poland and then into Germany itself. In mid April 1945 Soviet forces launched the attack intended to end the war, and Zhukov's forces were given the direct route to the German capitol. Stiff German resistance during the initial part of the Soviet attack brought angry remarks from Josef Stalin, but Zhukov's troops finally broke through and headed for Berlin.

Zhukov served as Commander of the Soviet Zone in occupied Germany after the war, but his popularity made him a target of the paranoid Stalin, who had him sent to remote military posts. Stalin's death in 1953 brought Zhukov into public view again. In poor health from the mid 1960s, Zhukov died in 1974 from a stroke.

* The city was called Tsaritsyn in the days of the Russian Empire, but it was renamed during the early Communist era, after Stalin, in the mid 1920s. In the early 1960s the city was once again renamed, as Volgograd, as Communist leaders distanced themselves from Josef Stalin.

WORD HISTORY:
Man-While there is disagreement on the origins of this word, it likely goes back to the Indo European root "man(u)," which meant "human being, 'man,' in the general sense person." This gave Old Germanic "mann(a)," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "mann," with the same meaning. Later this became "man." One of the questions about this word is why it took on the meaning "male person" in all of the Germanic languages (English has kept both meanings, "human being," and "male human"). English used "wer" for "male person;" thus "werewolf," "man wolf," but gradually "man" overtook "wer" in this meaning during the 1200s. In the male dominated world of those times, perhaps the general idea of "man," the human being, transferred to the dominate sex, male, but it is interesting that this occurred in all of the Germanic languages, which makes me wonder if this was already a secondary meaning going back in time. The verb form "to man," as in "to supply a group of men to some task," as in "man the walls of the fort," developed from the noun during the same period when "man" was overtaking "wer." Common in various forms in the other Germanic languages: German has "Mann" (male person, also husband) and the derived "Mensch" (person) plus "bemannen" ("to man"); Low German has "Mann" and "Minsch;" West Frisian has "man" and "minske;" Dutch has "man" and "mens;" Icelandic has "karlmaður" and "maður;" Danish has "mand" and "menneske;" Norwegian "mann" and "menneske;" Swedish has "man" and "människa."