After his trial Rokossovsky was sent to the
Kresty Prison in Leningrad, where he remained until he was released without explanation on 22 March 1940. His release coincided with a relaxation of the Great Purge ushered in by the execution of NKVD chief
Nikolay Yezhov on 4 February 1940, who was replaced by
Lavrentiy Beria.
Semyon Timoshenko, who had been named
People's Commissar for Defence of the Soviet Union after the debacle of the
Winter War and was in urgent need of experienced officers to fill command posts for the rapidly expanding Soviet army, returned Rokossovsky to the command of the
5th Cavalry Corps at the rank of colonel. Orders for the attack from
Zhukov were met with little enthusiasm from the Southwestern Front staff that wanted to maintain a defensive posture. Nonetheless, the attack proceeded. The operation met with numerous difficulties in mobilization, coordination, communication, transportation and execution but scored some initial successes, which were parried by the quick action of
Von Rundstedt's
Army Group South in Ukraine and ended in the destruction of most of the participating Soviet forces. Upon receiving his orders Rokossovsky, whose divisions were stationed far to the rear of the frontier, had to commandeer trucks from the local reserve to carry munitions, and mount some of his infantry on tanks while the rest were forced to walk, splitting his forces. As a consequence, his forces were behind schedule and only an advanced guard were able to meet the 26 June "jump off", and entered the fray piecemeal. His orders were to move forward and take up positions around
Lutsk north of the town of
Dubno in co-ordination with the 19th Mechanized Corps under N. V. Feklenko, and attack south-west, while the Mechanized Corps of the
6th Army attacked northward from
Brody to meet them, with the intent of cutting off the advance of the
11th Panzer Division east. On 25 June, Rokossovsky's 131st Motorized were quickly driven out of their position at Lutsk by the
14th Panzer Division, but the 35th and 20th Tank divisions were able to cobble together advance forces to cut the Lutsk–Dubno road, even though their full force had not yet arrived on the battlefield. On the same day elements of the 19th Mechanized Corps, operating to his east out of
Rovno, had succeeded in temporarily driving the rearguard of the 11th Panzer Division from Dubno, cutting off its advance units. In response the
13th Panzer Division attacked south from Lutsk the next day clearing Rokossovsky's forces from the road and allowing German infantry to recapture Dubno, while it drove off the 19th Mechanized and captured Rovno in Rokossovsky's rear. and refused a direct order, effectively ending the dispute between Zhukov and Kirponos: Because of this, Ryabyshev's 8th Mechanized, which had also scored some early successes operating out of Brody, was in effect continuing to attack from the south with the expectation of support from Rokossovsky, who had stood down his forces, and did not arrive from the north. Neither were aware of this fact, because there was no available direct communication between the individual corps, an example of how the endemic communication problems helped foil the Soviet efforts. Sporadic attempts were made to close the widening gap between the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies, as the Germans advanced on Kiev, but the Soviet tank forces were but a fraction of their former strength. By 7 July, Rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Corps had been reduced to 64 tanks, out of its original complement of 316.
Battle of Smolensk While Rokossovsky and his fellow Mechanized Corps commanders of the 5th and 6th Army had been interdicting Army Group South's advance in Ukraine, complete disorder and panic gripped the Soviet forces in
Byelorussia, where the disabling impact of poor organization, logistics and communications were exponentially greater. The Red Army collapsed under the well coordinated attack of
Field Marshal von Bock's Army Group Center. Within seventeen days, during the
Battle of Białystok–Minsk three quarters of
D.G. Pavlov's
Western Front was put out of action; dispersed, captured or killed. Of its initial complement of 625,000 soldiers, 290,000 were taken prisoner and 1,500 guns and 2,500 tanks were captured or destroyed. By 30 June the Germans had reached the approaches of the
Dnepr river bend where the river departs from its east–west flow, and heads south. The way was open to the strategically important city of
Smolensk, where Marshal Simon Timoshenko was reassembling the shattered Western Front on a new defense line. The
Battle of Smolensk commenced on 10 July when Army Group Center began advancing on a broad front to the north and south banks of the Dnepr river, just beyond the bend where it begins its southward flow. The
9th Army attacked north-east toward
Veliki Luki. The
3rd Panzer Group under General
Hermann Hoth struck east at
Vitebsk and then attacked along the land bridge that separates the West Dvina and Dnepr rivers with the aim of enveloping Smolensk from the north.
Heinz Guderian's
2nd Panzer Group pushed toward Smolensk directly through
Orsha and bypassed
Mogilev with the ultimate objective of making a deep penetration far to the rear of the Soviet front line beyond
Yelnya and toward Moscow. Despite his insubordination during the Battle of Dubno, Rokossovsky was ordered to Moscow on 13 July to take command of the remnants of the 4th Army where he was to serve under Marshal Timoshenko who had replaced the disgraced Pavlov as the Western Front commander on 2 July, shortly after he and the majority of his staff had been tried and shot in the wake of the disaster at the frontier. On 15 July, the same day that Rokossovsky was restored to the rank of lieutenant general, the rank he had held previous to his arrest, The next day motorized infantry from the 2nd Panzer Group forced most of the Soviet defenders from Smolensk, reducing the gap between 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups to less than 20 kilometers. The
16th,
19th and
20th Soviet armies were threatened with impending encirclement and now strung out along the north bank of the river contained in a triangle between Vitebsk to the north-west, Yartsevo to the north-east, and Smolensk to the South. With his front rapidly deteriorating Timoshenko released Rokossovsky from 4th Army (a command he had assumed in name only) and gave him the task of assembling a stopgap formation to be called "Group Yartsevo" Collapse seemed imminent. Stalin, unmoved, reiterated his demand to Timoshenko that Smolensk should not be surrendered and called the "evacuation attitude" of the front-line commanders of the besieged armies criminally "treasonous". Rather than retreat, Timoshenko's armies would stand their ground and attempt to recapture Smolensk. At first, Rokossovsky had to resort to pulling together a fighting group from reserve units and retreating stragglers, but over the coming days it became a more substantial force. Retreating regiments and divisions from the 44th Rifle Corps filtered out of the Smolensk pocket and were transferred to his command and fresh forces arrived from the reserve—the 107th Tank Division (formerly the 69th Motorized Division from the
Trans-Baikal Military District) and the 101st Tank Division equipped with 220 outdated but functional tanks. What commenced was a confusing seesaw battle for control of Smolensk that saw portions of the city change hands several times over the next week, while Rokossovsky's group held the back door open and harassed the advanced German panzer formations. Day by day, Rokossovsky's forces became stronger. As the Smolensk pocket deflated under German pressure Rokossovsky was able to press into service retreating soldiers and formations that slipped out of the pocket and employed them reinforcing the perimeter of the Yartsevo corridor. Eventually, the 38th Rifle Division was handed over to Rokossovsky when Timoshenko rationalized the command of the shrinking formations in the Smolensk pocket by disbanding
Ivan Konev's 19th Army. Even though "Group Yartsevo" had managed to halt the advance of Hoth's 3rd Panzer Group at Yartsevo, Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group continued to advance south of the Dnepr on Rokossovsky's left flank, becoming a more tangible threat with each passing day. On 18 July, Guderian's
10th Panzer Division entered the town of Yelnya 70 km south of Yartsevo and captured it on the 20th. Meanwhile, the defenders in the pocket increased their efforts to recapture Smolensk. Attacks were made from the south against the flank of Guderian's advanced forces at Yelnya and
Roslavl, and north of Yartsevo against Hoth's 2nd Panzer Group. Deep cavalry penetrations were made behind the German front behind Mogilev, disrupting logistics. Uncoordinated as the attacks were they had the effect of distracting the German advance for several days as intense battles took place increasing casualties on both sides. On the 24th Rokossovsky's temporarily drove Funk's 7th Panzer from Yartsevo. Unsupported by infantry the Wehrmacht advanced Panzer formations were taking inordinate casualties. To make further headway, both Hoth and Guderian needed to bring infantry forward to disentangle their mobile forces from their containment operations, and free them for attack, slowing the pace of advance. By 25 July, Guderian had been able to free his considerable tank forces from defensive duties, and mobilized the
17th Panzer Division for a concerted effort to advance north and clear Rokossovsky from his tenuous position, but the 17th Panzer was still unable to reach the Dnepr and finally close the pocket. Nonetheless, under attack from north and south Rokossovsky was unable to prevent Hoth's
20th Motorized Infantry from capturing bridgeheads over the Dnepr on the 27th, sealing the pocket. Despite strenuous efforts over the next week, Rokossovsky was not able to secure a link to the armies in the pocket, but the intense Soviet activity kept the Germans from consolidating their front, allowing elements of the encircled 16th army to effect a breakout. By 4 August the front had stabilized and the defending armies within the pocket ceased resistance or had ceased to exist. Rokossovsky is credited with slowing the German attack, and holding the Yartsevo corridor open for long enough to prevent the capture and destruction of a considerable numbers of Soviet troops. The broader consequences of Soviet resistance at Smolensk are evident in the Führer Directive No. 34, issued on 30 July 1941:
Battle of Moscow In September 1941 Stalin personally appointed Rokossovsky to the command of 16th Army. He was ordered to defend the approaches to
Moscow, and was now under the direct command of General Georgy Zhukov, his former subordinate. The 16th Army (later renamed the
11th Guards Army) played a key role in the
Battle of Moscow when it was deployed along the main axis of the German advance along the
Volokolamsk Highway that was a central junction of the bitter fighting during the German winter offensive of 1941 (
Operation Typhoon), as well as the subsequent Soviet counter-attack of 1941–42. On 18 November, during the last-ditch efforts of the
Wehrmacht to encircle Moscow in 1941, General Rokossovsky, his soldiers under heavy pressure from
Erich Hoepner's 4th Panzer Group, asked his immediate superior, Zhukov, if he could withdraw the 16th Army to more advantageous positions. Zhukov categorically refused. Rokossovsky went over Zhukov's head, and spoke directly to Marshal
Boris Shaposhnikov, now Chief of the General Staff in Zhukov's place; reviewing the situation Shaposhnikov immediately ordered a withdrawal. Zhukov reacted at once. He revoked the order of the superior officer, and ordered Rokossovsky to hold the position. In the immediate aftermath, Rokossovsky's army was pushed aside and the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups were able to gain strategically important positions north of Moscow, but this marked the high point of the German advance upon Moscow. Throughout Operation Typhoon, Rokossovsky's 16th army had taken the brunt of the German effort to capture Moscow.
1942: Operation Fall Blau In March 1942 Rokossovsky was badly injured by a piece of shrapnel. It was widely rumored that
Valentina Serova was a mistress of Rokossovsky during this time. While it is true that Serova, working as a hospital volunteer, met Rokossovsky several times while he was recovering from his wound, it is not acknowledged they were lovers. Evidence for their close relationship was found in the accounts of frontline soldiers. Rokossovsky also had another mistress at this time, Dr. Lt. Galina Talanova, with whom he had a daughter in 1945. After two months in a Moscow hospital Rokossovsky was reunited briefly with the 16th Army.
Retreat to the Don During 1942 the Wehrmacht commenced "
Fall Blau" and switched the axis of their offensive from Moscow and attacked southward into the eastern Ukraine towards the
Don–
Volga river line,
Rostov,
Voronezh,
Stalingrad and the
Caucasus beyond. There the Germans hoped to secure fresh supplies of oil to fuel their armies. Unlike the early days of 1941 the stiffening Soviet army maintained relatively good order in retreat, backing up along a defensive line along the Don river. On 13 July 1942 Rokossovsky was given his first operational level command, a sign of his growing stature. The battles of Smolensk and Moscow had by no measure resulted in Red Army victory, but the front-line formations under his command were central to frustrating the Wehrmacht efforts to achieve the same and this was most likely reflected in Stalin's decision to make him commander of the
Bryansk Front, where Stavka expected the main line of German attack to be renewed against Moscow in 1942—Rokossovsky was a trusted officer who could be counted on in a tight squeeze. As the German offensive turned south, and toward Voronezh, the Bryansk sector turned out to be so quiet that Stavka shuffled the 38th Army to
General Vatutin's
Voronezh Front, during the heated
Battle of Voronezh, where the Germans attempted to ford the Don River, and compromise the entire Soviet Don River defense. Rokossovsky recounts in his memoirs that during that summer Stalin phoned him personally to ask "whether I did not find the situation too dull for my liking" and was then recalled to Moscow to undertake command of a new operation: The plan was to concentrate a strong force (no less than three combined armies and several armoured corps) on the flank of the enemy occupying the country between the Don and the Volga with the purpose of counter-attacking south and south-east from the vicinity of Serafimovich. as part of Stalin's much criticized reorganization of the
Southern Front in preparation for the planned Soviet counterattack at Stalingrad: "Operation Uranus". This put Rokossovsky's armies directly opposite the
XI,
VIII and XIV Corps of the 6th Army, including the
16th Panzer and
14th Panzer divisions, all of which were destroyed in the ensuing battle. With German forces heavily engaged at Stalingrad and spread thinly due to their deep penetrations into the Caucasus, the Wehrmacht was increasingly reliant on their Romanian and Italian allies to cover the flanks of their extended line, on the north along the Don, and to the south along the Volga. "Operation Uranus" kicked off on 17 November with the intention of making a double envelopment of Paulus's men at Stalingrad by breaking through the flanks. The
Southwestern Front commanded by General
Vatutin quickly overwhelmed the
3rd Romanian Army just to the north of Rokossovsky's Don Front, while
Yeryomenko's
Stalingrad Front began their own attack just south of Stalingrad. Rokossovsky's Don Front played a largely subordinate role in the main attack, but the 65th Army supported Vatutin's attack from the north by outflanking the left extreme of the German line where it met the Romanian 3rd Army, while the 24th and 66th squeezed the German defenders—pinning them in place as the pincers of the main attacks rapidly enveloped them. In less than a week, in the face of deteriorating weather and blizzard conditions, the Soviet forces had sealed the gap behind Stalingrad, and had begun to reinforce their
investment around the city in order to prevent an attempted escape. No organized effort was made by the 6th Army to break out, and "
Operation Winter Storm", a mid-December German effort to relieve the encircled army, failed to break the Soviet defenses. Soon after, the Soviets launched "
Operation Little Saturn" and completely consolidated their position.
Stalingrad On 28 December Stalin gave Rokossovsky the task of mopping up the Stalingrad pocket. He had at his disposal roughly 212,000 men, 6,500 guns, 2,500 tanks, and 300 aircraft, to be used against an assortment of 200,000 defenders short on food, fuel, and ammunition, including Soviet "
Hiwis", Romanians and Germans; in one example, nearly half the 6th Army's
297th Infantry Division fighting force were Soviets, however its artillery detachment was rationed to one and a half shells a day. On 8 January 1943, Rokossovsky ordered a cease-fire and sent a delegation to offer terms of surrender but Paulus did not respond, and resistance continued for the better part of the month. On 10 January, the Don Front launched "
Operation Ring" to reduce the Stalingrad pocket beginning with a 55-minute barrage from 7000 rocket launchers, artillery and mortars. On 15 January Rokossovsky was promoted to the rank of colonel general. On 16 January the main airfield used to supply the beleaguered 6th Army fell, and then after a pause of a few days, the offensive was renewed capturing the last operational airfield and finally driving the German back into the city proper on 22 January. On that same day General Paulus asked Hitler for permission to surrender but was refused. On 26 January the Soviets had broken the surrounded Germans into two pockets, and on 31 January, the southern pocket collapsed and Paulus surrendered. Within four days the last significant group of defenders surrendered to Rokossovsky's command, finally ending the battle that marked the high-water mark of the German advance during the
Soviet–German war.
1943: Kursk After the victory at Stalingrad the Russian forces advanced to a position that created a bulge 150 km deep and 250 km wide into the German line, around the city of
Kursk. This subsequently became known as the Kursk Salient. Rokossovsky's command was moved to the north of the salient and was re-designated as a new front, which was twinned with the
Voronezh Front, holding the south approaches. In February 1943 Rokossovsky wrote in his diary: "I'm appointed commander of the
Central Front. It means that Stalin has entrusted me to play the key part in the summer Kursk campaign." Both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht prepared to make a decisive offensive in the summer of 1943 at Kursk. The Germans planned to drive two thrusts, one through each flank of the salient, and unite them at Kursk in order to cut off substantial Soviet forces, recover from the strategic loss at Stalingrad, and curtail further Russian advance. The Russians, alert to the coming attack, put their offensive plans aside and prepared for defense in depth with mass anti-tank units in prepared positions. In late June one German bomb load in a night raid hit Rokossovsky's HQ, and he escaped only because on a whim he had decided to set up his signals group in the officers' mess. After that, Central Front HQ went underground in a bunker in the garden of a former monastery. The German offensive, code named "
Operation Citadel", was originally scheduled to begin in May but the attack was delayed several times in order to bring up fresh Panzer formations equipped with
Tiger I's and
Panther tanks and their latest assault guns. These delays allowed for even greater Soviet preparation. It was not until early July that the Wehrmacht
operations in the Kursk salient got underway. The resulting battle was one of the largest tank battles in World War II, with massive losses of men and equipment on both sides. As the commander of the Central Front, Rokossovsky's force was faced with a determined attack by the
Army Group Center's
9th Army under
Walter Model, including several tank formations augmented with the newest Tiger I tanks in battalion strength. Rokossovsky for his part had organized his defenses into three defensive belts. After the initial German assault, Rokossovsky ordered counter-attacks but the Soviet armor suffered badly in the face of the new German heavy Tiger tanks, and he went back on the defensive. Despite this, the Germans were soon bogged down in the heavily mined terrain and antitank defenses, and Rokossovsky was able to reinforce. The Central Front was then renamed
1st Belorussian Front, which Rokossovsky commanded during the Soviet advance through
Byelorussia (
Belarus) and into Poland.
1944: Operation Bagration and the Warsaw Uprising During the planning of the major Soviet offensive,
Operation Bagration, in 1944, a famous incident occurred that various sources consistently report in slightly different versions. Rokossovsky disagreed with Stalin, who demanded in accordance with Soviet war practice a single break-through of the German frontline. Rokossovsky held firm in his argument for two points of break-through. Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to "go and think it over" three times, but every time he returned and gave the same answer "two break-throughs, comrade Stalin, two break-throughs". After the third time Stalin remained silent, but walked over to Rokossovsky and put a hand on his shoulder. A tense moment followed as the whole room waited for Stalin to rip the epaulette from Rokossovsky's shoulder; instead, Stalin said "Your confidence speaks for your sound judgement", and ordered the attack to go forward according to Rokossovsky's plan. The battle was successful and Rokossovsky's reputation was assured. After crushing German Army Group Centre in Belarus, Rokossovsky's armies reached the east bank of the
Vistula opposite Warsaw by mid-1944. For these victories he was advanced to the rank of
Marshal of the Soviet Union. Stalin once said: "I have no
Suvorov, but Rokossovsky is my
Bagration". and Rokossovsky with
Bernard Montgomery and other Allied officials at the
Brandenburg Gate, 12 July 1945. As Rokossovsky's approached the
Vistula, the
Warsaw Uprising (August–October 1944) broke out in the city, led by the Polish
Home Army (AK) on the orders of the
Polish government in exile in
London. Rokossovsky did not order reinforcement to the insurgents. There has been much speculation about Rokossovsky's personal views on this decision. He would always maintain that, with his communications badly stretched and enemy pressure against his northern flank mounting, committing forces to Warsaw would have been disastrous. In November 1944, Rokossovsky was transferred to the
2nd Belorussian Front, which advanced into
East Prussia and then across northern Poland to the mouth of the
Oder at
Stettin (now
Szczecin). On 3 May 1945 he linked up with British Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery's 2nd Army in
Wismar, Germany while the forces of Zhukov and
Ivan Konev captured
Berlin, ending the war. In July 1945, he, Zhukov and several other Soviet officers were awarded the
Order of the Bath in a ceremony at the
Brandenburg Gate, in Berlin. ==Post-war life==