Katukov enlisted in 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, his first major command came as acting commanding officer of the
5th Light Tank Brigade of the
45th Mechanized Corps. He survived the purges.
Second World War At 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. On November 11, 1941, Order No. 337 of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR was issued, which, in particular, stated: "The 4th Tank Brigade, with brave and skillful combat actions from 04.10.1941 to 11.10.1941, despite the significant numerical superiority of the enemy, inflicted heavy losses on him and fulfilled the tasks assigned to the brigade to cover the concentration of our troops… As a result of the fierce battles of the brigade with the 3rd and 4th tank divisions and the enemy's motorized division, the fascists lost 133 tanks, 49 guns, 8 aircraft, 15 tractors with ammunition, up to an infantry regiment, 6 mortars, and other weapons. The losses of the 4th Tank Brigade are calculated in several units." Although a later study of captured German documents showed that the number of German tank losses was significantly overstated in this order, and the losses in the tanks of the 4th Brigade as a result of the seven-day battles were generally comparable to the German ones, but the fact that the German offensive was suspended by smaller forces in the direction of the main strike was of great importance. For these exploits, the 4th Tank Brigade was the first in the Red Army to receive the honorary title of "Guards", the Guards banner and the new military formation became known as the 1st Guards Tank Brigade. Within its ranks from September 1941 fought the most productive Soviet and allied tank ace
Dmitry Lavrinenko. Later, during
Operation Mars in December 1942, Katukov's command managed a deep penetration into the German lines in
Rzhev. 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
Proskurov-Chernovtsy Operation,
Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive, the
Vistula–Oder Offensive, and the
Battle of Berlin. Mikhail Katukov was awarded the title of the
Hero of the Soviet Union twice (23 September 1944 and 6 April 1945).
Post-War 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. ==In popular culture==