- Leon Trotsky
"' (– August 21 1940), born Leon Davidovich Bronstein"', was a Ukrainian-born Jewish Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was an influential politician in the early days of the Soviet Union, first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army and People's Commissar of War. He was also among the first members of the Politburo.
- Zhu De
Zhu De began to read about Marxism and Leninism in Shanghai. In the mid-1920s, he went to Europe, studying at Göttingen University in Germany from 1922 to 1925 at which point he was expelled from the country by the government for his role in a number of student protests. Around this time, he joined the Communist Party. Zhou Enlai was one of his sponsors. In July 1925, he traveled to the Soviet Union to study military affairs.
- Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, GCB (June 18, 1974) was a Soviet military commander who, in the course of World War II, led the Red Army to liberate the Soviet Union from the Axis Powers' occupation, to advance through much of Eastern Europe, and to conquer Germany's capital, Berlin.
- John Erickson
John Erickson (1929- 2002) was a British historian who wrote extensively on the Second World War, with books on Operation Barbarossa and the Battle of Stalingrad. He was Professor Emeritus and Honorary Fellow in Defence Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His wife, Ljubica Erickson, spent many years with her husband researching Russian military affairs, in particular the Soviet Army and the Soviet-German war.
- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a popular figure as an Afghan Mujahideen or rebel commanders. He is a former Prime Minister of Afghanistan, labelled as a warlord by many. He is currently wanted by the United States for taking part in the insurgncy in Afghanistan against the new government of President Hamid Karzai. Hekmatyar speaks several languages, including English. It is reported that he has two wives and many children and grand-children.
- Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (June 12, 1937), was a Soviet military commander, chief of the Red Army (1925-1928), was one of the most prominent victims of Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s.
- Viktor Suvorov
Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun (born April 20, 1947), better known by the pen name Viktor Suvorov is a Russian writer and historian. He served in the Soviet Army and worked in Soviet military intelligence (GRU). He deserted and escaped to the United Kingdom in 1978 where he worked as an intelligence analyst and lecturer. He made his name writing books about Russian History, the Soviet Army, GRU, and Spetsnaz.
- Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shāh Mas'ūd (c. September 2, 1953-September 9, 2001) ("variant transliterations include Ahmed, Masood, etc.") was an ethnic Tajik and a Kabul University engineering student turned military leader who played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan, earning him the nickname "Lion of Panjshir". His supporters call him "Amer Sahib e Shaheed", translating to our "Martyred Commander".
- Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was a prominent Soviet politician, who served as Minister of Defense (1953-55) and Prime Minister (1955-58). Bulganin was born in Nizhny Novgorod, the son of an office worker. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917, and in 1918 he was recruited into the Cheka, the Bolshevik regime's political police, where he served until 1922. After the Russian Civil War he became an industrial manager, working in the electricity administration until 1927, …
- Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels, (November 11, 1901 - May 1, 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. As Berlin was being overrun by the Red Army at the end of World War II, she killed their six children and then committed suicide. (Her oldest child by another marriage was not present at this event; he was a Luftwaffe pilot who survived the war.)
- Ivan Konev
Ivan Stepanovich Konev, was a Soviet military commander, who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during World War II, liberated much of Eastern Europe from occupation by the Axis Powers, and helped in the capture of Germany's capital, Berlin. Later, as the Commander of Warsaw Pact forces, Konev led the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 by Soviet armed divisions.
- Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. He briefly became leader of the Soviet Union (from March to September 1953) after Stalin's death and was Premier of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1955. Named as candidate for the Politburo, Malenkov joined in 1946. Although Malenkov fell out of favour in place of his rivals Andrei Zhdanov and Lavrentiy Beria, he soon came back into Stalin's favour, …
- Ernst Busch
Ernst Busch (6 July, 1885 - 17 July, 1945) was a German field marshal during World War II.
- Ernst Busch
Ernst Busch (22 January, 1900 - 8 June, 1980) was a singer and actor. He was born in Kiel, Germany, and died in Berlin. Busch first rose to prominence as an interpreter of political songs, particularly those of Kurt Tucholsky, in the Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s. He starred in the original 1928 production of Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera", as well as the subsequent 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
- Semyon Timoshenko
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko (Russian: Семён Константинович Тимошенко, "Semën Konstantinovič Timošenko"; - March 31, 1970) was a Soviet military commander and senior professional officer of the Red Army at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
- Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian dictator and the leader of Hungary from 1945 to 1956 through his post as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party. Rákosi was born in Ada, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Serbia). The sixth son of a Jewish grocer, he later repudiated religion. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War and was captured on the Eastern Front.
- Vasily Chuikov
Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was a lieutenant general in the Soviet Red Army during World War II, two times Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), who after the war became a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Born into a peasant family, he joined the Red Army during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and later attended the Frunze Military Academy. Chuikov served in the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in 1939 and in the Russo-Finnish War of 1940.
- Yevgeny Khaldei
Yevgeny Khaldei (October 6, 1997) was a world renowned Red Army photographer, best known for his World War II photograph of a Russian soldier placing the Soviet Union's Red flag atop the Reichstag building in Berlin, signifying the fall of Germany. Celebrated as the image is, it was a reconstruction of a moment that had happened earlier but had been missed by the camera (the first persons in the Reichstag were not on the picture).
- Nie Rongzhen
Nie Rongzhen (December 29, 1899 - May 14, 1992) was a Chinese Communist military leader. Nie was born in Jiangjin county in Sichuan, near Chongqing, the cosmopolitan and well-educated son of a wealthy family. In 1920 Nie joined the group of Chinese students in France on a work-study program, where he studied engineering and became a protégé of Zhou Enlai. Zhou recruited him in 1921 when Nie was performing technical-scientific studies in Belgium, …
- Sergei Bondarchuk
Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk (Russian: Серге́й Фё́дорович Бондарчу́к; Ukrainian: Сергі́й Фе́дорович Бондарчу́к September 25, 1920 - October 20, 1994) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, and actor. Born in Bilozerka, near Kherson city, Sergei Bondarchuk spent his childhood in the cities of Yeisk and Taganrog, graduated from the "Taganrog School Num.4" in 1938.
- Helmuth Weidling
Helmuth Weidling (November 2 1891 - November 17 1955) was a German Army general and the last German commander of the Berlin Defense Area during the Battle of Berlin. Weidling attempted to foil the final assault by Soviet forces on the city of Berlin just before the end of World War II in Europe. During Weidling's military career he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (see also Knight's Cross).
- Aleksandr Vasilevsky
Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky (September 30 1895 - December 5 1977) was a Soviet military commander, promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943. He was the Soviet Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Minister of Defense during World War II, as well as Minister of Defense from 1949 to 1953. As the Chief of the General Staff, Vasilevsky was responsible for the planning and coordination of almost all decisive Soviet offensives, …
- Heinz Linge
Heinz Linge was a valet at German dictator Adolf Hitler's headquarters. Linge was born in Bremen. He worked as a valet at Wolfsschanze in Rastenburg and at Hitler's bunker in Berlin in the last days of the Führer's life, and was Hitler's personal ordinance officer. Linge delivered messages to Hitler and escorted people for whom Hitler had sent. He was one of many soldiers, servants, secretaries and officers who moved into the Reich Chancellery bunker in 1945.
- Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson was a United States broadcaster. He was the head anchor at CBS Radio News in New York City for over twenty-five years beginning during the Second World War, reading the 6:00 PM national evening news (then the network's main news program) and anchoring coverage of many of the major news headlines of the day. He anchored CBS News's coverage of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, of the joining of US and Soviet forces in April of 1945, …
- Konrad Wolf
Konrad Wolf was an East German film director, son of Friedrich Wolf, brother of Markus Wolf. He and his family left Germany for Moscow when the Nazis took power in 1933, where Wolf came into intense contact with Soviet film. At age 10, he played a minor role in the film "Kämpfer", filmed among the German Communist emigrants in Moscow. At age 17 he joined the Red Army and he was among the first troops to reach Berlin in 1945.
- Lev Kopelev
Lev Zalmanovich Kopelev, German spelling Lew Kopelew: April 9, 1912 – June 18, 1997) was a Soviet Russian author and a dissident. Kopelev was born in Kiev, Ukraine, to a middle-class Jewish family. In 1926, his family moved to Kharkov. While a student at Kharkov State University in the philosophy faculty, Kopelev began writing in the Russian and Ukrainian languages; some of his articles were published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
- Ingrid Rimland
Ingrid Rimland is a German American and the wife of Ernst Zündel. Born in Ukraine to a Mennonite family descended from nineteenth century German settlers, her family left the Soviet Union in 1943 following the retreating German Army as it was beaten back by the Red Army during World War II. Her family did not remain in Germany, however, and settled in Paraguay where she later married and had children.
- Georg von Küchler
Georg Karl Friedrich Wilhelm von Küchler was a German field marshal during World War II. Born in Philippsruhe castle near Hanau, von Küchler led the German Eighteenth Army in 1940 in the invasion of neutral Netherlands, was able to defeat the Dutch army and continued on into Belgium. Küchler's army defeated the Belgians, took Antwerp and then moved into France. The 18th Army ended this phase of the war at Pas de Calais encircling Dunkirk.
- Rochus Misch
Rochus Jordan Misch was an Oberscharführer in the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler who worked as a courier, bodyguard and telephone operator for Adolf Hitler from 1940 to 1945. Misch was born in Oppeln in the Province of Silesia. As a junior member of Hitler's permanent staff, Misch traveled with Hitler from bunker to bunker throughout the Second World War. On January 16, 1945, following German defeat in the Battle of the Bulge, …
- Otto Günsche
Otto Günsche was a Sturmbannführer in the SS and Adolf Hitler's personal adjutant. Günsche was born in Jena in Thuringia. He was present (and a survivor) at the 20 July 1944 attempt to kill Hitler. As the end of the Third Reich became imminent, Hitler asked Günsche to ensure that his body would be burnt after his death. Having done so, Günsche left the Führerbunker a few hours later, on 30 April, 1945.
- Nikolai Ivanov
Nikolai Judovich Ivanov was a Russian commander and counter-revolutionary.
- Joe Slovo
Joe Slovo (May 23 1926 - January 6 1995) was a South African Communist politician and long time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and leading member of the African National Congress. He was born in Obeliai, Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South Africa when he was eight. His full name was Yossel Mashel Slovo. His father worked as a truck driver in Johannesburg. Slovo left school in 1941 and found work as a dispatch clerk.
- Noe Zhordania
Noe Zhordania (also transliterated as Jordania was a Georgian journalist and Menshevik politician. He played an eminent role in the Social Democratic revolutionary movement in Imperial Russia, and later chaired the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from July 24 1918 until March 18 1921, when the Soviet Russian Red Army invasion of Georgia forced him into exile to France where he led the government-in-exile until his death in 1953.
- Boris Shaposhnikov
Boris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov (March 26 1945), Soviet military commander, was born at Zlatoust, near Chelyabinsk in the Urals. He joined the army of the Russian Empire in 1901 and graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1910, reaching the rank of colonel in the Caucasus Grenadiers division during World War I. In 1917, unusually for an officer of his rank, he supported the Russian Revolution and in 1918 joined the Red Army.
- Andrei Yeremenko
Andrei Ivanovich Yeremenko (October 14, 1892 - November 19, 1970) Soviet general during World War II, Marshal of the Soviet Union, born in Markovka in the province of Kharkov in Ukraine to a peasant family. Drafted into the Imperial Army in 1913, served on the Southwest and Romanian Fronts during World War I. Joined the Red Army in 1918, where he served in the legendary “Budyonny Cavalry”. Attended the Leningrad Cavalry School and then the Frunze Military Academy, …
- Xu Xiangqian
Xu Xiangqian (November 8, 1901 - September 21, 1990) was a prominent Communist military leader in the People's Republic of China. He was born in Wutai county, Shanxi province, China. Xu was admitted to the Whampoa Academy in 1924. He held various officer ranks in the National Revolutionary Army between 1925 and 1927. Xu joined the Communist Party of China in 1927 and later became a commander in the 4th Front Army of the Red Army, led by Zhang Guotao.
- Leonid Govorov
Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov, Soviet military commander, was born in the village of Butyrki in central Russia (now in Kirov Oblast). His father was a sailor. He attended a technical high school in Yelabuga and enrolled in the ship-building department of Petrograd Polytechnical Institute. In December 1916, however, he transferred to the Konstantinovskye Artillery School and in 1917 became an artillery officer.
- Kirill Meretskov
Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov was a Soviet military commander. He was born in the Ryazan province, southeast of Moscow. His parents were peasants and lived in a rural village. He volunteered for the Imperial Army in June 1916, where he worked as a mechanic. Meretskov joined the Bolsheviks in August 1917, and became chief of staff of a Red Guard (later Red Army) division. During the Russian Civil War, he attended a military academy, …
- Arnold Meri
Arnold Meri (b. 1919) is an Estonian veteran of the Great Patriotic War and a Hero of the Soviet Union. He is the cousin of former President of Estonia, Lennart Meri. Meri voluntarily joined the Red Army in 1940. He was wounded in battle while serving as a platoon commander in north-west Russia in 1941.
- Ernst Neizvestny
Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny is a famous Russian sculptor of the second half of the 20th century. Ironically, his surname (often taken for a pseudonym) translates to "unknown" or "not famous" in English. He currently lives and works in New York City. His parents, Jews, were purged in the 1930s. At the age of 17, Neizvestny joined the Red Army as a volunteer. At the close of World War II, he was heavily wounded and sustained a clinical death.