During the Second World War, due to the needs of the war, many outstanding command generals emerged in the world's major participating countries, but if we want to talk about quality and quantity, it is germany and the Soviet Union that have produced the most famous generals and the best quality; the reason is that these two countries fought the most fiercely, especially the Soviet Union, because before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union basically had no senior and experienced veterans, and most of the famous generals grew up during the war with Germany.
This can be seen in the "Winter War" between the Soviet Union and Finland, in which the Soviet Union, with its absolute superiority, barely forced Finland to concede defeat after paying several times the price of Finland; so that even though the Soviet Union established the "Eastern Front" before the war to gain a great depth of superiority, it was still quickly defeated by the German army, and the three major places of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad were fiercely attacked by the German army. It was in this extremely unfavorable situation that countless patriotic and outstanding generals emerged in the Soviet Union.
And the famous general to be talked about here may be even more "evil" than Zhukov, because his starting point is far less than Zhukov's, and because of personal opportunities, he participated in small battles of a small scale, so he was only a division commander before the outbreak of the Soviet-German war; and Zhukov had already made a name for himself in the Far East and participated in the Soviet-Finnish War, and before the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, he had been promoted to general and served as the commander of the Kiev Special Military District, and later promoted to the post of chief of the general staff.
More critically, the famous general also had a kidney removed for nephritis in his early years, which had a great impact on the body and psychology, especially not to overwork and the need for frequent medication to stabilize. But he was a well-deserved military genius, and with his outstanding achievements and outstanding military talents, he became a figure that made the German army very jealous, he was Mikhail Yefimovich Katukov, yes, marshal Katukov, who was very good in character and ability.
Katukov's fate was very tragic, he fell ill at the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, but he was also a cruel man, just after surgery, high fever of 40 degrees, immediately returned to the barracks to lead the troops to participate in many defensive battles. Before the Battle of Moscow, the Soviet Union and Germany engaged in a fierce tank battle in the direction of Olovsk-Mzenszynsk, with 1,200 combat vehicles each, including Katukov's 4th Tank Brigade, but he had only 45 old training tanks on hand, and his opponent was Gudri's armored group.
It was in this extremely unfavorable situation that he thought of a clever trick, he ordered the soldiers to dig up fake bunkers day and night, build a large number of fake tanks out of wooden planks and camouflage, while the real tank positions were deployed at a distance of 4,000 meters; after the formal engagement between the two sides, he used each soldier carefully, and ordered each tank to have three or four firing points, and to change places after a few shots, so that the Soviet army appeared very strong. As a result, the 4th Tank Brigade destroyed 133 German tanks and shot down 2 aircraft, while itself suffered zero losses and only a few minor wounds.
After the Battle of Moscow, Katukov became famous, and after the Battle of Moscow, the tank unit he led was awarded the title of "Guard"; after that, Katukov began to rise to the top of the ladder, first to the commander of the 1st Tank Army, after the Battle of Kursk as the commander of the mechanized 3rd Army, and soon after to the commander of the 1st Tank Army. In many subsequent battles, Katukov made great contributions, which became a very headache for the German armored forces, because his purpose was very simple, that is, to destroy German tanks, so the losses of the German armored units were very large every time.
During the Soviet counteroffensive, Katukov's troops were renamed the 1st Guards Tank Army, and Katukov was indeed mighty, having set a legendary record of advancing more than 600 kilometers in battle in 18 days and breaking through seven lines of defense. For Katukov, the most dangerous thing was the Battle of Berlin, when the German army fought desperately and caused huge losses to Katukov who rushed to the front due to terrain and other problems.
Although Katukov's troops were the first to storm the Reichstag, Katukov wrote in his own handwriting on the walls of the building: "Russian tanks in Berlin." "Victory declaration, but for victory, his Guards Tank 1st Army paid the price of killing and wounding 5 brigade commanders and 22 battalion commanders. I don't know whether Zhukov had a conflict with him or what was going on, but every time he fought a war, he was the first to think of Katukov, and later when he asked for credit, he always forgot about him, and finally even Stalin could not look at it and severely criticized Zhukov.
In fact, his achievements and merits have long been enough to promote the standard of marshal, but it was not until 1959 that he was awarded the rank of marshal of the tank army; in fact, many people think that his ability is above the tank commander Rott mistrov, but because of Zhukov, many of his achievements have not been reported, which is a pity. But Katukov never hated Zhukov, and Zhukov did not lament that Katukov was a good man until after he left his post, and asked Katukov's wife to express greetings to Katukov, who only said after knowing this: "If you knew today, why did you do it in the first place?" ”