In World War II, the Soviet general Pavlov ended in a lamentable end, he was one of the most senior Red Army generals who died in the Soviet-German war, but he did not die on the battlefield, but fell under the guns of his own people.
Looking at Pavlov's resume before the war, it can be described as a "rocket-like jump". After graduating from the Frunze Military Academy, he rose from cavalry regimental commander, mechanized regimental commander, and tank brigade commander to minister of the armored tank department, and participated in the Spanish Civil War and the Soviet-Finnish War. In 1941, at the age of 44, Pavlov was promoted to general and served as commander of important military districts at the same time as Zhukov, who was one year older than Zhukov, who was in the Kiev Special Military District and Pavlov in the Western Special Military District.
On June 21, 1941, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, Pavlov, commander of the Soviet Western Front, was watching a comedy at an officers' club in Minsk, and while he was enjoying it, the staff officer rushed to report that the Germans had provoked on the border! Pavlov was impatient: the news was so boring that Pravda had just published "Against rappers and idlers" yesterday. Tell the front line to exercise restraint and not to give the Germans an excuse to provoke war! ”
At 3:00 a.m. on June 22, the Germans began shelling the Brest Fortress, and for a time all the guns were fired in unison, and it was dark. Pavlov was blinded and completely panicked, and the paralyzed general still did not see through the strategic intentions of the German army. While ordering the fort to be held, he went to a group army headquarters to "understand the situation" and completely gave up the overall command of the front army.
The German armored aircraft group did not tangle with the Soviets head-on at all, but advanced from the north and south flanks to the depth and high speed. Pavlov was stunned by the rapid advance of the Germans, and the "tank warfare expert" thus sent the entire Western Front into the "pocket" of the German army' gradually tightening.
On 30 June, when he heard on the German radio that the Western Front had been annihilated, Stalin was furious that he could not accept a powerful front of hundreds of thousands of troops in any case. Stalin relieved Pavlov of his military powers and had Zhukov inform him to return to Moscow immediately for examination.
After returning, pavlov, with a look of grievance, kept complaining to Timoshenko, trying to justify his dereliction of duty. Listening to Pavlov's incessant chatter about how many german divisions and how many tank divisions he had attacked, and how many divisions he had in Brest, Timoshenko interrupted impatiently: I don't want to talk to you about arithmetic, forget it, it's all over!
Soon, the arrest warrant for the High Command arrived. On July 22, a Soviet military tribunal handed down a verdict in which Pavlov and four other generals were sentenced to capital punishment – shooting. At trial, the four did not make further arguments, but hoped that they would be sent to the front line in any capacity to kill the enemy atonement, but they did not agree.
After stalin saw the lengthy verdict, he crossed out the "nonsense" of the "participants in the anti-Soviet conspiracy" with a pen and ordered the verdict to be distributed to all commanders at or above the regimental level. The steel leader wanted his generals to know that he was not soft on punishing those who were greedy and afraid of death.
After agreeing to the immediate execution of Pavlov and four others, Stalin thoughtfully said that he had been promoted too quickly