Ivan Stepanovich Koniev (or Konev) (Russian: Иван Степанович Конев) (28 December 1897 – 21 May 1973), was a Soviet military commander, who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during World War II, including the Battle of Kursk. His forces liberated much of Eastern Europe from occupation by the Axis Powers, and helped in the capture of Germany's capital, Berlin (although it was his long time rival, Georgy Zhukov, who was given the honor of capturing the city by Joseph Stalin).
After the war, he was head of the military forces occupying East Germany, as well as Allied High Commission for Austria. However, in 1950, he was demoted to Commander of the Carpathian Military District, a move that was part of Stalin's policy of relegating popular wartime commanders to obscure posts so they would not become threats to his position. Upon Stalin's death in 1953, Koniev regained favor with the Soviet government. He aligned himself with Nikita Khrushchev, and was given the task of overseeing the trial of Lavrenty Beria, the head of the NKVD. In 1956 he was named Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact. Shortly after his appointment he led the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution.
Ivan Koniev's (28 December 1897- 19 May 1945) First Ukrainian Front was not allowed the same spoils as Georgy Zhukov in the taking of Berlin. He was still quite bitter about this, just days after Berlin fell, when he was killed by a German Freedom Front "Werewolf", who blew up Koniev's car with a panzerfaust.[1]
Ivan Koniev (1897-1944) was appointed the military governor of Lithuania after the country was annexed by the Soviet Union in the closing days of the Second World War in 1944. Koniev was assassinated by a pair of Lithuanian nationalists (one armed with a submachine gun, the other with a bomb) as he traveled by car from his residence to his office in Kaunas, Lithuania's capital. While the Lithuanian government-in-exile applauded the act, the Soviet Union responded by declaring martial law and launching harsh reprisals.[3]
Literary comment[]
Koniev's death appears to be based on the OTL assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
Marshall Ivan Koniev was one of Soviet leaderLeon Trotsky's senior military advisers at the Basra Conference in October 1943. At the banquet held at the successful completion of the conference, the participants drank heavily and gave toasts. Koniev toasted "Death to the Hitlerites" to general approval.[4]
Koniev was the supreme Sovietmilitary commander on the Eastern Front in Europe and successfully prosecuted the war. He halted the German advance, then drove them back out of the Soviet Union, through eastern and central Europe and into their homeland. After Adolf Hitler committed suicide, remaining German forces surrendered to the Soviets and Marshall Koniev signed the surrender papers in Berlin on behalf of Trotsky.[5]
Ivan Koniev (1897 - c. 1937) was one of several Red Army generals who were purged by Joseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938. In 1947, years after German forces had driven deeply into the Soviet Union's territory, guerrilla leader Fedor Tolbukhin reflected on those purges, and realized they had virtually assured his country's defeat.[6]
*=denotes a character who was a POV for a single scene
1=denotes a character who was a POV for one volume
2=denotes a character who was a POV for two volumes
3=denotes a character who was a POV for three volumes
4=denotes a character who was a POV for four volumes
5=denotes a character who was a POV for five volumes
6=denotes a character who was a POV for six volumes
† denotes a deceased character.