Lev Mikhailovich Galler

Born Nov. 17 (29), 1883, in St. Petersburg; died July 12, 1950. Soviet military commander, admiral (1940). Joined the CPSU in 1932. Son of a military engineer.

Galler graduated from the Naval Cadet School in 1905 and from an officers’ artillery class in 1912. In World War I he was flagship artilleryman of a battleship brigade of the Baltic Fleet and a senior officer of the battleship Slava (captain second class). During the October Revolution, while commander of a destroyer, he went over to the side of Soviet power and participated in the Arctic Campaign of the Baltic Fleet of 1918. In the Civil War he was commander of a destroyer and a cruiser and was chief of staff of a detachment of active ships in the Baltic Sea. In 1919, while commander of the battleship Andrei Pervozvannyi, he participated in operations against the troops of Iudenich and the British interventionists. In 1921 he was chief of a mine division and then chief of staff of the Baltic Fleet. Galler graduated from the Naval Academy’s advanced training school for officers in 1926, and in 1927 he became commander of a battleship brigade of the Baltic Fleet. He was commander of the Baltic Fleet from 1932 to 1937. In 1937, Galler was appointed deputy chief of the naval forces of the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, in 1938 chief of the Main Naval Staff, and in 1940 deputy people’s commissar of the navy for shipbuilding and armament. From 1947 to 1948 Galler was chief of the A. N. Krylov Naval Academy of Shipbuilding and Armament. He was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, two orders of Ushakov First Class, the Order of the Red Star, and medals.