Vladimir Aleksandrovich Molodtsov

Born June 5 (18), 1911, in Sasovo, now in Riazan’ Oblast; died 1942 in Odessa. A partisan. Hero of the Soviet Union (Nov. 5, 1944, posthumously). Member of the CPSU from 1931. Son of a worker.

Molodtsov graduated in 1934 from the workers’ school (rabfak) of the Moscow Industrial Economics Institute, He began to work in state security agencies in 1934. He was on a special mission in Odessa during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45). Between October 1941 and February 1942, a group headed by Molodtsov, operating in the Odessa catacombs, killed more than 300 soldiers and officers of the German-Rumanian forces and derailed two military trains. In February 1942, Molodtsov was arrested and shot by the occupation forces. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.