Getman, Andrei Lavrentevich
Getman, Andrei Lavrent’evich
Born Sept. 22 (Oct. 5), 1903, in the village of Klepaly, in present-day Sumy Ob-last. Army general (1964), Hero of the Soviet Union (May 7, 1965). Joined the CPSU in 1927. Born into the family of a Ukrainian peasant. A worker.
In 1924, Getman volunteered for the Soviet Army. He graduated from military school in 1927 and from the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the RKKA (Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army) in 1937. In 1939 he took part in the battles on the Khalkhin-Gol River. During the Great Patriotic War he participated in battles on the Western, Northwestern, Voronezh, First Ukrainian, and First Byelo-russian fronts; he served as a tank division commander (October 1941 to April 1942), commander of the VI and later the XI Guards Tank Corps (April 1942 to August 1944), and deputy commander of a guards tank army (August 1944 to May 1945). After the war, he was commander of armored tank and mechanized troops of a military district and was chief of staff and deputy chief of armored tank and mechanized troops. From 1958 to 1964 he was commander of the troops of the Ciscarpathian Military District. Beginning in June 1964 he was chairman of the Central Committee of the All-Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force, and Navy. He was deputy to the fifth through seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1961. He was awarded four Orders of Lenin, six Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, the Order of Bodgan Khmel’nitskii Second Class, the Order of the Red Star, and several foreign orders; he has also received many medals.