Gekker, Anatolii Ilich

Born Aug. 25 (Sept. 6), 1888; died July 1, 1938. Soviet military commander and corps commander (1935). Member of the Communist Party from September 1917.

Gekker was born in Tbilisi into the family of an army doctor. He graduated from the Vladimir Military School in 1909 and from courses at the Academy of the General Staff in 1917. Gekker fought in World War I as a cavalry captain. In September 1917 he became chairman of the soldiers’ committee of the 33rd Corps, and in November 1917 he was elected chief of staff of the same corps. In December 1917, Gekker became chief of staff of the Eighth Army and a member of the army revolutionary committee, and in January 1918 he became commander of the Eighth Army. Gekker was commander of the Donets Basin troops from March to April 1918, and in April 1918 he became chief of staff to the supreme commander in chief of the armed forces of the Union of the Southern Republics. From May to July 1918 he was commissar of the White Sea Military District. In July 1918 he took part in the suppression of the Yaroslav counterrevolutionary revolt, and later he commanded the Vologda Rear Region and the troops of the Kotlas Region and the Severnaia Dvina. In December 1918 he became commander of the Astrakhan Fortified Region. From February to April 1919 he was commander of the 13th Rifle Division, and from May 1919 to May 1921 he was commander of the Thirteenth and Eleventh armies. In 1922, Gekker was deputy chief and chief of the Military Academy of the RKKA (Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army), then military attaché in China, and from 1929 to 1933 military attaché in Turkey. In 1934 he was appointed chief of a department at the General Staff of the RKKA. Gekker was awarded Orders of the Red Banner of the RSFSR, the Armenian SSR, and the Azerbaijan SSR.