Did Zhukov Commit Any War Crimes Or Generally Heinous Actions?

by JackfruitDeep7140

i saw someone said something him making tanks kill medics for no reason, something about killing returned prisoners and families of captured soldiers and something about a meat grinder?

idk if that stuff happened or if it's people on the internet exaggerating/ making stuff up

Georgy_K_Zhukov

Insofar as he was complicit in the wider actions of the Soviet military of the period, yes, but those were, for the most part, not directly done by him (although that also, I would add, isn't an excuse for a commander, who can be held responsible for actions of his troops even if he didn't order them). As to your specific examples though, I would note that most of those are not war crimes. They are heinous, but they are actions committed against ones own soldiers and population, so they are crimes of a different nature.

I've written on most of those previously so can link to relevant items:

  • This thread for Soviet treatment of returned POWs, which was often quite awful and ethically wrong, but not a war crime (and also not done at the direction of Zhukov although he obviously helped facilitate it).

  • For the so-called 'meat grinder', again, pointlessly wasting your own men in frontal assaults is not a war crime. Bad generalship, but not a war crime. In any case, the insinuations of Soviet tactics amounting to 'meat grinders' is often inaccurate, and Zhukov was not one of the notable offenders in cases where is does have some relevance. If anything he is generally considered important in the revitalization of Soviet tactical and strategic complexity. That isn't to say it was never an accusation thrown at him, which I've discussed here.

  • Intentional targeting of medics generally is a war crime, but I know of no specific policy to 'target medics by running them over with tanks'. Not to be crass, but that seems more trouble than just... shooting them. Which was done extensively by both sides on the Eastern Front and is briefly touched on in this thread, and something which the Soviet command structure absolutely can be said to be complicit in abiding, even without any specific order.

  • Although not mentioned, I would also note a similar broad complicity in the campaign of rape committed by Soviet forces in Axis territory, which I've touched on here.