(7 of 9)
Driving through birch woods, through forests of fir, bridging huge rivers, crossing the deep, black-soil plains of the Ukraine, filtrating through the great marshlands, fighting, always fighting, in winter blizzard or in blistering summer heat, the Red army recaptured half a million square miles of territory in two years, and liberated Soviet Russia. New names had come up beside Zhukov's: Konev, Rokossovsky, Vatutin, Tolbukhin, Malinovsky, Chuikov, Govorov, Voronov and others, almost all men less than 40 years of age. One name that did not make the headlines was that of Secret Police Commissar Serov, who came close in the wake of Zhukov's victories. His assignment : to liquidate all anti-Soviet elements.
Hot Time in Berlin. The last great push to Berlin cost the Red army a million casualties. Zhukov arrived, tough and imperturbable, fully conscious of his great feat, but also plainly glad that the war was over. In Berlin, Zhukov met General Eisenhower. Wrote Ike in Crusade in Europe: "I thought Marshal Zhukov an affable and soldierly-appearing individual . . . There was discernible only an intense desire to be friendly and cooperative." Zhukov won the respect of almost all the Allied generals, but between himself and Eisenhower there was genuine affection. "That friendship was a personal and an individual thing," wrote Ike, who went with Zhukov to a football game at Moscow's Dynamo Stadium, and put his arm around Zhukov's shoulder as they took the wild cheers of 100,000 Russians. The two used to argue the relative merits of capitalism and Communism, and Ike never heard from Zhukov a despairing word about Communism. But of course they usually talked through a Russian interpreter.
Later, in Berlin as an occupation High Commissioner, Zhukov relaxed. He danced a Cossack dance for French General de Lattre de Tassigny, ate all the salted peanuts he could lay his hands on, amused himself with Reichsmarshal Goring's private zoo, had a pretty German cottage dismantled and shipped back to Moscow. He went riding every morning, ice skating when there was ice, and was proud of his fitness. Years before, New York Herald Tribune Correspondent Walter Kerr, explaining how difficult it was to learn anything about Zhukov's personal life, had said that the only time he had come close to Zhukov was when a little boy in a Moscow street had pointed to a house and told him that Zhukov lived there with his two sons and a wife "taller than he is." In Berlin, Zhukov (5 ft. 6 in.) took Eisenhower aside one day, presented his wife, stood beside her to show that he was the taller. "Now you see what kind of lies some of your writers publish about us," he said angrily. "Also, we have no sons. We have two daughters."
On official occasions he came out in full marshal's regalia: robin's-egg-blue trousers with yellow stripes, dark green tunic and bright red sash. Underneath the blouse, he wore a brass plate to carry the weight of his vast collection of decorations. A horrified British officer noted that Britain's cherished Order of the Bath was hanging just about where the marshal's navel would be. The only medals Zhukov seemed genuinely proud of were the three gold stars of his thrice-awarded Hero of the Soviet Union.