World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseDmitry Mikhaylovich Karbyshev was born into a well known Kryashen Tatar family in Omsk, Russia in Central Asia in 1880. His father passed away when he was 12 years old. He graduated from the Siberian Cadet Corps (now Omsk Cadet Corps) in 1898. In 1900, he graduated from the Sankt-Peterburg Nikolaev Military Engineering College, and was posted to the 1st East Siberian Sapper Battalion stationed in northeastern China and far eastern Russia. He married Alisa Karlovna Troyanovich, who would pass away in 1913. He married military nurse Lidiya Vasilyevna Opatskaya in 1916; they would have three children, daughter Yelena in 1918, daughter Tatiana in 1926, and son Aleksey in 1929. Karbyshev saw action during the Russo-Japanese War and WW1. In Dec 1917, as an officer at the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Tsarist military, he joined the Red Guard. In the following year, he was officially made an officer in the Bolshevik Red Army. He oversaw the construction of several fortifications during the Russian Civil War. In 1920, he served as the chief engineer of the Soviet 5th Army. In the early 1920s, he directed the engineering efforts during the actions against the White Movement. Between 1923 and 1926, Karbyshev was the Chairman of the Engineering Committee of the Main Military Engineering Administration of the Red Army. In 1926, he served as an instructor at the Mikhail V. Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, Russia. In 1929, he was appointed to design the Stalin Line in western Russia. In Feb 1934, he was made the chief of the Department of Military Engineering Science of General Staff Academy. In 1938, he was made a full professor of the academy. During the 1939-1940 Winter War against Finland, he provided advice during a number of assaults on the Mannerheim Line. In 1940, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in the Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile, with the Soviet borders changing after the annexation of the Baltic States, he was appointed to design the Molotov line. In 1941, he was awarded a doctorate degree in military science. He was on an inspection of the Western Special Military District when Germany turned on the Soviet Union. He suffered concussion from a blast, which caused him to drift in and out of consciousness. In Aug 1941, while unconscious, he was captured in eastern Byellorussia. He was held at a number of German camps during the war, including Hammelburg, Flossenbürg, Majdanek, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Mauthausen. At Mauthausen Concentration Camp in occupied Austria, after nightfall on 17 Feb 1945, he was doused with cold water and was left in the cold along with 500 others who suffered similar treatment. He passed away from hypothermia some time in the early hours of 18 Feb 1945. Karbyshev was awarded a posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union on 16 Aug 1946.

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