Max Reyter

Max Andreyevich Reyter
Born	24 April 1886(1886-04-24) Vindava, Courland Governorate Russian Empire (now Ventspils, Latvia)
Died	6 April 1950(1950-04-06) (aged 63) Moscow, Russian SFSR Soviet Union
Allegiance	Russian Empire (1906-1917) Soviet Russia (1919-1922) Soviet Union (1922-1950)
Service/branch	Imperial Russian Army Red Army / Soviet Army
Years of service	1906 - 1917 1919 - 1950
Rank	Colonel-general
Commands held	20th Army (1942) Bryansk / Reserve Front (1942-1943) South Ural Military District (1943-1945)
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War World War II
Awards	Order of Lenin Order of Suvorov, 1st class Order of the Red Banner (4x) and other awards

Max Andreyevich Reyter (Russian: Макс Андреевич Рейтер, Latvian: Maksis Reiters; 24 April 1886 [O.S. 12 April] - 6 April 1950) ^{[a 1]} was an Imperial Russian and Soviet military officer of Latvian origin.

A lieutenant-general in the Red Army at the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Reyter was a commander of the 20th Army and the commander-in-chief for the Bryansk Front in 1942 - 1943. Promoted to colonel-general in 1943, he headed the South Ural Military District September 1943 to July 1945.

Biography

Born to peasant Latvian parents in Vindava, Courland Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ventspils, Latvia) in 1886, Max Reyter joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1906. He graduated from the Irkutsk Military School in 1910 and served as an infantry officer in World War I.

A colonel in the Russian Army at the time of its collapse before the advancing German Army in 1917-1918, Reyter was captured by Germans at the front and taken to a German prisoner-of-war camp in East Prussia in February 1918. He sided with the Bolsheviks after returning to Russia, and joined the Red Army in 1919. A regiment commander in the Russian Civil War, he took part in the suppression of the 1921 Kronstadt Uprising and joined the Bolshevik Party in 1922.

Reyter joined the Red Army's General Staff after graduating from the Frunze Military Academy in 1935. He served as head of the Red Army Training Directorate from 1936 to 1939.

Awarded the rank of lieutenant-general in June 1941, Reyter was deputy commander for the rear of the Central and Bryansk Fronts from August to December 1941, assistant to the commander of the Western Front from February to March 1942, and commander of the 20th Army of the Western Front from March to September 1942.

Reyter served as commander of the Bryansk Front from September 1942 until 5 June 1943 (temporarily re-designated the Reserve Front on 12-23 March 1943), and was promoted from lieutenant-general to colonel-general in 1943. He was the deputy commander of the Voronezh Front from August to September 1943, and the commanding officer of the South Ural Military District from September 1943 to July 1945.

He headed the Vystrel Soviet Army officers' training course from 1946 to January 1950.

He died in Moscow in 1950.

Notes

1. ^ Alternative transliterations found in English-language sources include Reiter and Reuter.

External links

• Max Reyter in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Russian)