World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseRaqymzhan Qoshqarbayev was born in Taytobe village, Akmola region, Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (now Kazakhstan) in 1924. His mother passed away in 1928 and his father was placed in a gulag shortly after, thus he grew up largely in an orphanage. He joined the Soviet Army in 1942. In Oct 1944, he graduated from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, Russia and was commissioned a lieutenant. In 1944, he saw combat in Poland and Germany. On 30 Apr 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, he led a reconnaissance platoon of the 1st Rifle Battalion of the 674th Regiment that became one of the first Soviet units to reach the top of the Reichstag building, where the famous flag raising took place. After the war, he remained in the military and served in the occupation forces in Germany. Between 1947 and 1967, he worked with immigration offices of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Starting in 1967, he became the manager of the Alma-Ata Hotel in the Kazakh capital city of Almaty. He passed away in Aug 1988. He was posthumously made Hero of Kazakhstan (Khalyk Kaharmany), although without the Gold Star, unlike other fellow WW2 veterans, possibly due to his family's bourgeois background.