World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbasePyotr Mironovich Masherov was born Pyatro Mashera in a village in Vitsebsk region of Byelorussia. He was an educator who taught physics and mathematics at a local gymnasium when German troops invaded the Soviet Union in mid-1941. He became a resistance fighter and, between 1942 and 1944, he was a leader of an underground Soviet-aligned partisan group. In Aug 1944, about a month after Soviet troops re-conquered Byelorussia, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He entered politics after WW2 and held several high positions. In 1965, he became the First Secretary of the Byelorussian Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, thus making him the de facto leader of Byelorussia. In 1978, he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. He passed away during an automobile accident when his car collided with a truck carrying produce; some conspiracy theorists believed it to be an assassination conducted by the Soviet national security agency KGB.

Pyotr Masherov Timeline