About Anatoli Gekker
Lived 1888 – 1937 (aged 48). Anatoli Gekker was a Russian military personnel.
Anatoly Ilyich Gekker (; – 1 July 1937) was a Soviet military commander (Komkor) involved in the Russian Civil War.
Gekker was born into a family of a military doctor in Tiflis (Tbilisi), in the Georgia Governorate of the Russian Empire. He was of German ethnicity. Having graduated from Vladimir Military School in St Petersburg (1909), he briefly attended the General Staff Academy in 1917. He served as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I.
In September 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party. He joined the Red Army in 1918. He held commanding posts on various fronts of the Russian Civil War. From April 1919 until February 1920 he commanded the 13th Red Army. From March to August 1920, he served as a Chief of Staff of Interior Forces of the Russian SFSR. From September 1920 to May 1921, he commanded the 11th Soviet Red Army which established Bolshevik rule in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.
As early as 1922, he was military adviser to the Bolshevik government in Mongolia, and in 1924 he was made political commissar on the Chinese Eastern Railway, then a Soviet military attaché to China. He was made a Soviet military attaché to Turkey in 1929. In 1933, he was transferred to the General Staff of the Red Army and promoted to Comcor in 1935.
He was executed during the Great Purge in 1937 and rehabilitated (posthumously exonerated) in 1956.
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Important facts
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Anatoli Gekker's
Frequently asked questions
Who was Anatoli Gekker?
Soviet general (1888-1937)
When was Anatoli Gekker born?
Anatoli Gekker was born on 25 August 1888 in Tbilisi.
When did Anatoli Gekker die?
Anatoli Gekker died on 1 July 1937 in Kommunarka shooting ground.
What was Anatoli Gekker's occupation?
Anatoli Gekker was a military personnel.
What nationality was Anatoli Gekker?
Anatoli Gekker was Russian.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Anatoli Gekker. https://biography.guide/anatoli-gekker/
MLA: "Anatoli Gekker." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/anatoli-gekker/.
Chicago: "Anatoli Gekker." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/anatoli-gekker/.
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