Marshal Georgy Zhukov replaced Ivan Konev as commander of the Soviet Western Front.
Zhukov was one of the truly great generals of World War Two. His military career had started when he was conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army during World War One. A cavalryman in the Imperial Russian Army, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and became an officer later in the Red Army. Still in the cavalry branch between the wars, he was able to escape Stalin's purge as the members of his cavalry army were oddly protected during the purge.
A major figure during World War Two, he fell from grace after the war due to Stalin's distrust of any rivals of any sort. Following Stalin's death, however, he rose again and was part of the effort that lead to the trial and execution of Beria. His second rise lasted until 1957 when he was retired after having increasingly asserted the independence of the Red Army from the Communist state.
On the same day, Hitler issued a directive reorganizing the German forces in the Arctic. In the German Sixth Army, Walter von Reichenau issued the "Severity Order" against Jews, another instance of the German Army being fully complicit in the Holocaust.
Von Richenau, a cross country runner, experienced a stroke in 1941 while engaged in that activity. An airplane that subsequently was obtained to fly him to medical attention crashed en route and he died due to one of the two incidents.
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