Karl Parts VR I/1, VR II/2, VR II/3 (15 July 1886 in Palupera Commune,

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

– 1 September 1941 in Kirov,

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

) was an Estonian military commander during the

Estonian War of Independence The Estonian War of Independence ( et, Vabadussõda, literally "Freedom War"), also known as the Estonian Liberation War, was a defensive campaign of the Estonian Army and its allies, most notably the United Kingdom, against the Bolshevik westw ...

. In 1915, he graduated from Peterhof Military School, and participated in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In July 1917, Parts joined the Estonian national units. During the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

in 1918, he organized the underground

Estonian Defence League The Estonian Defence League ( et, Eesti Kaitseliit) is the name of the unified paramilitary armed forces of the Republic of Estonia. The Defence League is a paramilitary defence organization whose aim is to guarantee the preservation of the indep ...

. In the Estonian Liberation War, Karl Parts led and organized the

armoured train An armoured train is a railway train protected with armour. Armoured trains usually include railway wagons armed with artillery, machine guns and autocannons. Some also had slits used to fire small arms from the inside of the train, a facili ...

s, and in April 1919, became the commander of the Armoured Trains Division. He commanded in the biggest armoured conflict of war that resulted in the capture of Pskov. After the war, Parts served as commander of the Armoured Trains Brigade from 1921–1923, and later as inspector. He actively participated in defeating the 1924 coup attempt. In 1925, he retired and became a farmer. In 1940, Soviet occupation authorities arrested Parts, and he was shot in imprisonment the year after.

References

Ülo Kaevats Ülo Kaevats (29 September 1947 – 30 January 2015) was an Estonian statesman, academic and philosopher. In 1972, he graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry of the University of Tartu with a qualification from a physicist and a rese ...

et al. 2000. ''Eesti Entsüklopeedia 14''. Tallinn: Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus, {{DEFAULTSORT:Parts, Karl 1886 births 1941 deaths People from Elva Parish People from Kreis Dorpat Members of the Estonian Provincial Assembly Military personnel of the Russian Empire Russian military personnel of World War I Estonian military personnel of the Estonian War of Independence Recipients of the Cross of Liberty (Estonia) Estonian people executed by the Soviet Union People who died in the Gulag

See also

References