Siege of Leningrad
Categories: Sieges | Soviet-German War | Saint Petersburg | Conflicts in 1941
| Siege of Leningrad | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Conflict: World War II | |||
| Date: September 8, 1941 - January 18, 1944 | |||
| Place: Leningrad, USSR | |||
| Outcome: Soviet victory | |||
| Combatants | |||
| Axis | Soviet Union | ||
| Commanders | |||
| Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb Georg von Kuechler | Kliment Voroshilov Georgy Zhukov | ||
| Strength | |||
| 725,000 | 930,000 | ||
| Casualties | |||
| unknown | 16,470 from bombings and estimated 1 million from starvation | ||
| |||
The Siege of Leningrad (Russian: блокада Ленинграда), during World War II, lasted from September 8, 1941, to January 18, 1944.
Contents |
German offensive
On June 27, 1941 the Council of deputies of the working people of Leningrad decided to mobilize thousands of people for the construction of fortifications. Several defences were built. One of the fortifications ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudovo, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo and then through the Neva River. The other defence passed through Petergof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino and Koltushy. Another defence against the Finns was built in the northern suburbs of Leningrad. In all 190 km of timber blockages, 635 km of wire entaglements, 700 km of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earth-and-timber emplacements and ferro-concrete weapon emplacements and 25,000 km of open trenches were built by civilians. Even the gun of the cruiser "Aurora" was mounted on the Pulkovskiye Heights to the south of Leningrad. However, when Soviet troops of the North-Western Front in the end of June were defeated in the Baltic States, the Wehrmacht had forced its way to Ostrov and Pskov. On July 10 both cities were captured and the Germans reached Kunda and Kingisepp whereupon they advanced to Leningrad from Narva, the Luzhski region and from the south-east and also to the north and south of the Lake Ilmen in order to isolate Leningrad from the east and to join the Finns at the eastern bank of the Lake Ladoga. The shelling of Leningrad began on September 4. Bombing on September 8 caused 178 fires. Early October the Germans refused to assault the city and Hitler's directive on October 7, signed by Alfred Jodl was a reminder not to accept a capitulation.
Finnish offensive
By August, the Finns had reconquered the Karelian Isthmus, threatening Leningrad from the West, and were advancing through Karelia east of Lake Ladoga, threatening Leningrad from the North. The Finnish forces stopped somehow at the 1939's border. The Finnish headquarters rejected however German pleas for aerial attacks against Leningrad and did not advance further south from the River Svir in the occupied East Karelia. German progress was rapid and by September the Wehrmacht had invested Leningrad. In the North, Finnish forces continued their advance until reaching Svir in December, 160 kilometers north-east of Leningrad.
On September 4, Jodl came to persuade Mannerheim to continue the Finnish offensive and it is said that Mannerheim refused. After the war a former Finnish president Ryti said: "On August 24, 1941 I visited the headquarters of Marshal Mannerheim. The Germans aimed us at crossing the old border and at continuation the offensive to Leningrad. I said that the capture of Leningrad wasn't our goal and that we shouldn't take part in it. Mannerheim and the military minister Walden agreed with me and refused the offers of the Germans. The result was a paradoxical situation: the Germans were not able to approach Leningrad from the north..." Later it was asserted that there was no systematic shelling or bombing out of the Finnish territory.
Supplies
Food
On September 2 rations were reduced: the workers had 600 grams of bread daily, employees - 400, children and dependants - 300. A huge amount of grain, flour and sugar was wiped out on September 8 due to a lack of measures on air defence. During several days after the siege was set, however, it was possible to eat in some "commercial" restaurants which used up to 12% of all fats and up to 10% of all meat the city consumed. On September 12, 1942 it was calculated that the provisions both for army and civils were as follows:
- grain and flour - for 35 days;
- groats and macaroni - for 30 days;
- meat (also livestock) - for 33 days;
- fats - for 45 days;
- sugar and confectionery - for 60 days.
When 2,000 t of mutton guts had been found in the port, a disgusting galantine was made of them. Later the meat was replaced by that galantine and by stinking calf skins. During the siege there were in total five food reductions: on September 2, September 10, October 1, November 13 and November 20. Starvation-level food rationing was eased by new vegetable gardens that covered most open ground in the city by 1943.
Power and energy
Due to a lack of power supplies many factories were closed down and in November there was no tramway service anymore. Using of power was forbidden anywhere except at the General Staff, Smolny, district committees, air defence bases and in some other institutions. To the end of September oil and coal supplies had came to the end. The only option left was to fell the surviving trees. On October 8 the executive committee of Leningrad (Ленгорисполком) and regional executive committee (облисполком) decided to start timber cutting in the Pargolovo district and also the Vsevolzhskiy district in the north of the city. However there were neither instruments nor hostels for groups formed from girls and teens. By October 24, onle 1% of the timber cutting plan was executed.
The Road of Life
In the chaos of the first winter of the war, no evacuation plan was available or executed and the city and its suburbs quite literally starved in complete isolation until November 20, 1941 when an ice road over the Ladoga, the so-called Road of Life was established. One of Nikolai I. Vavilov's assistants starved to death surrounded by edible seeds so that the seed bank (with more than 200 000 items) would be available to future generations.
Unable or unwilling to press home their advantage, and with a hasty but brilliant defence of the city organised by Marshall Zhukov, the German armies laid siege to the city for 900 days. They largely surrounded the city, blocking off all supply routes to Leningrad and its suburbs except for a single corridor on Lake Ladoga named the Road of Life (Дорога жизни in Russian). The carnage in the city from shelling and starvation (especially in the first winter) was appalling.
Soviet counter-offensive
The siege continued until Operation "Spark" — a full-scale offensive of troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts — started in the morning of January 12, 1943. After fierce battles, the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the South of the Ladoga Lake, and on January 18, 1943 the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts met, opening a land corridor to the besieged city. In January 1944, a Soviet offensive drove off the besieging Germans from the southern outskirts of the city, ending the siege. Later, in the summer of 1944, the Finns were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the river Vuoksi.
The bravery of the city's defenders was an important symbol of the Soviet will to resist - in the first few weeks of the war the British had been so disheartened by the collapse of the Soviet armies, they thought a Nazi victory was all but inevitable.
The warnings to citizens of the city as to which side of the road to walk on to avoid the German shelling can still be seen (they've been restored after the war).
The ultimate number of casualties during the siege is disputed. After the war, The Soviet government reported about 670,000 deaths from 1941 to January 1944, mostly from starvation and exposure. Some independent estimates give a much higher death toll of anywhere from 700,000 to 1.5 million, with most estimates around 1.1 million. Most of these victims were buried on the Piskarevskoye Cemetery.
Leningrad became the first Soviet city to be awarded the title of Hero City.
Cultural influence
As a sad postscript, Stalin had the leaders of the city executed on various pretexts after the war — they had, through their bravery and courageous defence, earned the respect of the citizens, which the dictator resented and feared, and became too independent in their actions. For example, in 1944 several streets of Leningrad were renamed back to their historic names, including "Prospect of 25th of October", which reverted back to its previous name, Nevsky Prospekt.
The Siege of Leningrad was commemorated in late 1950s by the Green Belt of Glory, a circle of trees and memorials along the historic frontline.
Dmitry Shostakovich wrote the Seventh Leningrad Symphony and said "it's not about Leningrad under siege, it's about the Leningrad that Stalin destroyed and that Hitler nearly finished off". In 2003, the U.S. author Elise Blackwell published "Hunger", an acclaimed historical dramatization of events surrounding the siege.
American singer Billy Joel wrote a song called "Leningrad" that referenced the famous siege. The song is partially about a young Russian boy, Viktor, who lost his father in the siege.
See also
Bibliography
- Harrison Evans Salisbury. "The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad", 2nd ed., New York: Da Capo, 2003, ISBN 0306812983
- Leon Goure. "The Siege of Leningrad", Stanford, 1962.cs:Obležení Leningradu
de:Leningrader Blockade id:Pengepungan Leningrad it:Assedio di Leningrado lt:Leningrado blokada pl:Blokada Leningradu ru:Блокада Ленинграда fi:Leningradin piiritys sv:Belägringen av Leningrad