Siege of Leningrad

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Siege of Leningrad
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Diorama of the Siege of Leningrad, in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow
Date 8 September 1941 – 27 January 1944 (871 days) Location Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Germany  Finland[1][2] Italy[3]	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
W.R. von Leeb Georg von Küchler C.G.E. Mannerheim[4][5]	Georgy Zhukov Kliment Voroshilov Leonid Govorov
Casualties and losses
unknown	Red Army:[6] 1,017,881 killed, captured or missing 2,418,185 wounded and sick Civilians:[6] 642,000 during the siege, 400,000 at evacuations

The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade (Russian: блокада Ленинграда, transliteration: blokada Leningrada) was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, lifting of the siege took place on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and one of the most costly in terms of casualties.^[7]

Background

The capture of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. The strategy was motivated by Leningrad's political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories.^[8] By 1939 the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output.^[9] It has been reported that Adolf Hitler was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had the invitations to the victory celebrations to be held in the city's Hotel Astoria already printed.^[10] The ultimate fate of the city was uncertain in German plans, which ranged from renaming the city to Adolfsburg^[11] and making it the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich in Generalplan Ost, to razing it to the ground and giving areas north of the River Neva to the Finns.^[12][13]

Preparations

German plans

Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad, its primary objective. Von Leeb's plan called for capturing the city on the move, but due to strong resistance from Soviet forces, and also Hitler's recall of 4th Panzer Group, he was forced to besiege the city after reaching the shores of Lake Ladoga, while trying to complete the encirclement and reaching the Finnish Army under Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim waiting at the Svir River, east of Leningrad.^[14]
Finnish military forces were located north of Leningrad, while German forces occupied territories to the south.^[15] Both German and Finnish forces had the goal of encircling Leningrad and maintaining the blockade perimeter, thus cutting off all communication with the city and preventing the defenders from receiving any food or supplies.^{[2][14][16][17][18][19]}

Leningrad fortified region

Antiaircraft guns guarding the sky of Leningrad, in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

On 27 June 1941, the Council of Deputies of the Leningrad administration organised "First response groups" of civilians. In the next days the entire civilian population of Leningrad was informed of the danger and over a million citizens were mobilised for the construction of fortifications. Several lines of defences were built along the perimeter of the city in order to repulse hostile forces approaching from north and south by means of civilian resistance.^[2][4]
In the south one of the fortified lines ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudovo, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo and then through the Neva River. Another line of defence passed through Peterhof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino and Koltushy. In the north the defensive line against the Finns, the Karelian Fortified Region, had been maintained in the northern suburbs of Leningrad since the 1930s, and was now returned to service. A total of 190 km (120 mi) of timber barricades, 635 km (395 mi) of wire entanglements, 700 km (430 mi) of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earth-and-timber emplacements and reinforced concrete weapon emplacements and 25,000 km (16,000 mi)^{[citation needed]} of open trenches were constructed or excavated by civilians. Even the guns from the cruiser Aurora were moved inland to the Pulkovo Heights to the south of Leningrad.

Establishment

The 4th Panzer Group from East Prussia took Pskov following a swift advance and reached the neighborhood of Luga and Novgorod, within operational reach of Leningrad, but it was stopped by fierce resistance south of the city. However, the 18th Army — despite some 350,000 men lagging behind — forced its way to Ostrov and Pskov after the Soviet troops of the Northwestern Front retreated towards Leningrad. On 10 July, both Ostrov and Pskov were captured and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where advance toward Leningrad continued from the Luga River line. This had the effect of creating siege positions from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, with the eventual aim of isolating Leningrad from all directions. The Finnish Army was then expected to advance along the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga.^[20]

Orders of battle

Map of Army Group North's advance into the USSR in 1941.
  Coral up to July 9.
  Pink up to September 1.
  Green up to December 5.

Germany

• Army Group North (Feldmarshal von Leeb)^[21]
  • 18th Army (von Küchler)
    • XXXXII Corps (2 infantry divisions)
    • XXVI Corps (3 infantry divisions)
  • 16th Army (Busch)
    • XXVIII Corps (2 inf, 1 armoured divisions)
    • I Corps (2 infantry divisions)
    • X Corps (3 infantry divisions)
    • II Corps (3 infantry divisions)
    • (L Corps — Under 9. Army) (2 infantry divisions)
  • 4th Panzer Group (Hoepner)
    • XXXVIII Corps (1 infantry division)
    • XXXXI Motorized Corps (Reinhard) (1 infantry, 1 motorised, 1 armoured divisions)
    • LVI Motorized Corps (von Manstein) (1 infantry, 1 motorised, 1 armoured, 1 panzergrenadier divisions)

Finland

• Finnish Defence Forces HQ (Finnish Marshal Mannerheim)^[22]
  • I Corps (2 infantry divisions)
  • II Corps (2 infantry divisions)
  • IV Corps (3 infantry divisions)

Soviet Union

• Northern Front (Lieutenant General Popov)^[23]
  • 7th Army (2 rifle, 1 militia divisions, 1 marine brigade, 3 motorised rifle and 1 armoured regiments)
  • 8th Army
    • X Rifle Corps (2 rifle divisions)
    • XI Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions)
    • Separate Units (3 rifle divisions)
  • 14th Army
    • XXXXII Rifle Corps (2 rifle divisions)
    • Separate Units (2 rifle divisions, 1 Fortified area, 1 motorised rifle regiment)
  • 23rd Army
    • XIX Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions)
    • Separate Units (2 rifle, 1 motorised divisions, 2 Fortified areas, 1 rifle regiment)
  • Luga Operation group
    • XXXXI Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions)
    • Separate Units (1 armoured brigade, 1 rifle regiment)
  • Kingisepp Operation Group
    • Separate Units (2 rifle, 2 militia, 1 armoured divisions, 1 Fortified area)
  • Separate Units (3 rifle divisions, 4 guard militia divisions, 3 Fortified areas, 1 rifle brigade)

Of these, the 14th Army defended Murmansk and 7th Army defended Ladoga Karelia; thus they did not participate in the initial stages of the siege. The 8th Army was initially part of the Northwestern Front and retreated through the Baltics. (The 8th army was transferred to Northern Front on July 14).
On August 23, the Northern front was divided into the Leningrad front and the Karelian front, as it became impossible for front headquarters to control everything between Murmansk and Leningrad.

Severing lines of communication

On 6 August, Hitler repeated his order: "Leningrad first, Donetsk Basin second, Moscow third."^[24] From August 1941 until January 1944, anything that happened between the Arctic Ocean and Lake Ilmen concerned the Wehrmacht's Leningrad siege operations.^[4] Arctic convoys using the Northern Sea Route delivered American Lend-Lease food and war materiel supplies to the Murmansk railhead (although the rail link to Leningrad was cut off by Finnish armies just north of the city), as well as several other locations in Lapland.^{[citation needed]}

Encirclement of Leningrad

Finnish intelligence was particularly helpful for Hitler, as the Finns had broken some of the Soviet military codes and were able to read their low-level communications.^[25] He constantly requested intelligence information about Leningrad.^[4] Finland's role in Operation Barbarossa was laid out in Hitler's Directive 21, "The mass of the Finnish army will have the task, in accordance with the advance made by the northern wing of the German armies, of tying up maximum Russian strength by attacking to the west, or on both sides, of Lake Ladoga".^[26] The last rail connection to Leningrad was severed on 30 August, when the Germans reached the Neva River. On 8 September, the last land connection to the besieged city was severed when the Germans reached Lake Ladoga at Orekhovets. Bombing on 8 September caused 178 fires.^[27] Hitler's directive on 7 October, signed by Alfred Jodl, was a reminder not to accept capitulation.^[28]

Finnish participation

Hitler with Finland's Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim and President Risto Ryti; meeting at Imatra in 1942

By August 1941, the Finns had advanced to within 20 km of the northern suburbs of Leningrad at the 1939 Finnish-Soviet border, threatening the city from the north; they were also advancing through East Karelia, east of Lake Ladoga, and threatening the city from the east. The Finnish forces crossed the pre-Winter War border on the Karelian Isthmus by eliminating Soviet salients at Beloostrov and Kirjasalo, thus straightening the frontline so that it ran along the old border near the shores of Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, and those positions closest to Leningrad still lying on the pre-Winter War border. According to Soviet claims the Finnish advance was stopped in September through resistance by the Karelian Fortified Region,^[29] however Finnish troops had already earlier in August 1941 received orders to halt the advance after reaching their goals, some of which lay beyond the pre-Winter War border. After reaching their respective goals, the Finns halted their advance and started moving troops to East Karelia.^[30][31] For the next three years, the Finns did little to contribute to the battle for Leningrad, maintaining their lines.^[32] Their headquarters rejected German pleas for aerial attacks against Leningrad^[33] and did not advance farther south from the Svir River in occupied East Karelia (160 kilometers northeast of Leningrad), which they had reached on 7 September. In the southeast, the Germans captured Tikhvin on 8 November, but failed to complete their encirclement of Leningrad by advancing further north to join with the Finns at the Svir River. On 9 December, a counter-attack of the Volkhov Front forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from their Tikhvin positions to the River Volkhov line.^[2][4]
On 6 September 1941, Germany's Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl visited Helsinki. His main goal was to persuade Mannerheim to continue the offensive. In 1941, President Ryti declared to the Finnish Parliament that the aim of the war was to restore the territories lost during the Winter War and gain more territories in the east to create a "Greater Finland".^[34][35][36] After the war, Ryti stated: "On August 24, 1941 I visited the headquarters of Marshal Mannerheim. The Germans aimed us at crossing the old border and continuing the offensive to Leningrad. I said that the capture of Leningrad was not our goal and that we should not 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 could not approach Leningrad from the north..." In fact the German and Finnish armies maintained the siege together until January 1944, but there was little, or no systematic shelling or bombing from the Finnish positions.^[15]
The proximity of the Finnish positions — 33–35 km (21–22 mi) from downtown Leningrad — and the threat of a Finnish attack complicated the defence of the city. At one point the defending Front Commander, Popov, could not release reserves opposing the Finnish forces to be deployed against the Wehrmacht because they were needed to bolster the 23rd Army's defences on the Karelian Isthmus.^[37] Mannerheim terminated the offensive on 31 August 1941, when the army had reached the 1939 border. Popov felt relieved, and redeployed two divisions to the German sector on September 5.^[38]
Subsequently, the Finnish forces reduced the salients of Beloostrov and Kirjasalo,^[39] which had threatened their positions at the sea coast and south of the River Vuoksi.^[39] Lieutenant General Paavo Talvela and Colonel Järvinen, the commander of the Finnish Coastal Brigade responsible for Ladoga, proposed to the German headquarters the blocking of Soviet convoys on Lake Ladoga. The German command formed the 'international' naval detachment under Finnish command and the Einsatzstab Fähre Ost under German command. These naval units operated against the supply route in the summer and autumn of 1942, the only period the units were able to operate as freezing waters then forced the lightly equipped units to be moved away, and changes in front lines made it impractical to reestablish these units later in the war.^{[15][25][40][41]}

Defensive operations

Two Soviet soldiers, one armed with a DP machine gun, in the trenches of the Leningrad Front on 1 September 1941.

The Leningrad Front (initially the Leningrad Military District) was commanded by Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. It included the 23rd Army in the northern sector between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, and the 48th Army in the western sector between the Gulf of Finland and the Slutsk–Mga position. The Leningrad Fortified Region, the Leningrad garrison, the Baltic Fleet forces, and Koporye, Southern and Slutsk–Kolpino operational groups were also present.

Defence of civilian evacuees

By September 1941, the link with the Volkhov Front (commanded by Kirill Meretskov) was severed and the defensive sectors were held by four armies: 23rd Army in the northern sector, 42nd Army on the western sector, 55th Army on the southern sector, and the 67th Army on the eastern sector. The 8th Army of the Volkhov Front had the responsibility of maintaining the logistic route to the city in coordination with the Ladoga Flotilla. Air cover for the city was provided by the Leningrad military district PVO Corps and Baltic Fleet naval aviation units.
The defensive operation to protect the 1,400,000 civilian evacuees was part of the Leningrad counter-siege operations under the command of Andrei Zhdanov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Aleksei Kuznetsov. Additional military operations were carried out in coordination with Baltic Fleet naval forces under the general command of Admiral Vladimir Tributs. The Ladoga Flotilla under the command of V. Baranovsky, S.V. Zemlyanichenko, P.A. Traynin, and B.V. Khoroshikhin also played a major military role in helping with evacuation of the civilians.

Bombardment

Nurses helping wounded people during a German bombardment on 10 September 1941.

By 8 September, German forces had largely surrounded the city, cutting off all supply routes to Leningrad and its suburbs. Unable to press home their offensive, and facing defences of the city organised by Marshal Zhukov, the Axis armies laid siege to the city for 872 days.
Artillery bombardment of Leningrad began in August 1941, increasing in intensity during 1942 with the arrival of new equipment. It was stepped up further during 1943, when several times as many shells and bombs were used as in the year before. Torpedoes were often used for night bombings by the Luftwaffe.^{[citation needed]} Against this, the Soviet Baltic Fleet Navy aviation made over 100,000 air missions to support their military operations during the siege.^[42] German shelling and bombing killed 5,723 and wounded 20,507 civilians in Leningrad during the siege.^[43]

Supplying the defenders

US propaganda film showing the Leningrad Road of Life during the siege of the city.

Supplies being unloaded from a barge on Lake Ladoga to a narrow-gauge train in 1942.

To sustain the defence of the city, it was vitally important for the Red Army to establish a route for bringing a constant flow of supplies into Leningrad. This route was effected over the southern part of Lake Ladoga, by means of watercraft during the warmer months and land vehicles driven over thick ice in winter. The security of the supply route was ensured by the Ladoga Flotilla, the Leningrad PVO Corps, and route security troops. The route would also be used to evacuate civilians from the besieged city. This was because no evacuation plan had been made available in the chaos of the first winter of the war, and the city literally starved in complete isolation until 20 November 1941, when the ice road over Lake Ladoga became operational.
This road was named the Road of Life (Russian: Дорога жизни). As a road it was very dangerous. There was the risk of vehicles becoming stuck in the snow or sinking through broken ice caused by the constant German bombardment. Because of the high winter death toll the route also became known as the "Road of Death". However, the lifeline did bring military and food supplies in and took civilians and wounded soldiers out, allowing the city to continue resisting the enemy.

Effect on the city

Main article: Effect of the Siege of Leningrad on the city

The two-and-a-half year siege caused the greatest destruction and the largest loss of life ever known in a modern city.^[15] On Hitler's express orders, most of the palaces of the Tsars, such as the Catherine Palace, Peterhof Palace, Ropsha, Strelna, Gatchina, and other historic landmarks located outside the city's defensive perimeter were looted and then destroyed, with many art collections transported to Nazi Germany.^[44] A number of factories, schools, hospitals and other civil infrastructure were destroyed by air raids and long range artillery bombardment.

The diary of Tanya Savicheva, a girl of 11, her notes about starvation and deaths of her grandmother, then uncle, then mother, then brother, the last record saying "Only Tanya is left." She died of progressive dystrophy shortly after the siege. Her diary was shown at the Nuremberg trials.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000^[45] soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment.^[1][2][4] Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery alone in Leningrad holds half a million civilian victims of the siege. Economic destruction and human losses in Leningrad on both sides exceeded those of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow, or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The siege of Leningrad is the most lethal siege in world history, and some historians speak of the siege operations in terms of genocide, as a "racially motivated starvation policy" that became an integral part of the unprecedented German war of extermination against populations of the Soviet Union generally.^[46][47]
Civilians in the city suffered from extreme starvation, especially in the winter of 1941–1942. For example, from November 1941 – February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 grams of bread, of which 50–60% consisted of sawdust and other inedible admixtures, and distributed through ration cards. For about two weeks at the beginning of January 1942, even this food was available only for workers and military personnel. In conditions of extreme temperatures (down to −30 °C) and city transport being out of service, even a distance of a few kilometers to a food distributing kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens. In January–February 1942, about 700–1,000^{[citation needed]} citizens died every day, most of them from hunger. People often died on the streets, and citizens soon became accustomed to the sight of death.
Reports of cannibalism appeared in the winter of 1941–1942, after all birds, rats and pets had been eaten by survivors.^[48] Hungry gangs attacked and ate defenceless people.^[49] Leningrad police even formed a special unit to combat cannibalism.^[50]
On 9 August 1942, the Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" by Dmitri Shostakovich was performed by the Radio orchestra of Leningrad.^[51] The score had passed the German lines by air one night in March 1942. The concert was broadcast on loudspeakers placed in all the city and also aimed towards the enemy lines. This date, initially chosen by Hitler to celebrate the taking of Leningrad, and a few days before the Sinyavino Offensive, can symbolise the reversal of the dynamics in favour of the Soviet army.

Soviet relief of the siege

Soviet ski troops by the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.

Sinyavino Offensive

The Sinyavino Offensive was a Soviet attempt to break the blockade of the city in early autumn 1942. The 2nd Shock and the 8th armies were to link up with the forces of the Leningrad Front. At the same time the German side was preparing an offensive, Operation Nordlicht (Northern Light), to capture the city, using the troops freed up after the capture of Sevastopol.^[52] Neither side was aware of the other's intentions until the battle started.
The Sinyavino offensive started on 27 August 1942, with some small-scale attacks by the Leningrad front on the 19th, pre-empting "Nordlicht" by a few weeks. The successful start of the operation forced the Germans to redirect troops from the planned "Nordlicht" to counterattack the Soviet armies. The counteroffensive saw the first deployment of the Tiger tank, though with limited success. After parts of the 2nd Shock Army were encircled and destroyed, the Soviet offensive was halted. However the German forces had to abandon their offensive on Leningrad as well.

Operation Iskra

The encirclement was broken in the wake of Operation Iskra — (English: Operation Spark) — a full-scale offensive conducted by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts. This offensive started in the morning of 12 January 1943. After fierce battles the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the south of Lake Ladoga, and on 18 January 1943 the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts met, opening a 10–12 km (6.2–7.5 mi)^{[verification needed]} wide land corridor, which could provide some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad.

Lifting the siege

The siege continued until 27 January 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. This was a combined effort by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts, along with the 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts. The Baltic Fleet provided 30% of aviation power for the final strike against the Wehrmacht.^[42] In the summer of 1944, the Finnish Defence Forces were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the Vuoksi River.