Siege of Leningrad

The Siege of Leningrad (Russian: блокада Ленинграда) was the German siege of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The German plan was coded as Operation Nordlicht (Operation North Light). The siege lasted from September 8, 1941, until it was lifted on January 18, 1944.

Fortifications and 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 defense against the Finns was built in the northern suburbs of Leningrad. In all, 190 km of timber blockages, 635 km of wire entanglements, 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 Soviet Republics, 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 Lake Ladoga. The last rail connection to Leningrad was severed on August 30, when Germans reached the Neva River. The shelling of Leningrad began on September 4. On September 8, the last land connection to the besieged city was severed when the Germans reached Lake Ladoga at Orekhovets. Bombing on September 8 caused 178 fires. In 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 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. In the event, however, the Finnish forces halted at the 1939 border. The Finnish headquarters rejected German pleas for aerial attacks against Leningrad and did not advance further south from the River Svir in the occupied East Karelia which they reached at September 7, 160 kilometers north-east of Leningrad. In the south, Germans captured Tikhvin on November 8, but failed to advance further north and connect with Finns at the River Svir. A Soviet counterattack forced Germans to retreat from Tikhvin on December 9 all the way to the River Volkhov.

On September 4, Jodl came to persuade Mannerheim to continue the Finnish offensive and it is said that Mannerheim refused. After the war the 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 of 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: manual workers had 600 grams of bread daily; state employees, 400; and children and dependants (other civilians), 300. A huge amount of grain, flour and sugar was wiped out on September 8, due to a lack of air defences. For several days after the siege began, 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, 1941, it was calculated that the provisions both for army and civilians would last as follows:

grain and flour	35 days
groats and macaroni	30 days
meat (also livestock)	for 33 days
fats	45 days
sugar and confectionery	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, all public transportation services became unavailable (in the spring of 1942, some tramway lines were reactivated, but trolleys and buses were inoperable until the end of the war). Use of power was forbidden everywhere, except at the General Staff headquarters, Smolny, district committees, air defense bases, and in some other institutions. By the end of September, oil and coal supplies had come to an end. The only energy option left was to fell trees. On October 8 the executive committee of Leningrad (Ленгорисполком) and regional executive committee (облисполком) decided to start cutting timber 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, only 1% of the timber cutting plan had been executed.

The Road of Life

By September 8, the Germans had largely surrounded the city, blocking off all supply routes to Leningrad and its suburbs except for a single corridor across Lake Ladoga. Unable or unwilling to press home their advantage, and facing a hasty but brilliant defence of the city organised by Marshal Zhukov, the German armies laid siege to the city for 880 days. 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 lake Ladoga was established. The carnage in the city from shelling and starvation (especially in the first winter) was appalling. 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. This ice road, named the Road of Life (Дорога жизни in Russian), could only be used during the winter, and during the rest of the year ships were used. However, the lifeline did bring food in, and civilians out, and allowed the city to continue to resist.

Soviet counter-offensive

The siege continued until January 1944. The encirclement was broken as a result of Operation Spark — a full-scale offensive of troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts. This offensive 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 still-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.

Aftermath

The War

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 German victory was all but inevitable.

Leningrad

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. As of 2000 there were still empty lots in St. Petersburg suburbs where buildings stood before the siege.

Leningrad was awarded the title of Hero City in 1945.

Cultural influence

The siege impressed itself on the psyche of Leningrad's inhabitants for at least one generation after the war. Leningrad had always prided itself on being a cultural city, and the choice of whether to burn a library (or 200-year old furniture) or freeze to death was a stark one. The conditions in the city were appalling and starvation was constantly with the besieged. On the other hand, the city did resist for nearly 3 years, and the pride of the city is unmistakable: "Troy fell, Rome fell, Leningrad did not fall."

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. 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).

Dmitry Shostakovich wrote the Seventh Symphony, some of which was written under siege conditions, the Leningrad Symphony. According to Solomon Volkov, whose testimony is disputed, Shostakovich 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.

Russian tour guides at Peterhof near present-day St. Petersburg report that it is still dangerous to go for a stroll in the palace gardens during a thunderstorm – shrapnel embedded in the trees from the German artillery attracts lightning.

Auteur film director Andrey Tarkovsky included multiple scenes and references to the Siege of Leningrad in his semi-autobiographical film The Mirror.

British author Helen Dunmore wrote an award-winning novel, The Siege, on the Siege of Leningrad. Although fictitious, it traces key events in this siege, and shows how it had affected those who weren't directly involved in the resistance.

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.

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