BBC ON THIS DAY | 27 | 1944: Leningrad siege ends after 900 days Search ON THIS DAY by date About This Site | Text Only 1944: Leningrad siege ends after 900 days The Soviet Army has lifted the blockade of Leningrad that has been besieged since German forces cut the land link to the city on 8 July 1941. Soviet soldiers broke through the German line of defence at key points and recaptured hundreds of towns and villages in the region, according to a Russian communique issued by General Leonid Govorov, commander of the Leningrad front. It is believed that hundreds of thousands of Leningrad's population of 2.5 million have died of starvation, exposure, disease or enemy action since 1 September 1941. The German army reached Leningrad soon after invading Russia on 22 June 1941 but stopped short of taking Russia's second city after facing fierce resistance and decided instead on a blockade. We were all issued with arctic clothing, fur-lined coats, sea boots and so on, and a list of instructions on how to avoid frostbite.

People's War memories » All land communication was cut off and the city subjected to air and artillery bombardment. The harshest winter in decades added to the suffering of Leningrad's starving inhabitants but this was partially eased when Lake Ladoga froze, opening a truck route to bring in food and fuel over the ice. All able-bodied citizens did their bit to defend the city by working in munitions factories, digging defences and serving in the front line. Now, one year after General Govorov managed to open a corridor into the besieged city, the blockade has been totally lifted. "A task of historical importance has been completed," said General Govorov. "The city of Leningrad has been completely freed of the enemy blockade and of the barbaric artillery shelling." He thanked the troops of the Leningrad front and the sailors of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and praised the citizens of the city for their "heroic work and steel-like steadiness" in enduring the siege that lasted 872 days. A salute of 24 salvos from 324 guns was fired in Leningrad to mark the occasion.

The Red Army is advancing further south-west from Leningrad and has taken back the important towns of Krasnogvardeisk, Volosovo and Tosno, according to the Russian High Command. It said its troops disabled or destroyed 82 German tanks and shot down 16 enemy aircraft yesterday. But in the fight to recapture the town of Pushkin, some 17th and 18th century buildings of the Imperial Summer Palace were seriously damaged. History of St. Petersburg during World War II St. Petersburg (Leningrad) during the Great Patriotic War and the Siege St. Petersburg (Leningrad) during the Great Patriotic War and the Siege (1941-1945) In the early hours of 22 June 1941, Hitler's Germany attacked Stalin's Soviet Union. World War II had come to Russia. For Leningrad, the war meant blockade. Less than three months after the invasion, German Army Group North reached the outskirts of the city, in which some 3,000,000 people remained.

Ultimate plans for the former imperial capital and cradle of the Bolshevik Revolution were to "wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions." But first, the city had to surrender. Bronze Horseman camouflaged from German aircraft during the Siege of Leningrad On 8 September, the Germans severed the last main road into the city and the most lethal siege in the history of the world began. For 872 days the blockade stretched on, during which the Germans sat entrenched, encircling the city only miles from the historic centre. They tossed bombs in its direction, prevented supplies from reaching the starving civilian population, and waited for capitulation. Hitler had optimistically predicted the city would "drop like a leaf," and menus were printed for the gala victory celebration that was planned at Leningrad's plush Astoria Hotel. Instead, civilians dropped like flies in an enclosed microcosm with virtually no food, no heat, no supplies, and no escape route. People keeled over dead in the streets by the thousands, malnourished, exhausted, and frozen. The Blockade of Leningrad resulted in the worst famine ever in a developed nation - over a million people died. But Leningrad never surrendered.

Aerostats on Nevsky Prospekt, Leningrad by Anatoliy Garanin Perhaps most astounding was that amidst the hunger and the horror, with daily rations amounting to two thin slices of poor quality bread, great works of art were created. Dmitry Shostakovich spent the initial months of the siege trapped in the city of his birth, where he composed the first three movements of his searingly intense Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony, which he privately remarked was a protest not just against German fascism but also about Russia and all tyranny and totalitarianism. The symphony's most memorable performance occurred on 9 August 1942 in besieged Leningrad. As bombs fell nearby, a depleted, weakened, starving orchestra played to a packed concert hall of weakened, starving people. The performance was aired across the city via loudspeakers, some of which were directed toward German lines as an act of cultural resistance to atrocity. A street after a German artillery raid during the Siege of Leningrad by Vsevolod Tarasevich Olga Bergholz became the voice of the Siege of Leningrad.

By the time Olga found herself trapped within the besieged city, she had accumulated a typical Soviet biography: her former husband had been arrested on false charges and was subsequently executed during the Great Purge. Olga herself was imprisoned when pregnant in 1938; the child was "kicked out of her belly" by NKVD interrogators, but Olga survived and was released in July 1939. Now some two years later, amid shelling and starvation, she worked throughout the blockade at the only radio station still in operation. In her calm, reassuring voice she read her poems and those of other poets, and provided updates on bombings, fires, and news from the front. Most importantly, she gave her fellow Leningraders something to hold on to, something resembling hope: To have survived this blockade's fetters, Death daily hovering above, What strength we have needed, neighbour, What hate we've needed - and what love! So much so that moods of doubt Have shaken the strongest will: "Can I endure it? Can I bear it?" You'll bear it. You'll last out. You will. Defenders of Leningrad.

Workers of the Kirov Factory and young sailors on a bridge by Boris Kudoyarov Anti-aircraft battery firing from the Strelka on Vasilevskiy Island by Boris Kudoyarov A battle in the outskirts. Soviet machine-gunners firing at the enemy near the old Detskoe Selo train station near Leningrad by Boris Kudoyarov Exultant Leningrad. Sign on the wall says: Citizens! This part of the street is most dangerous during the artillery barrage Olga's husband, three aunts, and grandmother starved to death, but in her refusal to abandon hope, Bergholz stood for resistance to suffering and fear and she became a symbol of the city's strength and determination. Survivors said her familiar voice transmitted daily over the radio waves served as proof that the city had not surrendered and helped to keep them alive. The Leningrad Blockade was lifted on 27 January 1944, but the war raged on for over a year, as Soviet soldiers marched hundreds of miles towards Berlin.

On 7 May 1945, the German High Command signed the unconditional surrender documents and the war that had claimed the lives of 25 million Soviet citizens was finally over. Because of the heroism of its inhabitants who refused to submit despite unendurable conditions, Leningrad became the first Soviet city to receive the Hero City award in 1945. MEMBER SERVICES The Siege of Leningrad The Siege of Leningrad Lyubov Tsarevskaya ï¿½I have voluntarily joined the peopleï¿½s militia. Before that I was engaged in peaceful work only. But now I am prepared to take up arms. I know that Nazism is tantamount to the end of culture, the end of civilisation. Historically the triumph of Nazism is senseless and impossible, but I realise that it is only through fighting that humanity can avoid deathï¿½ï¿½ Dmitri Shostakovich Leningradï¿½ No city in the world is better suited to epitomise the great feat of redemption in the eyes of history in the years of World War Two.

The peaceful life of Leningrad was interrupted by the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Germans had failed to capture the city in the first months of the war, therefore they imposed a siege on Leningrad. ï¿½Wipe the city of Petersburg off the face of the Earth,ï¿½ was the directive of Hitler. ï¿½The defeat of the Soviet Union leaves no room for the continued existence of that large urban area. Finland, too, sees no point in the continued existence of that city so close to its new border... A tight siege should be imposed on the city and fire from all calibres of guns and incessant bombing raids should reduce the city to ashes...ï¿½ All the human and material potential of Leningrad was put to work in the effort to rebuff the enemy. Newly formed home guard units reinforced the army. A good number of women and children, plant machinery and works of art were evacuated before the siege closed on Leningrad. The remaining plants switched over to making and repairing army hardware. With a majority of able-bodied workers at the front, old people, women and adolescents manned the plants.

In spite of the heroic efforts to defend Leningrad, things in the city went from bad to worse. The magnificent city was ruined by bombs. Its beautiful parks and embankments were pockmarked with bomb craters. It ran short of food, there was no heating fuel, its power plants and waterworks had stopped functioning. The winter of 1941-1942 happened to be exceptionally cold, and Leningraders were freezing in their destroyed houses. Daily bread rations were reduced to 125 to 350 grams. Fats, meat, sugar were practically unavailable. The absence of food, the freezing temperatures and the incessant bombing raids sent the civilian death rate up. People started dying on a mass scale in January 1942. Often they would fall right in the street to never get up again. In the evening, the dead bodies were sledge-driven to city cemeteries. But because it was impossible to dig a grave in the frozen soil, the corpses were simply left to lie in the snow. Bodies of the people whose relatives lacked the strength to carry them to a cemetery were left to lie near their homes.

The bread rations reduced to the minimum, the military council resolved to supply the city with food and fuel via the Ladoga Lake and on September 12th, 1941 two barges with grain and flour cast anchor at Cape Osinovets from the eastern side of the lake. That was the only communication route during the 900-day siege and the Leningraders called it the Road of Life. With the arrival of the freezing-over period transportation by water stopped and the construction of a winter route across the ice of the Ladoga Lake began. This winter road was known as military motorway 101. The construction progressed in the conditions of severe frosts and gale force winds that obliterated the road. The ice would give way. Car drivers were working non-stop for days on end. The road came under unremitting bombardment and artillery fire, so the columns moved at night mostly, under the flickering light from flashlights. The Germans lashed out at the passing motorcades with gunfire, and the cars, loaded with cargo, caught into craters and holes. Communication via Ladoga made it possible to increase the daily bread rations by December 1941.

Workers now got 350 grams, office workers, dependants and children ï¿½ 200 grams. A famous personality on the Road of Life was driver Maxim Tverdokhleb. On the eve of the year 1942 his truck was on a regular mission taking on the cargo at the eastern coast of the Ladoga Lake, the reception point for food suppliers for the blockaders. Fairly soon he noticed that his truck was being loaded with plywood boxes with the inscription ï¿½For Children of Heroic Leningrad!ï¿½ instead of the usual bags with flour. Seeing the driverï¿½s bewilderment the commander responsible for the food supplies explained that the boxes contained tangerines from Georgia as New Year presents to the children of Leningrad. ï¿½Be sure to deliver the cargo on time!ï¿½ ï¿½ shouted the commander after the truck. Coming onto the ice the truck hit the beaten route and raced in the direction of Leningrad. Dusk fell fast on the lake and the moon was shining, which was no good at all, since the Nazis bombed the road not only at daytime now but during the night too.

And that night proved no exception. ï¿½Two Messerschmitts attacked me at 20 kilometres,ï¿½ Maxim Tverdokhleb recalled. ï¿½Screaming overhead they soared up, turned backward and attacked again targeting at the back of the truck and the cabin. I accelerated, slowed down, steered right, steered left, and all around me the snow burst out with myriads of snow flakes disturbed by bullets. I drove franticallyï¿½ My cabin was riddled with bullets. The windscreen came out in smithereens. And the next minute I felt something hit my arm and scald it. I lifted it to prevent loss of blood and not to lose consciousness. Steam was coming out in clouds from the knocked out radiator and I could see nothing in front of me. I could have jumped out and escaped in the roadside but what would have become of the tangerines for the children? So I thought, no, I will make it there!ï¿½ The fearless driver did manage to make it to the shore. Later on they discovered 49 holes in the truck. And the children of Leningrad got tangerines from the sunny republic of Georgia for New Year.

The Road of Life delivered food supplies to besieged Leningrad throughout the entire winter of 1941-42. The role it played is impossible to overestimate, for it saved many and many lives and kept the city in communication with the mainland. During all the 900 days of the siege Leningrad was subjected to unheard-of suffering. But neither horrible privations nor human losses could break the spirit of Leningraders. The people kept fighting, working at defence plants, tending to the sick and meeting scientific research programmes. In the summertime, they laid out vegetable beds in parks and on boulevards. ï¿½No ordeal will break our spirit,ï¿½- they would say, - ï¿½this city shall not surrender to the enemy. The Neva will start flowing upstream sooner than this city surrenders to the Nazis.ï¿½ Braving the terrible odds of the Nazi siege, Leningrad was holding its own and stubbornly refused to surrender.

Marshal Georgi Zhukov later wrote in his memoirs that ï¿½war history had never before seen such battlefield valiance and home front heroism, as was displayed by the unbending defenders of Leningrad.ï¿½ Besides their daily toil of defending the city, keeping its plants and factories rolling and tending to the wounded, the Leningraders were also writing poems and music. It was then and there that the renowned Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his famous Seventh Symphony that immediately became a stirring anthem to the unvanquished city on the Neva. Refusing to leave the city with the rest of the Philharmonic Society early in the war, Shostakovich was bombarding the local recruitment centres with demands to send him out to the frontlines. All his pleas turned down, he then joined his friends digging trenches outside the city. After his attempt to join the militia also fell flat, Shostakovich signed with the local firefighters squad and, during his duty hours on the Conservatory roof, was putting out incendiary bombs the Nazis dropped on the city.

It was during those trying days that he actually decided to write his larger-than-life Seventh Symphonyï¿½ In a radio message broadcast on September 20th, 1941 Dmitri Shostakovich said: ï¿½An hour ago I finished writing the second part of my big new symphonyï¿½ Why am I telling you this? Because I want all the Leningraders who are listening to me to know that life goes on and we are all doing our dutyï¿½ï¿½ The Leningrad radio orchestra was now too small to play the Seventh Symphony though. The score called for 80 musicians and there were only a handful of them spared by famine and the enemy bullets at the frontlines... Then they made a radio announcement inviting the musicians who were still alive to join in. Unit commanders were instructed to dispatch their musicians with special passes, which said that they had been relieved from combat duty to perform the Seventh Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Finally, they all got together for the first rehearsal, their hands roughened from combat duty, trembling from malnutrition but everybody still clinging to their instruments as if for their own lifeï¿½ That was the shortest rehearsal ever, lasting for just 15 minutes because that was all the emaciated players could affordï¿½ And play they did and conductor Karl Eliasberg who was trying his best not to go down himself now knew that the orchestra would play the symphonyï¿½ August 9th, 1942 was just another day in the Nazi-besieged city. But not for the musicians, though, who, visibly uplifted, were busily preparing for the first ever public performance of the Seventh Symphony. Karl Eliasberg later wrote recalling that memorable day: ï¿½The chandeliers were all aglow in the Philharmonic Hall jam packed by writers, artists and academics. Military men were also very much in presence, most of them right from the battlefrontï¿½ï¿½ The conductor, his tuxedo dangling freely from his emaciated body, stepped to the pulpit, his baton trembling in his hand.

The next moment it went up and the hall filled with the stirringly beautiful chords of one of the best music works Shostakovich had ever written in his whole lifeï¿½ When the last chord trailed off there was a momentary silence. Then the whole place literally exploded with thunderous applause. People went up to their feet all, tears rolling down their faces, tears of joy and prideï¿½ Buoyed by the deafening success of their performance and visibly proud of themselves, the musicians were happily hugging each other like soldiers do winning a major battleï¿½ A German soldier who picked up the radio broadcast of that memorable concert was stunned by what he heard: ï¿½When I heard Shostakovichï¿½s Seventh Symphony being broadcast from the famine-stricken Leningrad I realised that we would never be able to take it. Realising that, I surrenderedï¿½ï¿½ The Germans never managed to capture the city.

In January 1944 the Red Army counterattacked, ending the deadly siege of Leningrad, which lasted for 900 days and nights and made Russiaï¿½s northern capital an enduring symbol of Soviet courage and invincibilityï¿½ 70 Years Since the Siege of Leningrad Home Life in the FSU Countries 70 Years Since the Siege of Leningrad 70 Years Since the Siege of Leningrad Posted on LinkedIn0 by Nathan Roi Limmud FSU, the educational movement for young Russian-speaking Jews, marks the 70th anniversary of the Siege at a moving ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Pushkin, near St. Petersburg. The Siege of Leningrad was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German army to capture the city (now known again as Saint Petersburg). The siege 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 only took place on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it had begun.

It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and the most costly in terms of casualties. During the siege, the Nazis cut all water and power supplies to the city while subjecting residents to constant air attacks and artillery bombardment. The population of about three million was left to starve or freeze to death, and an estimated one and a half million civilians and Soviet soldiers died during the siege. As German forces advanced toward Leningrad in 1941, the Jewish residents tried to move as close as possible to the center of the city. Those Jews who were unable to flee from the Nazis and remained in areas that had been occupied by the Nazis were tortured and killed. Pushkin is a town located 24 kilometers south of St. Petersburg. It was founded in 1710 as an imperial residence named Tsarskoye Selo. In 1937, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Alexander Pushkin, the town was renamed to honor Russia’s national poet. It was here that the Nazi advance was halted and it was the northernmost point reached by the German troops in the Second World War.

The Nazi massacre of Jews in Pushkin during the Siege of Leningrad occurred on 9 September, 1941, when a group of 800 Jews were gathered in a cellar of the Tsarskoye Selo palace and then shot to death in a nearby park. (l-r) Roman Polonsky, Director Russian-speaking department, JAFI; Steven Schwager, EVP JDC; Chaim Chesler, founder Limmud FSU; Israeli Ambassador Dorit Golender; Israeli Minister Sofa Landver; Matthew Bronfman, Chairman of Limmud FSU International Steering Committee; Stacey Bronfman; Ben Helfgott, VP Claims Conference; Eddie Shapira, Consul General in St. Petersburg; Dudi Rodman, St. Petersburg representative of JDC: Jenya Levova, VP Russian Jewish Congress; Dr. Aaron Weiss, holocaust historian; Leonid Kolton, director of the Hesed centers St. Petersburg The Pushkin Holocaust Memorial was constructed in memory of those Jews who were captured and murdered during the siege of Leningrad. It was to this site during the recent Limmud Conference in St.

Petersburg for Russian-speaking Jews, that a group of dignitaries, Holocaust survivors and young Limmud participants came to honor the Pushkin dead. Among them were Matthew Bronfman, Chair of the Limmud FSU International Steering Committee and Chaim Chesler its Chairperson, Steven Schwager, Executive Vice President of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Ben Helfgott, Vice-President of the Claims Conference and himself a Holocaust survivor, Alex Miller, Chairman of the Education and Culture Committee of the Knesset, Karmel Shama-Hacohen Chairman of the Knesset Economics Committee, Dorit Golender, Israel’s ambassador to the Russian Federation, Sofa Landver, Minister of Immigrant Absorption, Roman Polonsky, head of the FSU Department of the Jewish Agency, Eddie Shapira, Israel’s consul-general in St. Petersburg, Dudi Rodman, St Petersburg representative of the Joint, Dr Aharon Weiss, a Holocaust survivor, Evgenya Lubova, Chairperson of the Russian-Jewish Congress in St. Petersburg and Leonid Kolton, the director of the Joint’s Hessed centers in the city, who conducted the ceremony.

A local Holocaust survivor, Ludmila Yampolskaya, spoke about the life of the Jews during the nearly 900 day-long siege. “People like living skeletons were roaming the streets,” she recalled in tears. Polonsky emphasized that the tragedy of St Petersburg and its heroic defense must never be forgotten. Schwager pointed out that for the last 20 years, JDC, through its Hessed centers and with the assistance of the Claims Conference, has been looking after survivors. “I hope and believe we have made life easier for those who lived through and survived the siege.” Bronfman said that one of the aims of Limmud was to perpetuate Jewish life throughout the Former Soviet Union after the tragedy of the Holocaust. “The importance of this ceremony is to emphasize that the Nazis failed in their endeavor to extinguish Jewish life and here in St. Petersburg we are actively restoring it.” photos courtesy Nathan Roi Siege of Leningrad | WarWiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit 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 any event, 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 . File:Battle of Rostov (1941) - Eastern Front 1941 06 to 1941 12.png 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. On the other hand, the Soviets didn't know what Ryti and Mannerheim had told the Germans, and no one knows if their words were meant to last forever or only until the anticipated German victory was at hand. In any case, the mere threat of a Finnish attack complicated the Soviet defence of Leningrad. For example, at one point the Front Commander Popov could not transfer certain reserves against the Germans because they were needed to bolster the 23rd Army's defence on the Karelian Isthmus. [1] Mannerheim gave order at August 31 to stop the attack when the straightened line leaning to the 1939 border at the shores of Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga was reached.

[2] When the Finns started to reach that line during the first days of September, Popov noticed Finnish lessening pressure quickly and already at September 5 two divisions were transferred to German front. [3] Later, in the summer of 1942, a special Naval Detachment K was formed under the Finnish operative command. Its purpose was to patrol the waters of Lake Ladoga , although it was involved in clashes against Leningrad supply route on southern Ladoga with the assistance of German and Italian naval forces. [4] [5] Supplies File:LocomotiveLeningradBlocade.jpg On September 2, rations were reduced: manual workers had 600 grams of bread daily; state employees, 400 grams; and children and dependents (other civilians), 300 grams per day. After the massive Nazi bombings began on September 8, 1941, all main food warehouses were destroyed, so huge amounts of stored food reserves, such as grains, flour and sugar, as well as other stored food, were wiped out in bombings and fires.

The fires continued all over the city, because the Nazis were bombing Leningrad non-stop for many months using all kinds of fire-bombs and heavy air-bombs during 1941 and 1942. In the first days after the siege began, people finished all leftovers in "commercial" restaurants, which used up to 12% of all fats and up to 10% of all meat the city consumed. Soon all restaurants closed, food rationing became the only way to save lives, and money became obsolete. On September 12 , 1941 , it was calculated that the provisions both for army and civilians would last as follows: grain and flour sugar and confectionery 60 days On the same day, another food reduction took place: the workers received 500 grams of bread; employees and children, 300 grams; and dependents, 250 grams. Rations of meat and groats were also reduced, but the issue of sugar, confectionery and fats was increased instead. The army and the Baltic Fleet had some emergency rations, but these were not sufficient, and were used up in weeks.

The flotilla of lake Ladoga was not well equipped for war, and was almost destroyed in bombings by German aviation. Several barges with grain were sunk in lake Ladoga in September 1941 alone. A significant part of that grain, however, was later lifted out of the waters by divers. This dampened grain was delivered to Leningrad at night, and was used in bread baking. When the city ran out of reserves of malt flour, other substitutes, such as finished cellulose and cotton-cake, were used. Oats meant for horses were also used, while the horses were fed wood leaves. When 2,000 tons of mutton guts had been found in the seaport, a food grade galantine was made of them. Later, when the meat became unavailable, it was replaced by that galantine and by stinking calf skins, which many survivors remembered till the end of their lives. During the first year of the siege, the city survived five food reductions: two reductions in September of 1941, one in October 1941, two reductions in November 1941.

The latter reduced the daily food consumption to 250 grams daily for manual workers and 125 grams for other civilians. Reports of cannibalism began to appear in the winter of 1941-1942, after all birds, rats and pets were eaten by survivors . Starvation -level food rationing was eased by new vegetable gardens that covered most open ground in the city by 1943. Power and energy Main article: 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 defense of the city organized by Marshal Zhukov , the German armies laid siege to the city for 872 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 ( Russian : Дорога жизни), could only be used during the winter, and during the rest of the year ships were used. The road of life was dangerous, often carriages and transports would get stuck in the snow or sink if the ice broke. Also the Road of life became a frequent target for german shelling. Because of the high death toll in the winter, the pathway was also known as the "road of death" However, the lifeline did bring food in, and civilians out, and allowed the city to continue to resist. Soviet counter-offensive File:Leningrad skiers.jpg 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 Lake Ladoga, 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 Vuoksi River . Aftermath Edit Total number of human losses during the 29 months of the siege of Leningrad is estimated as 1.5 million, including both civilians and military. The Soviet records during the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin were incomplete, so the ultimate number of casualties during the siege is disputed, because hundreds of thousands of unregistered people, who lived in the city before the war, had perished in the Nazi siege without any record at all. About 1.3 million civilians escaped by evacuation, mainly by foot.

By the end of the siege in WWII, Leningrad became an empty "ghost-city" with thousands of ruined and abandoned homes, and its population was reduced from 3 million to less than 700,000. After the war, The Soviet government reported about 670,000 registered deaths from 1941 to January 1944, mostly from starvation, stress 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 in the Piskarevskoye Cemetery . Economic and human losses caused incalculable damage to the city's historic sites and cultural landmarks, much of the damage is still visible today, and some are preserved to commemorate those who gave their lives to save the city of St. Petersburg . 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 File:Devochka.jpg 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 front line. 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 were restored after the war). Russian tour guides at Peterhof , the palaces near St. Petersburg, report that it is still dangerous to go for a stroll in the gardens during a thunderstorm, as German artillery shrapnel embedded in the trees attracts lightning.

The Siege in music Edit Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the Seventh Symphony, some of which was written under siege conditions, for 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". 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. The Decemberists wrote a song called "When the War Came" about the heroism of civilian scientists during warfare . The lyrics state: "We made our oath to Vavilov/We'd not betray the solanum /The acres of asteraceae /To our own pangs of starvation". Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was a Russian botanist whose laboratory, a seedbank containing 200 000 types of plant seeds, many of them edible, was preserved throughout the siege. Italian melodic death metal band Dark Lunacy's 2006 album 'The Diarist' is about the siege.

A line in the song 'Scared', by the Canadian band 'The Tragically Hip', references Russian efforts to save paintings during the Siege of Leningrad. "You're in Russia...and more than a million works of art...are whisked out to the woods...When the Nazis find the whole place dark...they'd think God's left the museum for good." The Siege in literature American author Debra Dean The Madonnas of Leningrad tells the story of staff of the Hermitage Museum who saved the art collection during the Siege of Leningrad. American author Elise Blackwell published "Hunger" (2003), an acclaimed historical dramatization of events surrounding the siege. British author Helen Dunmore wrote an award-winning novel, The Siege (2001). Although fictitious, it traces key events in this siege, and shows how it affected those who weren't directly involved in the resistance. In 1981 Daniil Granin and Ales Adamovich published The Blockade Book which was based on hundreds of interviews and diaries of people who were trapped in the besieged city.

The book was heavily censored by Soviet authorities due to its portrayal of human suffering contrasting with the "official" image of heroism. The Arab-Israeli author Emil Habibi also mentioned the siege in his short story "The Love in my Heart" (الحب في قلبي), part of his collection Sextet of the Six Days (سداسية الايام الستة). Habiby's character visits a graveyard containing the siege's victims and is struck by the power of a display he sees commemorating the children who died, and it inspires him to write some letters in the voice of a Palestinian girl detained in an Israeli prison. The Siege in other art forms Edit Auteur film director Andrey Tarkovsky included multiple scenes and references to the siege in his semi-autobiographical film The Mirror . At the time of his death in 1989, Sergio Leone was working on a film about the siege. It drew heavily on Harrison Salisbury's "The 900 Days", and was a week away from going into production when Leone died of heart failure.

See also Leningrad and the orchestra that defied Hitler – BBC 2 – setinthepast Leningrad and the orchestra that defied Hitler – BBC 2 Standard The Siege of Leningrad lasted for 872 days and resulted in the deaths of (estimates vary, but probably in the region of) one and a half million people, most of them civilians. Many of them starved to death. The power was cut off, leaving very few sources of heat during three bitterly cold winters. Homes and historic public buildings were destroyed. But Leningrad didn’t surrender. Only a Russian city (and I’m saying “Russian” rather than “Soviet” because I’m also thinking of the bravery of the burning of Moscow in 1812) could have withstood something like that. And look at the beautiful, amazing city that St Petersburg is today, after everything that the Nazis did to it … and, indeed, everything that Stalin did to it. Incredible. On August 9th 1942, Hitler had planned to hold a victory banquet in Leningrad’s Astoria Hotel.

Instead, on that day, a makeshift Leningrad Radio Orchestra, starving and suffering, conducted by Karl Eliasberg, performed Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, in what’s now the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall. It was broadcast on loudspeakers across the city, with some of the loudspeakers turned towards the German forces as a sign of defiance. No-one really knows whether or not Shostakovich intended the Seventh Symphony as a symbol of wartime defiance, and it’s difficult to evaluate the psychological effects of the Leningrad Premiere on either the Germans or the Soviets, but it was a unique and very special moment at a horrific period in history. The BBC, in addition to telling the story, interviewed several people who were actually at that concert. It was very moving. I think this is something which could only have happened in Leningrad/St Petersburg. The music is very St Petersburg, the defiance uniquely Russian. I’m not quite sure why BBC 2 chose now to remind us of this story, but I’m very glad that they did. The Siege of Leningrad - History Learning Site History Learning Site historylearningsite.co.uk . The History Learning Site , 15 May 2015.

16 Aug 2016. The siege of Leningrad lasted from September 1941 to 1944 . By the end of the siege, some 632,000 people are thought to have died with nearly 4,000 people from Leningrad starving to death on Christmas Day, 1941. The first German artillery shell fell on Leningrad on September 1st, 1941. The city, one of the primary targets of ‘ Operation Barbarossa ‘, was expected “to fall like a leaf” ( Hitler ). The Germans, flushed with the initial success of ‘Barbarossa’, decided that they would not storm the city. Hitler had stated to his generals that once Leningrad had been surrounded and bombarded from the air and by artillery on the ground, the resolve of the city to continue the fight would disappear. German bombers also dropped propaganda leaflets on the city – claiming that the population would starve to death if they did not surrender. The ruling elite of Leningrad had imposed martial law in June – a reaction to the success of ‘Barbarossa’.

Authority to govern the city was handed to Lieutenant-General Popov, commander of the city’s garrison, A. A. Zhdanov, head of the local party committee and P. Popov, head of the city’s Soviet Executive. Zhdanov told the people of Leningrad: “The moment has come to put your Bolshevik qualities to work, to get ready to defend Leningrad without wasting words. We have to see that nobody is just an onlooker, and carry out in the least possible time the same kind of mobilisation of the workers that was done in 1918 and 1919. The enemy is at the gate. It is a question of life and death.” Many in Leningrad had expected the Germans to attack and occupy the city. However, a resolute Russian defence and inadequate German manpower, meant that the Germans could not successfully achieve this – hence the siege. By September 8th, German tanks were just 10 miles from Leningrad and the city was cut-off from the rest of Russia by any form of land communication. Supply lines existed in the air and by river – but both were under constant attack.

The Germans continually bombarded the city, putting out of action power stations that supplied Leningrad with electricity. The city also quickly became short of food. When the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, the population of Leningrad was about 2,500,000. However, as the Germans advanced into Russia, a further 100,000 refugees entered the city. The area that the city authorities controlled produced just 1/3rd of what was needed for grain, 1/3rd of what was needed for coal, 1/12th of what was needed for sugar and half of what was needed with regards to meat – if the supply lines could be kept open. On September 12th, those in charge of the city estimated that they had the following supplies: flour for 35 days fats for 45 days sugar for 60 days The nearest rail head outside of the city was about 100 miles to the east at Tikhvin – but this was soon to fall to the Germans on November 9th.

By mid-September (two weeks into the siege), Leningrad was effectively surrounded and cut-off from the rest of Russia with minimal food and energy supplies for her population. The siege was to last for 900 days. While the city had a rail network of sorts, Stalin ordered that all vital goods in the city that could help defend Moscow be moved out of Leningrad and to the capital. Rationing had been introduced almost immediately. Soldiers and manual workers got the most of what was available, followed by office workers then by non-working dependents and children. The city authorities found it difficult to grasp just how serious their situation was. While certain food was rationed, restaurants continued to serve non-rationed food in their ‘normal’ way. The authorities also failed to inform people in Leningrad just how much food there was – this was probably done so as not to panic people, but if people had known the true situation, they could have planned accordingly. The number of shops handling food was drastically cut to allow for better control – but it also meant that people had to queue for much longer. There is also evidence that money could buy food away from rationing and the black market thrived where it could away from prying eyes.

Winters in Leningrad are invariably extremely cold. The winter of 1941 – 42 was no exception. Lack of fuel meant that the use of electricity in homes was banned – industry and the military took priority. Kerosene for oil lamps was unobtainable. Wood became the major source of heat in homes with furniture and floor boards being burned in most homes. The food needed to fight the cold was simply not available. If bread was obtainable, people had to queue in the bitter cold in the hope that some might be left by the time they got to the front of the queue. Dogs and cats were hunted for food and stories emerged of cannibalism – freshly buried bodies were, according to some, dug up in the night. Gangs of people braved German guns to leave the city and dig up potatoes in fields outside of the city. This actually did bring in some food that was not kept by those who ventured out – the potatoes were handed in to the authorities and then distributed equably. The city authorities ordered that a bread substitute be concocted by those who might have the skill, as they knew that flour was in very short supply.

‘Bread’ baked by bakers even in the first few months of the siege contained only 50% rye flour. To boost the loaf, soya, barley and oats were used. However, the oats were meant to feed horses and malt was used as an alternate substitute. Even cellulose and cottonseed were tried in an effort to produce bread. Both had little nutritional value but there was plenty of both in Leningrad. The city developed ingenious ways to produce ‘food’ – cats and sheep intestines were stewed, flavoured with oil of cloves and the resulting liquid became a substitute for milk; seaweed was made into broth and yeast was made into soup. Regardless of all the work done by the experts in Leningrad, food remained in very short supply and people were only getting 10% of the required daily calorific intake – despite the fact that most of their work was labour intensive. One writer in the city, Tikhonov, wrote about workers who ate grease from bearings in factory machines and drank oil from oil cans such was their hunger. People collapsed in factories and on the streets – and died. The city organised mass burials to cope with the number who died.

When not enough grave diggers could be found, explosives were used to blow a hole in the ground and the bodies were simply thrown in with the expectation that snow would simply cover them up. Where people died in the street, there was a scramble for their ration card. “If this happened, there was an immediate scrabbling for the dead one’s ration card – not because anyone wanted to steal it but because everyone realised that a ration card handed in to the authorities meant an infinitesimal portion more food for all. Such were the indignities we suffered.”“I watched my father and mother die – I knew perfectly well they were starving. But I wanted their bread more than I wanted them to stay alive. And they knew that about me too. That’s what I remember about the blockade: that feeling that you wanted your parents to die because you wanted their bread.” In November 1941, while the siege was in its early stages, 11,000 people died of what the authorities called ‘alimentary dystrophy’ (starvation) – over 350 a day. However, this number greatly increased as the winter took a hold on the city.

The two lifelines Leningrad had were constructing a road out of the city to allow supply trucks to get through and using Lake Lagoda as a means of transport. Thousands of people assisted in building the road that was meant to link to Zaborie – the next major staging post east of the fallen Tikhvin. The road was more than 200 miles long when it was completed in just 27 days. However, though it was termed a road, in many places it was barely more than a track not wide enough for two lorries to pass. Parts of it were too steep for lorries to cope with and the snow made parts of it impossible to use. On December 6th, the city authorities announced that the road – known by the people as the ‘Road of Life’ – was to be used for the first time. The news was well received in the city but, in truth, the road was not capable of providing all that the city required for survival. Over 300 lorries started out on the first journey but breakdowns and blizzards meant that the most distance travelled in any one day was 20 miles.

On December 9th, the city received news that Tikhvin, with its vital railhead, had been recaptured by the Russians. The Germans who had occupied the town were the victims of Hitler’s belief that the Russian campaign would be over quickly. They had not been issued with winter clothing and became victims of both the weather and a major Russian assault. 7,000 Germans were killed in the attack and they were pushed back 50 miles from Tikhvin. Railway engineers were brought in by the Russians to repair the line and bridges. For one week they ate food supplies left by the Germans in their retreat. As a result, and by the standards of those in Leningrad, they ate well and all the required repairs to the line were finished in just one week. Supplies started to trickle into the beleaguered city. Another supply route was to use the frozen Lake Lagoda. Ironically, though the weather was extremely cold for the people of Leningrad, it was not cold enough to sufficiently freeze the lake to allow it to cope with the weight of lorries. The lake was frozen enough to stop barges bringing in supplies but the ice had to be 200mm thick to cope with lorries.

It only achieved such a thickness at the end of November, and on November 26th, eight lorries left Leningrad, crossed the lake and returned with 33 tons of food. It was a major achievement – but the city needed 1000 tons of food each day to function. Once the ice had proved reliable and safe, more journeys were made and occasionally this mode of transport brought in 100 tons of food a day. Though the ‘Road of Life’, the rail system and the use of Lake Lagoda brought much needed relief to the city, they could not provide all that was needed and the city’s records show that 52,000 died in December 1941 alone – lack of food and the cold accounted for over 1,600 death a day. However, the figures collected by the city were for those who were known to have died and been buried in some form or another. They do not include people who died at home or on the street and whose bodies were never found. The official death total for the whole 900 day siege is 632,000.

However, some believe (such as Alan Wykes) that the figure is likely to be nearer 1 million. The rail link to Tikhvin did allow the authorities to move out the worst medical cases. But the frozen lake and the man-made road also accounted for many refugees who fled the city – against the wishes of those who ran the city. 35,000 left Leningrad in December 1941 alone, at a time when manpower was required. No records exist as to how many died while attempting to leave Leningrad. By the end of 1942 , the city had a population of less than 1 million. In June 1941, it had been 2.5 million. Though the authorities may have had great difficulty gaining accurate figures for the city’s true population, the effect of the siege is clear from these figures. Disease, starvation and those who fled the city may well have accounted for 1.5 million people. The siege was only lifted after the Germans, as part of their general retreat, withdrew in the face of the advance of the Red Army.

Then in one of the great ironies of the war, those who had led the city in its time of need were arrested by the KGB (presumably on the orders of Stalin ). Their crime was that they had failed to contact Moscow frequently enough during the siege to ask for support and guidance and that this policy of acting alone like mini-tsars could not be tolerated. Those arrested, after 900 days of being besieged, now had to face Stalin’s gulags. The Siege of Leningrad | Russia Trek 2010 Blog Russia Trek 2010 Blog Posted on October 7, 2010 by russiatrek2010 Norman here. On our last day in Saint Petersburg by ourselves, one of the things Millie and I did was to take the subway to the south side of the city to see the Siege of Leningrad Memorial. I had driven past this place many times going to and from Pushkin as part of the pilot court project there in the past decade, always wondering what the memorial had besides a large obelisk and impressive statues in the middle of a large traffic circle.

Well, we were very glad we went to the Memorial, since it is a fitting remembrance of the tragic circumstances that occurred in the City of Leningrad (now, St. Petersburg) during the Great Patriotic War (WW-II). First, a bit of a history. The German Wehrmacht invaded the USSR on 22 June 1941, quickly making huge advances across the entire eastern front. By late summer, the German northern army group reached the outskirts of Leningrad, with the city being encircled by it and Finnish forces as of 8 September 1941 (this was 90 days before the United States even entered the war after Pearl Harbor on December 7!). Then, for almost three years the city suffered. Although 1.4 million citizens were evacuated, during the siege another 1.5 million died of starvation (for comparison, about the same number died in the Auschwitz concentration camp), along with many more casualties from the shelling and direct conflict between the military forces. “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.” (Quote from the extensive Wikipedia article found at ; in that article is found this moving entry below photos of hand-scrawled pieces of paper: “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.”). Here is a representation of what Leningrad looked like during the siege, a photo I took on a previous trip to Russia of a dramatic diorama in the Great Patriotic War Museum in Victory Park (Park Pobedy) in Moscow: The Siege of Leningrad diorama Although the Red Army managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the total lifting of the siege took place on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began.

This was part of the effort that turned the tide of war in the East and eventually lead to the surrender of German forces on 9 May 1945. But, before retreating, the German armies looted and caused massive damage to the historical palaces of the Tsars, such as the Catherine and Peterhof Palaces, which our group visited (see separate blog entries). Many buildings in the suburbs of St. Petersburg were looted and destroyed, and a large number of valuable art collections were removed to Nazi Germany. The famous “Amber Room” in Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin has never been recovered, and is feared destroyed; a replica has been constructed in the rehabilitated palace; see photo below (which I took on a previous trip; photos of it are no longer allowed): The Reconstructed Amber Room, Catherine's Palace, Pushkin, Russia Sign in the Amber Room shows a photo of how the palace looked after the occupation, note the snowdrifts. Crimes of War – Siege Share By Tom Gjelten For centuries, armies have tried to capture cities by surrounding them, blocking access roads, and then bombarding the encircled territory until the townspeople, or their defenders, give up.

Constantinople was besieged at one time or another by the Persians, the Arabs, the Bulgars, and the Russians. The siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) during World War II lasted 872 days and resulted in the deaths of more than a million civilians. Fifty years later, it was Sarajevo’s turn. In May 1992, the Bosnian Serb Army, having failed in an attempt to overrun the city, closed all roads leading in and out of Sarajevo, blocked commerce, and began to pound city neighborhoods with artillery and sniper fire from all directions. Human rights groups, relief agencies, and some governments said the Serb war tactics around Sarajevo subjected the city to a siege, immorally and illegally. Under international humanitarian law (IHL), siege is not prohibited per se. The capture of an enemy-controlled city is a legitimate military aim, and army commanders have often seen siege as less costly than the alternative—fighting house to house, street by street.

Historically, a key element of siege warfare has been to reduce a town’s defenses and force its surrender by cutting off its vital supplies and leaving the population, civilian and military alike, to starve. Cruel as this tactic is, the laws of war permitted it at least until the end of World War II, under the rationale of military necessity. The last revision of the U.S. Army field manual on the law of land warfare, for example, informed commanders that civilians who are fleeing a besieged city can, as an “extreme measure,” be turned around and forced back into the city for the specific purpose of “hastening its surrender.” Implicitly, this principle permitted the deliberate starvation of the civilian population, if only as a means of demoralizing the city’s armed defenders. Under pre-World War II Hague Regulations, “undefended” cities could not be bombarded, but siege tactics are normally used against defended places, so this prohibition did not exclude sieges. The laws pertaining to siege warfare, however, have changed radically in the post-World War II era.

Though the word “siege” is never mentioned as a term of law, the Additional Protocols of 1977 impose restrictions on warfare that, if enforced, would effectively make siege illegal. Besieging forces are not allowed to target civilians or starve them “as a method of warfare,” and relief agencies are authorized to provide aid to needy populations. The most important limitations are the rules regarding “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,” including food and water supplies. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 upheld the traditional view that an army may legally block food or other relief shipments into a besieged city if the aid would result in more goods becoming available to the local military forces. But Article 54 of the First Additional Protocol contains an absolute ban on the starvation of civilians as well as forbidding the destruction of foodstuffs, crops, livestock and drinking water supplies that a civilian population relies on for sustenance. This provision may require a besieging force to allow relief supplies to enter a besieged city, even if some of the supplies will inevitably be shared with the defenders. A besieging army is also forbidden, for example, from destroying a city’s drinking water supply.

Comparable rules are found in the Second Additional Protocol, applicable in internal conflict. Even when the protocols do not apply, prohibitions on the starvation of civilians are now widely seen as part of customary law. In addition, rules against the deliberate targeting of civilians would apply during sieges as at other times. In Sarajevo, officials of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) questioned whether the city was genuinely besieged, since Serb forces occasionally allowed UN relief convoys to pass into the city. Comdr. Barry Frewer, the UNPROFOR spokesman, summarized the official view while briefing journalists in July 1993: “The Serbs have encircled the city,” he acknowledged. “They are in a position to bring force to bear on the city. You call it a siege. We say they are deployed in a tactically advantageous position.” The dispute was both ridiculous and irrelevant. No word other than “siege” as effectively described the city’s condition, and in any case the terminology did not resolve the question of whether Serb military actions were lawful. The critical issue was whether the means of Sarajevo’s continued encirclement violated IHL. Some parts of the war record leave little doubt.

Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas is clearly illegal. Serb army commanders had modern artillery, a clear line of sight toward their Sarajevo targets, and three years of practice. UN military observers regularly reported deliberate civilian targeting by Serb gunners. The attacks on Sarajevo prompted war crime indictments against Serb commanders judged responsible for firing “on civilian gatherings that were of no military significance.” In December 2003, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted Major General Stanislav Galic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army unit around Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994, of the war crime of conducting a campaign of terror against the civilian population of the city, and of the crimes against humanity of murder and inhumane acts. He was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. Might some army find a way to besiege a city without violating IHL? The limits have been tested by Taliban forces in Afghanistan, Hutu rebels in central Africa, and by Russian forces in Chechnya. Lawful or not, siege warfare remains as popular as ever. Related posts:

Question: What city did the Nazis siege for 872 days but never capture?
Answer: Leningrad