The blockade of Leningrad is underway. Blockade in numbers
The great feat of the Soviet people during the Second World War should not be forgotten by posterity. Millions of soldiers and civilians brought the long-awaited victory closer at the cost of their lives; men, women and even children became a single weapon that was directed against fascism. Centers of partisan resistance, plants and factories, and collective farms operated in enemy-occupied territories; the Germans failed to break the spirit of the defenders of the Motherland. A striking example of perseverance in the history of the Great Patriotic War was the hero city of Leningrad.
Hitler's plan
The Nazis' strategy was to launch a sudden, lightning strike in the areas that the Germans had chosen as priorities. Three army groups were to capture Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv by the end of autumn. Hitler assessed the capture of these settlements as a victory in the war. Fascist military analysts planned in this way not only to “behead” Soviet troops, but also to break the morale of the divisions retreating to the rear and undermine Soviet ideology. Moscow should be captured after victories in the northern and southern directions; the regrouping and connection of the Wehrmacht armies was planned on the approaches to the capital of the USSR.
Leningrad, according to Hitler, was a city symbol of Soviet power, the “cradle of the revolution,” which is why it was subject to complete destruction along with the civilian population. In 1941, the city was an important strategic point; many engineering and electrical plants were located on its territory. Due to the development of industry and science, Leningrad was a place of concentration of highly qualified engineering and technical personnel. A large number of educational institutions trained specialists to work in various sectors of the national economy. On the other hand, the city was geographically isolated and located at a great distance from sources of raw materials and energy. Hitler also helped geographical position Leningrad: its proximity to the country's borders made it possible to quickly encircle and blockade. The territory of Finland served as a springboard for the basing of fascist aviation during the preparatory stage of the invasion. In June 1941, the Finns entered World War II on the side of Hitler. The Germans had to neutralize and destroy the then huge military and merchant fleet based in Germany, and use the advantageous sea routes for their own military needs.
Environment
The defense of Leningrad began long before the encirclement of the city. The Germans advanced rapidly; on the day, tank and motorized formations passed 30 km deep into the territory of the USSR in a northern direction. The creation of defensive lines was carried out in the Pskov and Luga directions. Soviet troops retreated with heavy losses, losing a large amount of equipment and leaving cities and fortified areas to the enemy. Pskov was captured on July 9, the Nazis moved to the Leningrad region at the least shortcut. Their advance was delayed for several weeks by the Luga fortified areas. They were built by experienced engineers and allowed Soviet troops to hold back the enemy's onslaught for some time. This delay greatly angered Hitler and made it possible to partially prepare Leningrad for the Nazi attack. In parallel with the Germans, on June 29, 1941, the Finnish army crossed the border of the USSR, the Karelian Isthmus was occupied for a long time. The Finns refused to participate in the attack on the city, but blocked a large number of transport routes connecting the city with the “mainland”. The complete liberation of Leningrad from the blockade in this direction occurred only in 1944, in the summer. After Hitler’s personal visit to Army Group North and the regrouping of troops, the Nazis broke the resistance of the Luga fortified area and launched a massive offensive. Novgorod and Chudovo were captured in August 1941. The dates of the siege of Leningrad, which are ingrained in the memory of many Soviet people, begin in September 1941. The capture of the Petrofortress by the Nazis finally cuts off the city from land routes of communication with the country; this happened on September 8. The ring has closed, but the defense of Leningrad continues.
Blockade
The attempt to quickly capture Leningrad failed completely. Hitler cannot pull forces away from the encircled city and transfer them to the central direction - to Moscow. Quite quickly, the Nazis found themselves in the suburbs, but, having encountered powerful resistance, they were forced to strengthen themselves and prepare for protracted battles. On September 13, G.K. Zhukov arrived in Leningrad. His main task was the defense of the city; Stalin at that time recognized the situation as almost hopeless and was ready to “surrender” it to the Germans. But with such an outcome, the second capital of the state would have been completely destroyed along with the entire population, which at that time amounted to 3.1 million people. According to eyewitnesses, Zhukov was terrifying in those September days; only his authority and iron will stopped the panic among the soldiers defending the city. The Germans were stopped, but kept Leningrad in a tight ring, which made it impossible to supply the metropolis. Hitler decided not to risk his soldiers; he understood that urban battles would destroy most of the northern army group. He ordered the mass extermination of the inhabitants of Leningrad to begin. Regular artillery shelling and aerial bombing gradually destroyed urban infrastructure, food warehouses, and energy sources. German fortified areas were erected around the city, which excluded the possibility of evacuating civilians and supplying them with everything they needed. Hitler was not interested in the possibility of surrendering Leningrad; his main goal was the destruction of this settlement. At the time of the formation of the blockade ring in the city there were many refugees from Leningrad region and surrounding areas, only a small percentage of the population managed to evacuate. A large number of people gathered at the stations, trying to leave the besieged northern capital. Famine began among the population, which Hitler called his main ally during the capture of Leningrad.
Winter 1941-42
January 18, 1943 - breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad. How far this day was from the autumn of 1941! Massive shelling and food shortages led to massive deaths. Already in November, the limits for issuing food on cards for the population and military personnel were cut. The delivery of everything necessary was carried out by air and through which the Nazis shot. People began to faint from hunger, the first deaths from exhaustion and cases of cannibalism, which were punishable by execution, were recorded.
With the advent of cold weather, the situation became significantly more complicated; the first, most severe, winter was approaching. The siege of Leningrad, the “road of life” are concepts inseparable from each other. All engineering communications in the city were disrupted, there was no water, no heating, no sewage system, food supplies were running out, and city transport did not function. Thanks to qualified doctors who remained in the city, mass epidemics were avoided. Many people died on the street on the way home or to work; most Leningraders did not have enough strength to carry their deceased relatives on sleds to the cemetery, so the corpses lay on the streets. The created sanitary teams could not cope with so many deaths, and not everyone was able to be buried.
The winter of 1941-42 was much colder than average meteorological indicators, but there was Ladoga - the road of life. Cars and convoys drove across the lake under constant fire from the invaders. They carried food and necessary things to the city, and in the opposite direction - people exhausted by hunger. The children of besieged Leningrad, who were evacuated across the ice to different parts of the country, to this day remember all the horrors of the freezing city.
According to the food card, dependents (children and the elderly) who could not work were allocated 125 grams of bread. Its composition varied depending on what the bakers had available: shakes from bags of corn grits, flax and cotton cake, bran, wallpaper dust, etc. From 10 to 50% of the ingredients included in the flour were inedible, cold and hunger became synonymous with the concept of “siege of Leningrad”.
The road of life that passed through Ladoga saved many people. As soon as the ice cover gained strength, trucks started driving across it. In January 1942, city authorities had the opportunity to open canteens in enterprises and factories, the menu of which was compiled specifically for exhausted people. In hospitals and established orphanages, they provide enhanced nutrition, which helps to survive the terrible winter. Ladoga is the road of life, and this name that the Leningraders gave to the crossing is completely true. Food and essential goods were collected for the siege survivors, as well as for the front, by the entire country.
Feat of the residents
In a dense ring of enemies, fighting cold, hunger and constant bombing, Leningraders not only lived, but also worked for victory. Factories in the city produced military products. The cultural life of the city did not freeze in the most difficult moments; unique works of art were created. Poems about the siege of Leningrad cannot be read without tears; they were written by participants in those terrible events and reflect not only the pain and suffering of people, but also their desire for life, hatred of the enemy and fortitude. Shostakovich's symphony is imbued with the feelings and emotions of Leningraders. Libraries and some museums were partially open in the city; at the zoo, exhausted people continued to care for the unevacuated animals.
Without heat, water or electricity, workers stood at their machines, investing the last of their vitality into victory. Most of the men went to the front or defended the city, so women and teenagers worked in the factories. The city's transport system was destroyed by massive shelling, so people walked several kilometers to work, in a state of extreme exhaustion and with no roads cleared of snow.
Not all of them saw the complete liberation of Leningrad from the siege, but their daily feat brought this moment closer. Water was taken from the Neva and burst pipelines, houses were heated with potbelly stoves, burning the remains of furniture in them, leather belts and wallpaper glued with paste were chewed, but they lived and resisted the enemy. wrote poems about the siege of Leningrad, lines from which became famous and were carved on monuments dedicated to those terrible events. Her phrase “no one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten” today is of great importance for all caring people.
Children
The most terrible aspect of any war is its indiscriminate choice of victims. Hundreds of thousands of children died in the occupied city, many died in evacuation, but those who remained participated in the approach of victory on an equal basis with adults. They stood at the machines, collecting shells and cartridges for the front line, kept watch on the roofs of houses at night, defusing incendiary bombs that the Nazis dropped on the city, and raised the spirit of the soldiers holding the defense. The children of besieged Leningrad became adults the moment the war came. Many teenagers fought in regular units of the Soviet army. It was the hardest for the little ones, who had lost all their relatives. Orphanages were created for them, where the elders helped the younger ones and supported them. An amazing fact is the creation of the children's dance ensemble A. E. Obrant during the blockade. The guys were gathered all over the city, treated for exhaustion, and rehearsals began. This famous ensemble gave more than 3,000 concerts during the blockade; it performed on the front lines, in factories and in hospitals. The young artists’ contribution to the victory was appreciated after the war: all the guys were awarded medals “For the Defense of Leningrad.”
Operation Spark
The liberation of Leningrad was a top priority for the Soviet leadership, but there were no opportunities for offensive actions and resources in the spring of 1942. Attempts to break the blockade were made in the fall of 1941, but they did not yield results. The German troops fortified themselves quite well and were superior to the Soviet army in terms of weapons. By the fall of 1942, Hitler had significantly depleted the resources of his armies and therefore made an attempt to capture Leningrad, which was supposed to free up the troops located in the northern direction.
In September, the Germans launched Operation Northern Lights, which failed due to a counterattack by Soviet troops trying to lift the blockade. Leningrad in 1943 was a well-fortified city, built by the citizens, but its defenders were significantly exhausted, so breaking the blockade from the city was impossible. However, the successes of the Soviet army in other directions made it possible for the Soviet command to begin preparing a new attack on the fascist fortified areas.
On January 18, 1943, the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad marked the beginning of the liberation of the city. Participated in the operation military units Volkhov and Leningrad fronts, they were supported by the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Flotilla. Preparations were carried out for a month. Operation Iskra was developed since December 1942; it included two stages, the main of which was breaking the blockade. The further advance of the army was to completely remove the encirclement from the city.
The start of the operation was scheduled for January 12, at which time the southern shore of Lake Ladoga was bound by strong ice, and the surrounding impassable swamps froze to a depth sufficient for passage. The Shlisselburg ledge was reliably fortified by the Germans due to the presence of bunkers, tank battalions and mining rifle divisions did not lose the ability to resist after the massive artillery barrage of Soviet artillery. The fighting became protracted; for six days the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts broke through the enemy’s defenses, moving towards each other.
On January 18, 1943, the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad was completed, the first part of the developed Iskra plan was completed. As a result, the encircled group of German troops received an order to leave the encirclement and join forces with the main forces, which occupied more advantageous positions and were additionally equipped and fortified. For residents of Leningrad, this date became one of the main milestones in the history of the siege. The resulting corridor was no more than 10 km wide, but it made it possible to build railways to fully supply the city.
Second phase
Hitler completely lost the initiative in the northern direction. The Wehrmacht divisions had a strong defensive position, but could no longer take the rebellious city. Soviet troops, having achieved their first success, planned to launch a large-scale offensive in a southern direction, which would completely lift the blockade of Leningrad and the region. In February, March and April 1943, the forces of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts attempted to attack the Sinyavskaya enemy group, which were called Operation Polar Star. Unfortunately, they failed; there were many objective reasons that did not allow the army to develop an offensive. Firstly, the German group was significantly reinforced with tanks (Tigers were used for the first time in this direction), aviation and mountain rifle divisions. Secondly, the line of defense created by that time by the Nazis was very powerful: concrete bunkers, a large amount of artillery. Thirdly, the offensive had to be carried out on territory with difficult terrain. The swampy terrain made moving heavy guns and tanks much more difficult. Fourthly, when analyzing the actions of the fronts, obvious command errors were identified, which led to big losses technology and people. But a start had been made. The liberation of Leningrad from the siege was a matter of careful preparation and time.
Removing the blockade
The main dates of the siege of Leningrad are carved not only on the stones of memorials and monuments, but also in the heart of each participant. This victory was achieved through the great bloodshed of Soviet soldiers and officers and millions of deaths of civilians. In 1943, significant successes of the Red Army along the entire length of the front line made it possible to prepare an offensive in the northwestern direction. The German group created the “Northern Wall” around Leningrad - a line of fortifications that could withstand and stop any offensive, but not Soviet soldiers. The lifting of the siege of Leningrad on January 27, 1944 is a date that symbolizes victory. A lot was done for this victory not only by the troops, but also by the Leningraders themselves.
Operation “January Thunder” began on January 14, 1944, it involved three fronts (Volkhov, 2nd Baltic, Leningrad), the Baltic Fleet, partisan formations (which were quite strong military units at that time), the Ladoga Military Fleet with aviation support. The offensive developed rapidly; the fascist fortifications did not save Army Group North from defeat and a shameful retreat in a southwestern direction. Hitler was never able to understand the reason for the failure of such a powerful defense, and the German generals who fled from the battlefield could not explain. On January 20, Novgorod and surrounding territories were liberated. Full January 27 became the occasion for festive fireworks in the exhausted but unconquered city.
Memory
The date of the liberation of Leningrad is a holiday for all residents of the once united Land of the Soviets. There is no point in arguing about the significance of the first breakthrough or the final liberation; these events are equivalent. Hundreds of thousands of lives were saved, although it took twice as many to achieve this goal. The breaking of the blockade of Leningrad on January 18, 1943 gave residents the opportunity to contact the mainland. The city's supply of food, medicine, energy resources, and raw materials for factories has resumed. However, the main thing was that there was a chance to save many people. Children, wounded soldiers, exhausted by hunger, sick Leningraders and defenders of this city were evacuated from the city. 1944 brought the complete lifting of the blockade, the Soviet army began its victorious march across the country, victory was near.
The defense of Leningrad is an immortal feat of millions of people; there is no justification for fascism, but there are no other examples of such perseverance and courage in history. 900 days of hunger, backbreaking work under shelling and bombing. Death followed every resident of besieged Leningrad, but the city survived. Our contemporaries and descendants should not forget about the great feat of the Soviet people and their role in the fight against fascism. This would be a betrayal of all those who died: children, old people, women, men, soldiers. The hero city of Leningrad must be proud of its past and build its present regardless of all renamings and attempts to distort the history of the great confrontation.
The hero city, which was under a military blockade by German, Finnish and Italian armies for more than two years, today remembers the first day of the siege of Leningrad. On September 8, 1941, Leningrad found itself cut off from the rest of the country, and city residents bravely defended their homes from the invaders.
The 872 days of the siege of Leningrad went down in the history of the Second World War as the most tragic events that are worthy of memory and respect. The courage and bravery of the defenders of Leningrad, the suffering and patience of the city’s residents - all this is on long years will remain an example and lesson for new generations.
Read 10 interesting, and at the same time terrifying facts about the life of besieged Leningrad in the editorial material.
1. "Blue Division"
German, Italian and Finnish soldiers officially took part in the blockade of Leningrad. But there was another group, which was called the “Blue Division”. It was generally accepted that this division consisted of Spanish volunteers, since Spain did not officially declare war on the USSR.
However, in fact, the Blue Division, which became part of a great crime against the Leningraders, consisted of professional soldiers of the Spanish army. During the battles for Leningrad, the Blue Division was considered by the Soviet military to be the weak link of the aggressors. Due to the rudeness of their own officers and meager food, fighters of the Blue Division often went over to the side of the Soviet army, historians note.
2. "Road of Life" and "Alley of Death"
Residents of besieged Leningrad managed to escape from starvation in the first winter thanks to the “Road of Life”. In the winter of 1941-1942, when the water on Lake Ladoga froze, communication with the “Big Earth” was established, through which food was brought to the city and the population was evacuated. 550 thousand Leningraders were evacuated through the “Road of Life”.
In January 1943, Soviet soldiers broke through the blockade of the occupiers for the first time, and a railway was built in the liberated area, which was called the “Victory Road”. On one section, the Victory Road came close to enemy territories, and trains did not always reach their destination. The military called this stretch “Death Alley.”
3. Harsh winter
The first winter of besieged Leningrad was the harshest the inhabitants had seen. From December to May inclusive, the average air temperature in Leningrad was 18 degrees below zero, the minimum mark was recorded at 31 degrees. Snow in the city sometimes reached 52 cm.
Such harsh conditions The city residents used any means to keep warm. Houses were heated with potbelly stoves; everything that burned was used as fuel: books, paintings, furniture. Central heating in the city did not work, sewerage and water supply were turned off, work in factories and factories ceased.
4. Hero cats
In modern St. Petersburg, a small monument to a cat has been erected, few people know, but this monument is dedicated to the heroes who twice saved the inhabitants of Leningrad from starvation. The first rescue occurred in the first year of the siege. Hungry residents ate all their domestic animals, including cats, which saved them from starvation.
But later, the absence of cats in the city led to a widespread invasion of rodents. The city's food supplies were under threat. After the blockade was broken in January 1943, one of the first trains had four cars with smoky cats. This breed is the best at catching pests. The supplies of the exhausted city residents were saved.
5. 150 thousand shells
During the years of the siege, Leningrad was subjected to an incalculable number of airstrikes and artillery shelling, which were carried out several times a day. In total, during the siege, 150 thousand shells were fired at Leningrad and more than 107 thousand incendiary and high-explosive bombs were dropped.
To alert citizens about enemy air raids, 1,500 loudspeakers were installed on the city streets. The signal for airstrikes was the sound of a metronome: its fast rhythm meant the start of an air attack, a slow rhythm meant a retreat, and on the streets they wrote “Citizens! During artillery shelling, this side of the street is the most dangerous.”
The sound of the metronome and the inscription warning of shelling preserved on one of the houses became symbols of the blockade and the perseverance of the inhabitants of Leningrad, which was still unconquered by the Nazis.
6. Three waves of evacuation
During the war years, the Soviet military managed to carry out three waves of evacuation of the local population from the besieged and hungry city. Over the entire period, it was possible to withdraw 1.5 million people, which at that time amounted to almost half of the entire city.
The first evacuation began in the first days of the war - June 29, 1941. The first wave of evacuation was characterized by the reluctance of residents to leave the city; in total, a little more than 400 thousand people were evacuated. The second wave of evacuation - September 1941-April 1942. The main route for evacuating the already besieged city was the “Road of Life”; in total, more than 600 thousand people were evacuated during the second wave. And the third wave of evacuation - May-October 1942, just under 400 thousand people were evacuated.
7. Minimum ration
Hunger became the main problem of besieged Leningrad. The beginning of the food crisis is considered to be September 10, 1941, when Nazi aircraft destroyed the Badayevsky food warehouses.
The peak of the famine in Leningrad occurred between November 20 and December 25, 1941. The norms for the distribution of bread for soldiers on the front line of defense were reduced to 500 grams per day, for workers in hot shops - to 375 grams, for workers in other industries and engineers - to 250 grams, for employees, dependents and children - to 125 grams.
During the siege, bread was prepared from a mixture of rye and oat flour, cake and unfiltered malt. It had a completely black color and a bitter taste.
8. The Case of the Scientists
During the first two years of the siege of Leningrad, from 200 to 300 employees of Leningrad higher educational institutions and members of their families were convicted. Leningrad NKVD department in 1941-1942. arrested scientists for “anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary, treasonous activities.”
As a result, 32 highly qualified specialists were sentenced to death. Four scientists were shot, the rest of the death penalty was replaced with various terms of forced labor camps, many died in prisons and camps. In 1954-55, the convicts were rehabilitated, and a criminal case was opened against the NKVD officers.
9. Duration of blockade
The siege of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War lasted 872 days (September 8, 1941 - January 27, 1944). But the first breakthrough of the blockade was carried out in 1943. On January 17, during Operation Iskra, Soviet troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts managed to liberate Shlisselburg, creating a narrow land corridor between the besieged city and the rest of the country.
After the blockade was lifted, Leningrad was under siege for another six months. German and Finnish soldiers remained in Vyborg and Petrozavodsk. After the offensive operation of the Soviet troops in July-August 1944, they managed to push the Nazis back from Leningrad.
10. Victims
On Nuremberg trials The Soviet side announced 630 thousand people died during the siege of Leningrad, however, this figure is still in doubt among historians. The real death toll could reach up to one and a half million people.
In addition to the number of deaths, the causes of death are also terrifying - only 3% of all deaths in besieged Leningrad were due to artillery shelling and airstrikes by the fascist military. 97% of deaths in Leningrad from September 1941 to January 1944 were due to starvation. Dead bodies lying on the streets of the city were perceived by passers-by as an everyday occurrence.
The Siege of Leningrad was a siege of one of the largest Russian cities that lasted more than two and a half years, waged by the German Army Group North with the help of Finnish troops on the Eastern Front of World War II. The blockade began on September 8, 1941, when the Germans blocked last way to Leningrad. Although on January 18, 1943, Soviet troops managed to open a narrow corridor of communication with the city by land, the blockade was finally lifted only on January 27, 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and perhaps the most costly in terms of casualties.
Prerequisites
The capture of Leningrad was one of the three strategic goals of the German Operation Barbarossa - and the main one for Army Group North. This importance was determined by the political status of Leningrad as the former capital of Russia and the Russian Revolution, its military significance as the main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, and the industrial power of the city, where there were many factories producing army equipment. By 1939 Leningrad produced 11% of all Soviet industrial output. It is said that Adolf Hitler was so confident of the capture of the city that, on his orders, invitations had already been printed to celebrate this event at the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad.
There are various assumptions about Germany's plans for Leningrad after its capture. Soviet journalist Lev Bezymensky argued that his city was supposed to be renamed Adolfsburg and turned into the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich. Others claim that Hitler intended to completely destroy both Leningrad and its population. According to a directive sent to Army Group North on September 29, 1941, “After the defeat of Soviet Russia there is no interest in the continued existence of this major urban center. [...] Following the encirclement of the city, requests for negotiations for surrender should be rejected, since the problem of moving and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our existence, we cannot have an interest in preserving even a part of this very large urban population." It follows that Hitler's final plan was to raze Leningrad to the ground and give the areas north of the Neva to the Finns.
872 days of Leningrad. In a hungry loop
Preparing the blockade
Army Group North was moving towards Leningrad, its main goal (see Baltic operation 1941 and Leningrad operation 1941). Its commander, Field Marshal von Leeb, initially thought to take the city outright. But due to Hitler’s recall of the 4th Panzer Group (chief of the General Staff Halder persuaded him to transfer it further south, so that Feodor von Bock could attack Moscow) von Leeb had to begin a siege. He reached the shore of Lake Ladoga, trying to complete the encirclement of the city and connect with the Finnish army of the marshal Mannerheim, waiting for him on the Svir River.
Finnish troops were located north of Leningrad, and German troops approached the city from the south. Both had the goal of cutting off all communications to the city’s defenders, although Finland’s participation in the blockade mainly consisted of recapturing lands lost in the recent Soviet-Finnish war. The Germans hoped that their main weapon would be hunger.
Already on June 27, 1941, the Leningrad Soviet organized armed detachments of civilian militias. In the coming days, the entire population of Leningrad was informed of the danger. More than a million people were mobilized to build fortifications. Several defense lines were created along the perimeter of the city, from the north and south, defended mainly by civilians. In the south, one of the fortified lines ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudov, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo, and then across the Neva River. Another line ran through Peterhof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino and Koltushi. The line of defense against the Finns in the north (Karelian fortified area) had been maintained in the northern suburbs of Leningrad since the 1930s and has now been renewed.
As R. Colley writes in his book “The Siege of Leningrad”:
...By order of June 27, 1941, all men from 16 to 50 years old and women from 16 to 45 were involved in the construction of fortifications, except for the sick, pregnant women and those caring for babies. Those conscripted were required to work for seven days, followed by four days of “rest,” during which they were required to return to their regular workplace or continue their studies. In August, the age limits were expanded to 55 years for men and 50 for women. The length of work shifts has also increased - seven days of work and one day of rest.
However, in reality these norms were never followed. One 57-year-old woman wrote that for eighteen days in a row, twelve hours a day, she hammered the ground, “hard as stone”... Teenage girls with delicate hands, who came in summer sundresses and sandals, had to dig the ground and drag heavy concrete blocks , having only a crowbar... Civilian population, erecting defensive structures, often found himself in the bombing zone or was shot at by German fighters from a strafing flight.
It was a titanic effort, but some considered it in vain, confident that the Germans would easily overcome all these defensive lines...
The civilian population constructed a total of 306 km of wooden barricades, 635 km of wire fences, 700 km of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earthen and wooden and reinforced concrete bunkers and 25,000 km of open trenches. Even the guns from the cruiser Aurora were moved to the Pulkovo Heights, south of Leningrad.
G. Zhukov claims that in the first three months of the war, 10 voluntary militia divisions, as well as 16 separate artillery and machine-gun militia battalions, were formed in Leningrad.
…[City party leader] Zhdanov announced the creation of a “people’s militia” in Leningrad... Neither age nor health were an obstacle. By the end of August 1941, over 160,000 Leningraders, of which 32,000 were women, signed up for the militia [voluntarily or under duress].
The militias were poorly trained, they were given old rifles and grenades, and were also taught how to make incendiary bombs, which later became known as Molotov cocktails. The first division of militia was formed on July 10 and already on July 14, practically without preparation, it was sent to the front to help the regular units of the Red Army. Almost all the militia died. Women and children were warned that if the Germans broke into the city, they would have to throw stones at them and pour boiling water on their heads.
... Loudspeakers continuously reported on the successes of the Red Army, holding back the onslaught of the Nazis, but kept silent about the huge losses of poorly trained, poorly armed troops...
On July 18, food distribution was introduced. People were given food cards that expired in a month. A total of four categories of cards were established; the highest category corresponded to the largest ration. It was possible to maintain the highest category only through hard work.
The 18th Army of the Wehrmacht accelerated its rush to Ostrov and Pskov, and the Soviet troops of the North-Western Front retreated to Leningrad. On July 10, 1941, Ostrov and Pskov were taken, and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where it continued to advance towards Leningrad from the Luga River line. The German 4th Panzer Group of General Hoepner, attacking from East Prussia, reached Novgorod by August 16 after a rapid advance and, having taken it, also rushed to Leningrad. Soon the Germans created a continuous front from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, expecting that the Finnish army would meet them halfway along the eastern shore of Ladoga.
On August 6, Hitler repeated his order: “Leningrad should be taken first, Donbass second, Moscow third.” From August 1941 to January 1944, everything that happened in the military theater between the Arctic Ocean and Lake Ilmen in one way or another related to the operation near Leningrad. Arctic convoys carried American Lend-Lease and British supplies along the Northern Sea Route to the railway station of Murmansk (although its railway connection with Leningrad was cut off by Finnish troops) and to several other places in Lapland.
Troops participating in the operation
Germany
Army Group North (Field Marshal von Leeb). It included:
18th Army (von Küchler): XXXXII Corps (2 infantry divisions) and XXVI Corps (3 infantry divisions).
16th Army (Bush): XXVIII Corps (von Victorin) (2 infantry, 1 tank division 1), I Corps (2 infantry divisions), X Corps (3 infantry divisions), II Corps (3 infantry divisions), (L Corps - from the 9th Army) (2 infantry divisions).
4th Panzer Group (Göpner): XXXVIII Corps (von Chappius) (1st Infantry Division), XXXXI Motorized Corps (Reinhardt) (1 infantry, 1 motorized, 1 tank divisions), LVI Motorized Corps (von Manstein) (1 infantry, 1 motorized, 1 tank, 1 tank-grenadier divisions).
Finland
Finnish Defense Forces HQ (Marshal Mannerheim). They included: I Corps (2 infantry divisions), II Corps (2 infantry divisions), IV Corps (3 infantry divisions).
Northern Front (Lieutenant General Popov). It included:
7th Army (2 rifle divisions, 1 militia division, 1 marine brigade, 3 motorized rifle and 1 tank regiment).
8th Army: Xth 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 motorized rifle regiment).
23rd Army: XIXth Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions), Separate units (2 rifle, 1 motorized division, 2 fortified areas, 1 rifle regiment).
Luga operational group: XXXXI Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions); separate units (1 tank brigade, 1 rifle regiment).
Kingisepp operational group: separate units (2 rifle, 1 tank division, 2 militia 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 the 7th Army defended areas of Karelia near Lake Ladoga. Thus, they did not take part in the initial stages of the siege. The 8th Army was originally part of the Northwestern Front. Retreating from the Germans through the Baltic states, on July 14, 1941 it was transferred to the Northern Front.
On August 23, 1941, the Northern Front was divided into the Leningrad and Karelian fronts, since the front headquarters could no longer control all operations between Murmansk and Leningrad.
Environment of Leningrad
Finnish intelligence had cracked some of the Soviet military codes and was able to read a number of enemy communications. This was especially useful for Hitler, who constantly asked for intelligence information about Leningrad. The role of Finland in Operation Barbarossa was defined by Hitler’s “Directive 21” as follows: “Mass Finnish army“The task will be set, together with the advance of the northern wing of the German armies, to bind the maximum Russian forces with an attack from the west or from both sides of Lake Ladoga.”
The last railway connection with Leningrad was cut off on August 30, 1941, when the Germans reached the Neva. On September 8, the Germans reached Lake Ladoga near Shlisselburg and interrupted the last land road to the besieged city, stopping only 11 km from the city limits. The Axis troops did not occupy only the land corridor between Lake Ladoga and Leningrad. The shelling on September 8, 1941 caused 178 fires in the city.
Line of greatest advance of German and Finnish troops near Leningrad
On September 21, the German command considered options for the destruction of Leningrad. The idea of occupying the city was rejected with the instruction: “we would then have to supply food to the residents.” The Germans decided to keep the city under siege and bombard it, leaving the population to starve. “Early next year we will enter the city (if the Finns do this first, we will not object), sending those who are still alive to internal Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth, and hand over the area north of the Neva to the Finns " On October 7, 1941, Hitler sent another directive, reminding that Army Group North should not accept surrender from the Leningraders.
Finland's participation in the siege of Leningrad
In August 1941, the Finns approached 20 km to the northern suburbs of Leningrad, reaching the Finnish-Soviet border in 1939. Threatening the city from the north, they also advanced through Karelia to the east of Lake Ladoga, creating a danger to the city from the east. Finnish troops crossed the border that existed before the “Winter War” on the Karelian Isthmus, “cutting off” the Soviet protrusions on Beloostrov and Kiryasalo and thereby straightening the front line. Soviet historiography claimed that the Finnish movement stopped in September due to resistance from the Karelian fortified area. However, already at the beginning of August 1941, Finnish troops received orders to stop the offensive after achieving its goals, some of which lay beyond the pre-war 1939 border.
Over the next three years, the Finns contributed to the Battle of Leningrad by holding their lines. Their command rejected German entreaties to launch air attacks on Leningrad. The Finns didn't go south of the river Svir in Eastern Karelia (160 km northeast of Leningrad), which they reached on September 7, 1941. In the southeast, the Germans captured Tikhvin on November 8, 1941, but were unable to complete the final encirclement of Leningrad by throwing further north to join the Finns on Svir. On December 9, a counterattack by the Volkhov Front forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from its positions at Tikhvin to the line of the Volkhov River. Thanks to this, the line of communication with Leningrad along Lake Ladoga was preserved.
September 6, 1941 chief of the operational department of the Wehrmacht headquarters Alfred Jodl visited Helsinki in order to convince Field Marshal Mannerheim to continue the offensive. Finnish President Ryti, meanwhile, told his parliament that the purpose of the war was to regain areas lost during the "Winter War" of 1939-1940 and gain even more territory in the east, which would create a "Greater Finland". After the war, Ryti stated: “On August 24, 1941, I visited the headquarters of Field Marshal Mannerheim. The Germans encouraged us to cross the old border and continue the attack on Leningrad. I said that the capture of Leningrad was not part of our plans and that we would not take part in it. Mannerheim and War Minister Walden agreed with me and rejected the German proposals. As a result, a paradoxical situation arose: the Germans could not approach Leningrad from the north...”
Trying to whitewash himself in the eyes of the victors, Ryti thus assured that the Finns almost prevented the complete encirclement of the city by the Germans. In fact, German and Finnish forces held the siege together until January 1944, but there was very little systematic shelling and bombing of Leningrad by the Finns. However, the proximity of the Finnish positions - 33-35 km from the center of Leningrad - and the threat of a possible attack from them complicated the defense of the city. Until Mannerheim stopped his offensive (August 31, 1941), the commander of the Soviet Northern Front, Popov, could not release the reserves that stood against the Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus in order to turn them against the Germans. Popov managed to redeploy two divisions to the German sector only on September 5, 1941.
Borders of advance of the Finnish army in Karelia. Map. The gray line marks the Soviet-Finnish border in 1939.
Soon Finnish troops cut off the ledges at Beloostrov and Kiryasalo, which threatened their positions on the seashore and south of the Vuoksi River. Lieutenant General Paavo Talvela and Colonel Järvinen, the commander of the Finnish coastal brigade, responsible for the Ladoga sector, proposed to the German headquarters to block Soviet convoys on Lake Ladoga. The German command formed an “international” detachment of sailors under Finnish command (this included the Italian XII Squadriglia MAS) and the naval formation Einsatzstab Fähre Ost under German command. In the summer and autumn of 1942, these water forces interfered with communications with the besieged Leningraders along Ladoga. The appearance of ice forced the removal of these lightly armed units. They were never restored later due to changes in the front line.
City defense
The command of the Leningrad Front, formed after the division of the Northern Front in two, was entrusted to Marshal Voroshilov. The front included the 23rd Army (in the north, between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga) and the 48th Army (in the west, between the Gulf of Finland and the Slutsk-Mga position). It also included the Leningrad fortified area, the Leningrad garrison, the forces of the Baltic Fleet and the operational groups Koporye, Yuzhnaya (on the Pulkovo Heights) and Slutsk - Kolpino.
...By order of Voroshilov, units of the people's militia were sent to the front line just three days after formation, untrained, without military uniforms and weapons. Due to a shortage of weapons, Voroshilov ordered the militia to be armed with “hunting rifles, homemade grenades, sabers and daggers from Leningrad museums.”
The shortage of uniforms was so acute that Voroshilov addressed the population with an appeal, and teenagers went from house to house, collecting donations of money or clothing...
The shortsightedness of Voroshilov and Zhdanov had tragic consequences. They were repeatedly advised to disperse the main food supplies stored in the Badayev warehouses. These warehouses, located in the south of the city, extended over an area of one and a half hectares. The wooden buildings were closely adjacent to each other; almost all the city's food supplies were stored in them. Despite the vulnerability of the old wooden buildings, neither Voroshilov nor Zhdanov heeded the advice. On September 8, incendiary bombs were dropped on warehouses. 3,000 tons of flour burned, thousands of tons of grain turned to ash, meat was charred, butter melted, melted chocolate flowed into the cellars. “That night, molten burnt sugar flowed through the streets,” said one of the eyewitnesses. Thick smoke was visible for many kilometers away, and with it the hopes of the city disappeared.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
By September 8, German troops had almost completely surrounded the city. Dissatisfied with Voroshilov's inability, Stalin removed him and replaced him for a time with G. Zhukov. Zhukov only managed to prevent the capture of Leningrad by the Germans, but they were not driven back from the city and laid siege to it for “900 days and nights.” As A.I. Solzhenitsyn writes in the story “On the Edges”:
Voroshilov failed Finnish war, was removed for a while, but already during Hitler’s attack he received the entire North-West, immediately failed both it and Leningrad - and was removed, but again - a successful marshal and in his closest trusted circle, like the two Semyons - Tymoshenko and the hopeless Budyonny, who failed both the South-West and the Reserve Front, and all of them were still members of the Headquarters, where Stalin had not yet included a single Vasilevsky, nor Vatutina, – and of course everyone remained marshals. Zhukov - did not give a marshal either for the salvation of Leningrad, or for the salvation of Moscow, or for the Stalingrad victory. What then is the meaning of the title if Zhukov handled affairs above all the marshals? Only after removal Leningrad blockade- he suddenly gave it.
Rupert Colley reports:
...Stalin was fed up with Voroshilov's incompetence. He sent Georgy Zhukov to Leningrad to save the situation... Zhukov was flying to Leningrad from Moscow under the cover of clouds, but as soon as the clouds cleared, two Messerschmitts rushed in pursuit of his plane. Zhukov landed safely and was immediately taken to Smolny. First of all, Zhukov handed Voroshilov an envelope. It contained an order addressed to Voroshilov to immediately return to Moscow...
On September 11, the German 4th Panzer Army was transferred from near Leningrad to the south to increase the pressure on Moscow. In desperation, Zhukov nevertheless made several attempts to attack the German positions, but the Germans had already managed to erect defensive structures and received reinforcements, so all attacks were repulsed. When Stalin called Zhukov on October 5 to find out last news, he proudly reported that the German offensive had stopped. Stalin recalled Zhukov back to Moscow to lead the defense of the capital. After Zhukov's departure, command of the troops in the city was entrusted to Major General Ivan Fedyuninsky.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
Bombing and shelling of Leningrad
... On September 4, the first shell fell on Leningrad, and two days later it was followed by the first bomb. Artillery shelling of the city began... The most striking example of devastating destruction was the destruction of the Badayevsky warehouses and dairy plant on September 8. The carefully camouflaged Smolny did not receive a single scratch throughout the entire blockade, despite the fact that all neighboring buildings suffered from hits...
Leningraders had to stand guard on roofs and stairwells, keeping buckets of water and sand ready to extinguish incendiary bombs. Fires raged throughout the city, caused by incendiary bombs dropped by German planes. Street barricades, designed to block the way for German tanks and armored vehicles if they broke into the city, only impeded the passage of fire trucks and ambulances. It often happened that no one extinguished a building that was on fire and it burned out completely, because the fire trucks did not have enough water to douse the fire, or there was no fuel to get to the place.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
The air attack on September 19, 1941 was the worst air raid that Leningrad suffered during the war. A strike on the city by 276 German bombers killed 1,000 people. Many of those killed were soldiers being treated for wounds in hospitals. During six air raids that day, five hospitals and the city's largest market were damaged.
The intensity of artillery shelling of Leningrad increased in 1942 with the delivery of new equipment to the Germans. They intensified even more in 1943, when they began to use shells and bombs several times larger than the year before. German shelling and bombing during the siege killed 5,723 civilians and injured 20,507 civilians. The aviation of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, for its part, made more than 100 thousand sorties against the besiegers.
Evacuation of residents from besieged Leningrad
According to G. Zhukov, “before the war, Leningrad had a population of 3,103,000 people, and with its suburbs - 3,385,000. Of these, 1,743,129, including 414,148 children, were evacuated from June 29, 1941 to March 31, 1943. They were transported to the regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan.”
By September 1941, the connection between Leningrad and the Volkhov Front (commander - K. Meretskov) was cut off. The defensive sectors were held by four armies: the 23rd Army in the north, the 42nd Army in the west, the 55th Army in the south, and the 67th Army in the east. The 8th Army of the Volkhov Front and the Ladoga Flotilla were responsible for maintaining the communication route with the city across Ladoga. Leningrad was defended from air attacks by the air defense forces of the Leningrad Military District and the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet.
The actions to evacuate residents were led by Zhdanov, Voroshilov and A. Kuznetsov. Additional military operations were carried out in coordination with the Baltic Fleet forces under the overall command of Admiral V. Tributs. The Ladoga flotilla under the command of V. Baranovsky, S. Zemlyanichenko, P. Trainin and B. Khoroshikhin also played an important role in the evacuation of the civilian population.
...After the first few days, the city authorities decided that too many women were leaving the city, while their labor was needed here, and they began to send the children alone. A mandatory evacuation was declared for all children under the age of fourteen. Many children arrived at the station or collection point, and then, due to confusion, waited four days for departure. The food, carefully collected by caring mothers, was eaten in the very first hours. Of particular concern were rumors that German planes were shooting down trains containing evacuees. The authorities denied these rumors, calling them “hostile and provocative,” but confirmation soon came. The worst tragedy occurred on August 18 at the Lychkovo station. A German bomber dropped bombs on a train carrying evacuated children. The panic began. An eyewitness said that there was a scream and through the smoke he saw severed limbs and dying children...
By the end of August, over 630,000 civilians were evacuated from Leningrad. However, the city's population did not decline due to refugees fleeing the German advance in the west. The authorities were going to continue the evacuation, sending 30,000 people a day from the city, however, when the city of Mga, located 50 kilometers from Leningrad, fell on August 30, the encirclement was practically completed. The evacuation stopped. Due to the unknown number of refugees in the city, estimates vary, but approximately there were up to 3,500,000 [people] within the blockade ring. There was only enough food left for three weeks.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
Famine in besieged Leningrad
The two and a half year German siege of Leningrad caused the worst destruction and greatest loss of life in the history of modern cities. By order of Hitler, most of the royal palaces (Catherine, Peterhof, Ropsha, Strelna, Gatchina) and other historical attractions located outside the city’s defense lines were looted and destroyed, many art collections were transported to Germany. A number of factories, schools, hospitals and other civilian structures were destroyed by air raids and shelling.
The 872-day siege caused severe famine in the Leningrad region due to the destruction of engineering structures, water, energy and food. It led to the death of up to 1,500,000 people, not counting those who died during the evacuation. Half a million victims of the siege are buried at the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery in Leningrad alone. Human losses in Leningrad on both sides exceeded those suffered in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow and atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Siege of Leningrad became the deadliest siege in world history. Some historians consider it necessary to say that in its course genocide was carried out - “racially motivated famine” - an integral part of the German war of extermination against the population of the Soviet Union.
The diary of a Leningrad girl Tanya Savicheva with entries about the death of all members of her family. Tanya herself also died from progressive dystrophy shortly after the blockade. Her diary as a girl was shown at the Nuremberg trials
Civilians of the city especially suffered from hunger in the winter of 1941/42. From November 1941 to February 1942, only 125 grams of bread were given per person per day, which consisted of 50-60% sawdust and other non-food impurities. For about two weeks in early January 1942, even this food was available only to workers and soldiers. Mortality peaked in January–February 1942 at 100 thousand people per month, mostly from starvation.
...After several months there were almost no dogs, cats or birds left in cages in the city. Suddenly, one of the last sources of fat, castor oil, was in demand. His supplies soon ran out.
Bread baked from flour swept from the floor along with garbage, nicknamed the “siege loaf,” turned out black as coal and had almost the same composition. The broth was nothing more than boiled water with a pinch of salt and, if you were lucky, cabbage leaf. Money lost all value, as did any non-food items and jewelry—it was impossible to buy a crust of bread with family silver. Even birds and rodents suffered without food until they all disappeared: they either died of hunger or were eaten by desperate people... People, while they still had strength left, stood in long lines for food, sometimes for whole days in the piercing cold, and often returned home empty-handed, filled with despair - if they remained alive. The Germans, seeing the long lines of Leningraders, dropped shells on the unfortunate residents of the city. And yet people stood in lines: death from a shell was possible, while death from hunger was inevitable.
Everyone had to decide for themselves how to use the tiny daily ration - eat it in one sitting... or spread it out over the whole day. Relatives and friends helped each other, but the very next day they quarreled desperately among themselves over who got how much. When all alternative food sources ran out, people in desperation turned to inedible things - livestock feed, flaxseed oil and leather belts. Soon, belts, which people initially ate out of desperation, were already considered a luxury. Wood glue and paste containing animal fat were scraped off furniture and walls and boiled. People ate soil collected in the vicinity of the Badaevsky warehouses for the sake of the particles of molten sugar it contained.
The city lost water because water pipes froze and pumping stations were bombed. Without water, the taps dried up, the sewer system stopped working... City residents made holes in the frozen Neva and scooped up water in buckets. Without water, bakeries could not bake bread. In January 1942, when the water shortage became particularly acute, 8,000 people who had remained strong enough formed a human chain and passed hundreds of buckets of water from hand to hand, just to get the bakeries working again.
Numerous stories have been preserved about unfortunate people who stood in line for many hours for a loaf of bread only to have it snatched from their hands and greedily devoured by a man mad with hunger. The theft of bread cards became widespread; the desperate robbed people in broad daylight or picked the pockets of corpses and those wounded during German shelling. Obtaining a duplicate turned into such a long and painful process that many died without waiting for the wandering of a new ration card in the wilds of the bureaucratic system to end...
Hunger turned people into living skeletons. Rations reached a minimum in November 1941. The ration of manual workers was 700 calories per day, while the minimum ration was approximately 3,000 calories. Employees received 473 calories per day, compared with the normal 2,000 to 2,500 calories, and children received 423 calories per day, less than a quarter of what a newborn needs.
The limbs were swollen, the stomachs were swollen, the skin was tight on the face, the eyes were sunken, the gums were bleeding, the teeth were enlarged from malnutrition, the skin was covered with ulcers.
The fingers became numb and refused to straighten. Children with wrinkled faces resembled old people, and old people looked like the living dead... Children, left overnight orphans, wandered the streets as lifeless shadows in search of food... Any movement caused pain. Even the process of chewing food became unbearable...
By the end of September, we ran out of kerosene for our home stoves. Coal and fuel oil were not enough to fuel residential buildings. The power supply was irregular, for an hour or two a day... The apartments were freezing, frost appeared on the walls, the clocks stopped working because their hands froze. Winters in Leningrad are often harsh, but the winter of 1941/42 was particularly severe. Wooden fences were dismantled for firewood, and wooden crosses were stolen from cemeteries. After the supply of firewood on the street completely dried up, people began to burn furniture and books in the stoves - today a chair leg, tomorrow a floorboard, the next day the first volume of Anna Karenina, and the whole family huddled around the only source of heat... Soon Desperate people found another use for books: the torn pages were soaked in water and eaten.
The sight of a man carrying a body wrapped in a blanket, tablecloth or curtain to a cemetery on a sled became a common sight... The dead were laid out in rows, but the gravediggers could not dig graves: the ground was frozen through, and they, equally hungry, did not have enough strength for the grueling work . There were no coffins: all the wood was used as fuel.
The courtyards of the hospitals were “littered with mountains of corpses, blue, emaciated, terrible”... Finally, excavators began to dig deep ditches for the mass burial of the dead. Soon these excavators were the only machines that could be seen on the city streets. There were no more cars, no trams, no buses, which were all requisitioned for the “Road of Life”...
Corpses were lying everywhere, and their number was growing every day... No one had the strength left to remove the corpses. The fatigue was so all-consuming that I wanted to stop, despite the cold, sit down and rest. But the crouched man could no longer rise without outside help and froze to death. At the first stage of the blockade, compassion and the desire to help were common, but as the weeks passed, food became less and less, the body and mind weakened, and people became withdrawn into themselves, as if they were walking in their sleep... Accustomed to the sight of death, they became almost indifferent towards him, people increasingly lost the ability to help others...
And amid all this despair, beyond human understanding, German shells and bombs continued to fall on the city
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
Cannibalism during the siege
Documentation NKVD Cannibalism during the siege of Leningrad was not published until 2004. Most of the evidence of cannibalism that had surfaced up to this time was tried to be presented as unreliable anecdotes.
NKVD records record the first consumption of human flesh on December 13, 1941. The report describes thirteen cases, from a mother who strangled her 18-month-old child to feed three older ones to a plumber who killed his wife to feed his sons and nephews.
By December 1942, the NKVD had arrested 2,105 cannibals, dividing them into two categories: “corpse eaters” and “cannibals.” The latter (those who killed and ate living people) were usually shot, and the former were imprisoned. The Soviet Criminal Code did not have a clause on cannibalism, so all sentences were passed under Article 59 (“a special case of banditry”).
There were significantly fewer cannibals than corpse eaters; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers. 64% of the cannibals were women, 44% were unemployed, 90% were illiterate, only 2% had a previous criminal record. Women with young children and no criminal records, deprived of male support, often became cannibals, which gave the courts a reason for some leniency.
Considering the gigantic scale of the famine, the extent of cannibalism in besieged Leningrad can be considered relatively insignificant. No less common were murders over bread cards. In the first six months of 1942, 1,216 of them occurred in Leningrad. Many historians believe that the small number of cases of cannibalism “only emphasized that the majority of Leningraders maintained their cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances.”
Connection with blockaded Leningrad
It was vitally important to establish a route for constant supplies to Leningrad. It passed through the southern part of Lake Ladoga and the land corridor to the city west of Ladoga, which remained unoccupied by the Germans. Transportation across Lake Ladoga was carried out by water in the warm season and by truck on ice in winter. The security of the supply route was ensured by the Ladoga Flotilla, the Leningrad Air Defense Corps and the Road Security Troops. Food supplies were delivered to the village of Osinovets, from where they were transported 45 km to a small commuter railway to Leningrad. This route was also used to evacuate civilians from the besieged city.
In the chaos of the first war winter, no evacuation plan was developed. Until the ice road across Lake Ladoga opened on November 20, 1941, Leningrad was completely isolated.
The path along Ladoga was called the “Road of Life”. She was very dangerous. Cars often got stuck in the snow and fell through the ice, on which the Germans dropped bombs. Due to the large number of people who died in winter, this route was also called the “Road of Death.” However, it made it possible to bring in ammunition and food and pick up civilians and wounded soldiers from the city.
...The road was laid in terrible conditions - among snow storms, under an incessant barrage of German shells and bombs. When construction was finally completed, traffic along it also proved to be fraught with great risk. Trucks fell into huge cracks that suddenly appeared in the ice. To avoid such cracks, the trucks drove with their headlights on, which made them perfect targets for German planes... The trucks skidded, collided with each other, and the engines froze at temperatures below 20 °C. Along its entire length, the Road of Life was littered with broken down cars abandoned right on the ice of the lake. During the first crossing alone in early December, over 150 trucks were lost.
By the end of December 1941, 700 tons of food and fuel were delivered to Leningrad daily along the Road of Life. This was not enough, but thin ice forced the trucks to be loaded only halfway. By the end of January, the lake had frozen almost a full meter, allowing the daily supply volume to increase to 2,000 tons. And this was still not enough, but the Road of Life gave Leningraders the most important thing - hope. Vera Inber in her diary on January 13, 1942 wrote about the Road of Life like this: “... maybe our salvation will begin from here.” Truck drivers, loaders, mechanics, and orderlies worked around the clock. They went to rest only when they were already collapsing from fatigue. By March, the city received so much food that it became possible to create a small reserve.
Plans to resume the evacuation of civilians were initially rejected by Stalin, who feared unfavorable political repercussions, but he eventually gave permission for the most defenseless to leave the city along the Road of Life. By April, 5,000 people were transported from Leningrad every day...
The evacuation process itself was a great shock. The thirty-kilometer journey across the ice of the lake took up to twelve hours in an unheated truck bed, covered only with a tarpaulin. There were so many people packed that people had to grab the sides; mothers often held their children in their arms. For these unfortunate evacuees, the Road of Life became the “Road of Death.” One eyewitness tells how a mother, exhausted after several hours of riding in the back of a snowstorm, dropped her bundled child. The driver could not stop the truck on the ice, and the child was left to die from the cold... If the car broke down, as often happened, those who were traveling in it had to wait for several hours on the ice, in the cold, under the snow, under bullets and bombs from German planes . The trucks drove in convoys, but they could not stop if one of them broke down or fell through the ice. One woman watched in horror as the car in front fell through the ice. Her two children were traveling in it.
The spring of 1942 brought a thaw, which made further use of the ice Road of Life impossible. Warming has brought about a new scourge: disease. Piles of corpses and mountains of excrement, which had until now remained frozen, began to decompose with the advent of warmth. Due to the lack of normal water supply and sewerage, dysentery, smallpox and typhus quickly spread in the city, affecting already weakened people...
It seemed that the spread of epidemics would finally wipe out the population of Leningrad, which had already been considerably thinned out, but in March 1942 people gathered and together began a grandiose operation to clear the city. Weakened by malnutrition, Leningraders made superhuman efforts... Since they had to use tools hastily made from scrap materials, the work progressed very slowly, however... the work of cleaning the city, which ended in victory, marked the beginning of a collective spiritual awakening.
The coming spring brought a new source of food - pine needles and oak bark. These plant components provided people with the vitamins they needed, protecting them from scurvy and epidemics. By mid-April, the ice on Lake Ladoga had become too thin to withstand the Road of Life, but rations still remained significantly better than they were in the darkest days of December and January, not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively: the bread now tasted like real bread. To everyone’s joy, the first grass appeared and vegetable gardens were planted everywhere...
April 15, 1942... the power supply generators, which had been inactive for so long, were repaired and, as a result, the tram lines began to function again.
One nurse describes how the sick and wounded, who were near death, crawled to the windows of the hospital to see with their own eyes the trams rushing past, which had not run for so long... People began to trust each other again, they washed themselves, changed their clothes, women began to use cosmetics, again theaters and museums opened.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
Death of the Second Shock Army near Leningrad
In the winter of 1941-1942, after repelling the Nazis from near Moscow, Stalin gave the order to go on the offensive along the entire front. About this broad, but failed offensive (which included the famous, disastrous for Zhukov Rzhev meat grinder) was little reported in previous Soviet textbooks. During it, an attempt was made to break the blockade of Leningrad. The hastily formed Second Shock Army was rushed towards the city. The Nazis cut it off. In March 1942, the deputy commander of the Volkhov Front (Meretskova), a famous fighter against communism, general, was sent to command the army already in the “bag”. Andrey Vlasov. A. I. Solzhenitsyn reports in “The Gulag Archipelago”:
...The last winter routes were still holding out, but Stalin forbade withdrawal; on the contrary, he drove the dangerously deepened army to advance further - through the transported swampy terrain, without food, without weapons, without air support. After two months of starvation and the drying out of the army (the soldiers from there later told me in the Butyrka cells that they trimmed the hooves of dead, rotting horses, cooked the shavings and ate them), the German concentric offensive against the encircled army began on May 14, 1942 (and in the air, of course, only German planes ). And only then, in mockery, was Stalin’s permission to return beyond the Volkhov received. And then there were these hopeless attempts to break through! - until the beginning of July.
The Second Shock Army was lost almost entirely. Captured, Vlasov ended up in Vinnitsa in a special camp for senior captured officers, which was formed by Count Stauffenberg, a future conspirator against Hitler. There, from the Soviet commanders who deservedly hated Stalin, with the help of German military circles in opposition to the Fuhrer, a Russian Liberation Army.
Performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad
...However, the event that was destined to make the greatest contribution to the spiritual revival of Leningrad was still ahead. This event proved to the whole country and the whole world that Leningraders experienced the most scary times and their beloved city will live. This miracle was created by a native Leningrader who loved his city and was a great composer.
On September 17, 1942, Dmitri Shostakovich, speaking on the radio, said: “An hour ago I finished the score of the second part of my new large symphonic work.” This work was the Seventh Symphony, later called the Leningrad Symphony.
Evacuated to Kuibyshev (now Samara)... Shostakovich continued to work hard on the symphony... The premiere of this symphony, dedicated to “our fight against fascism, our upcoming victory and my native Leningrad,” took place in Kuibyshev on March 5, 1942...
...The most prominent conductors began to argue for the right to perform this work. It was first performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Henry Wood, and on July 19 it was performed in New York, conducted by Arthur Toscanini...
Then it was decided to perform the Seventh Symphony in Leningrad itself. According to Zhdanov, this was supposed to raise the morale of the city... The main orchestra of Leningrad, the Leningrad Philharmonic, was evacuated, but the orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee remained in the city. Its conductor, forty-two-year-old Carl Eliasberg, was tasked with gathering the musicians. But out of one hundred orchestra members, only fourteen people remained in the city, the rest were drafted into the army, killed or died of hunger... A call was spread throughout the troops: all those who knew how to play any musical instrument had to report to their superiors... Knowing how weakened by the musicians who gathered in March 1942 for the first rehearsal, Eliasberg understood the difficult task facing him. “Dear friends,” he said, “we are weak, but we must force ourselves to start working.” And this work was difficult: despite the additional rations, many musicians, primarily wind players, lost consciousness from the stress that playing their instruments required... Only once during all the rehearsals did the orchestra have enough strength to perform the entire symphony - three days before public speaking.
The concert was scheduled for August 9, 1942 - several months earlier, the Nazis had chosen this date for a magnificent celebration at the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad for the expected capture of the city. Invitations were even printed and remained unsent.
The Philharmonic Concert Hall was filled to capacity. People came to best clothes... The musicians, despite the warm August weather, were wearing coats and gloves with cut off fingers - the starving body was constantly experiencing the cold. All over the city, people gathered in the streets near loudspeakers. Lieutenant General Leonid Govorov, who had headed the defense of Leningrad since April 1942, ordered a barrage of artillery shells to be rained down on German positions several hours before the concert to ensure silence at least for the duration of the symphony. The loudspeakers turned on at full power were directed towards the Germans - the city wanted the enemy to listen too.
“The very performance of the Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad,” the announcer announced, “is evidence of the ineradicable patriotic spirit of Leningraders, their perseverance, their faith in victory. Listen, comrades! And the city listened. The Germans who approached him listened. The whole world listened...
Many years after the war, Eliasberg met German soldiers sitting in trenches on the outskirts of the city. They told the conductor that when they heard the music, they cried:
Then, on August 9, 1942, we realized that we would lose the war. We have felt your strength, capable of overcoming hunger, fear and even death. “Who are we shooting at? – we asked ourselves. “We will never be able to take Leningrad because its people are so selfless.”
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
Offensive at Sinyavino
A few days later, the Soviet offensive began at Sinyavino. It was an attempt to break the blockade of the city by the beginning of autumn. The Volkhov and Leningrad fronts were given the task of uniting. At the same time, the Germans, having brought up the troops freed after capture of Sevastopol, were preparing for an offensive (Operation Northern Light) with the goal of capturing Leningrad. Neither side knew of the other's plans until the fighting began.
The offensive at Sinyavino was several weeks ahead of the Northern Light. It was launched on August 27, 1942 (the Leningrad Front opened small attacks on the 19th). Successful start The operation forced the Germans to redirect troops intended for the “Northern Light” to counterattack. In this counter-offensive they were used for the first time (and with rather weak results) Tiger tanks. Units of the 2nd Shock Army were surrounded and destroyed, and the Soviet offensive stopped. However, German troops also had to abandon the attack on Leningrad.
Operation Spark
On the morning of January 12, 1943, Soviet troops launched Operation Iskra - a powerful offensive of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. After stubborn fighting, Red Army units overcame German fortifications south of Lake Ladoga. On January 18, 1943, the 372nd Rifle Division of the Volkhov Front met with the troops of the 123rd Rifle Brigade of the Leningrad Front, opening a land corridor of 10 - 12 km, which gave some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad.
...January 12, 1943... Soviet troops under the command of Govorov launched Operation Iskra. A two-hour artillery bombardment fell on the German positions, after which masses of infantry, covered from the air by aircraft, moved across the ice of the frozen Neva. They were followed by tanks crossing the river on special wooden platforms. Three days later, the second wave of the offensive crossed the frozen Lake Ladoga from the east, hitting the Germans in Shlisselburg... The next day, the Red Army liberated Shlisselburg, and on January 18 at 23.00 a message was broadcast on the radio: “The blockade of Leningrad has been broken!” That evening there was a general celebration in the city.
Yes, the blockade was broken, but Leningrad was still under siege. Under continuous enemy fire, the Russians built a 35-kilometer-long railway line to bring food into the city. The first train, having eluded German bombers, arrived in Leningrad on February 6, 1943. It brought flour, meat, cigarettes and vodka.
A second railway line, completed in May, made it possible to deliver even larger quantities of food while simultaneously evacuating civilians. By September, supply by rail had become so efficient that there was no longer any need to use the route across Lake Ladoga... Rations increased significantly... The Germans continued their artillery bombardment of Leningrad, causing significant losses. But the city was returning to life, and food and fuel were, if not in abundance, then sufficient... The city was still in a state of siege, but no longer shuddered in its death throes.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
Lifting the blockade of Leningrad
The blockade lasted until January 27, 1944, when the Soviet "Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive" of the Leningrad, Volkhov, 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts expelled German troops from the southern outskirts of the city. The Baltic Fleet provided 30% of the air power for the final blow to the enemy.
...On January 15, 1944, the most powerful artillery shelling of the war began - half a million shells rained down on German positions in just an hour and a half, after which Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive. One by one, cities that had been in German hands for so long were liberated, and German troops, under pressure from twice the Red Army in numbers, rolled back uncontrollably. It took twelve days, and at eight o’clock in the evening on January 27, 1944, Govorov was finally able to report: “The city of Leningrad has been completely liberated!”
That evening, shells exploded in the night sky over the city - but it was not German artillery, but a festive salute from 324 guns!
It lasted 872 days, or 29 months, and finally this moment came - the siege of Leningrad ended. It took another five weeks to completely drive the Germans out of the Leningrad region...
In the autumn of 1944, Leningraders silently looked at the columns of German prisoners of war who entered the city to restore what they themselves had destroyed. Looking at them, Leningraders felt neither joy, nor anger, nor thirst for revenge: it was a process of purification, they just needed to look into the eyes of those who had caused them unbearable suffering for so long.
(R. Colley. “Siege of Leningrad.”)
In the summer of 1944, Finnish troops were pushed back beyond the Vyborg Bay and the Vuoksa River.
Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad
Even during the blockade itself, the city authorities collected and showed to the public military artifacts - like the German plane that was shot down and fell to the ground in the Tauride Garden. Such objects were assembled in a specially designated building (in Salt Town). The exhibition soon turned into a full-scale Museum of the Defense of Leningrad (now the State memorial museum defense and blockade of Leningrad). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Stalin exterminated many Leningrad leaders in the so-called Leningrad case. This happened before the war, after murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934, and now another generation of local government and party functionaries was destroyed for allegedly publicly overestimating the importance of the city as an independent fighting unit and their own role in defeating the enemy. Their brainchild, the Leningrad Defense Museum, was destroyed, and many valuable exhibits were destroyed.
The museum was revived in the late 1980s with the then wave of “glasnost”, when new shocking facts were published showing the heroism of the city during the war. The exhibition opened in its former building, but has not yet been restored to its original size and area. Most of its former premises had already been transferred to various military and government institutions. Plans to build a new modern museum building were put on hold due to the financial crisis, but the current Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu He still promised to expand the museum.
Green Belt of Glory and monuments in memory of the blockade
Commemoration of the siege received a second wind in the 1960s. Leningrad artists dedicated their works to the Victory and the memory of the war, which they themselves witnessed. The leading local poet and war participant, Mikhail Dudin, proposed erecting a ring of monuments on the battlefields of the most difficult period of the siege and connecting them with green spaces around the entire city. This was the beginning of the Green Belt of Glory.
On October 29, 1966, at the 40th km of the Road of Life, on the shore of Lake Ladoga near the village of Kokorevo, the “Broken Ring” monument was erected. Designed by Konstantin Simun, it was dedicated both to those who escaped through frozen Ladoga and to those who died during the siege.
On May 9, 1975, a monument to the heroic defenders of the city was erected on Victory Square in Leningrad. This monument is a huge bronze ring with a gap that marks the spot where Soviet troops eventually broke through the German encirclement. In the center, a Russian mother cradles her dying soldier son. The inscription on the monument reads: “900 days and 900 nights.” The exhibition below the monument contains visual evidence of this period.
The siege of the city on the Neva began on September 8, 1941, when the Nazis surrounded our northern capital and closed the ring. The combined forces of German, Spanish (“Blue Division”) and Finnish troops acted on the enemy’s side.
Hitler's plan was this: Leningrad should not only be captured, but also completely destroyed. Firstly, the accession to this territory made it possible for Germany to rule throughout Baltic Sea. Naturally, if we were successful, our fleet would be destroyed. Secondly, the fall of Leningrad was of great importance for strengthening the spirit of the German army and for attempting to exert moral pressure on the entire population of the Soviet Union: Leningrad has always been the second capital, therefore, if it fell into the hands of the enemy, the spiritual strength of Soviet soldiers could be broken. After Leningrad, the task of dealing with Moscow became much easier.
Leningrad was completely unprepared for the siege. There were no special food supplies, since the city was supplied with imported products. In addition, the Nazis constantly carried out shelling, trying to get into the warehouses where flour and sugar were stored.
A very difficult life began for Leningraders: already in the middle of autumn, a terrible famine came to the city. The ration for workers was constantly decreasing, as a result it reached the figure of 250 g of bread per day. Children and dependents were entitled to even less - 125 g each. What kind of bread was this! Cake, sawdust, acorns and dust left over from flour reserves... No more food.
Of course, people died en masse on such rations. It has become absolutely normal for a person to walk slowly down the street and suddenly collapse from exhaustion. Those passing by pronounced him dead. The corpses were removed on their own by those who could still somehow move. More than 630 thousand people died from hunger and its consequences. Many died in the bombings.
It’s amazing and incomprehensible for our generation: on such a diet, people managed not only to survive, but also to work. Factories were working, producing ammunition. Schools and hospitals operated, theaters did not close. Children and teenagers worked equally with adults and learned to extinguish dropped bombs. Many lives were saved by 10-12 year old boys and girls.
The only means of communication with " big world“The “Road of Life” remained - a thin artery through which “blood” came to the city: food, medicine. Everyone who lost their strength was evacuated along the same road.
Several times our troops tried to break the blockade. Back in 1941, attempts were made that were not successful, since the enemy forces were immeasurably greater. And then January 18, 1943 - the blockade ring was broken! The city perked up. The residents seemed to have new strength. On January 27, 1944, the blockade was finally lifted.
To survive what the residents of besieged Leningrad had to endure is a real feat. We all need to remember this. And tell it to future generations. People are obliged to preserve the eternal memory of that terrible war with all its horrors - so that it never happens again.
Siege of Leningrad brief information.
On January 18, 1943, the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts broke the blockade of Leningrad. The largest political, economic and cultural center of the USSR, after a difficult 16-month struggle, again found land connections with the country.
Start of the offensive
On the morning of January 12, 1943, troops from two fronts simultaneously launched an offensive. Pre night soviet aviation dealt a powerful blow to Wehrmacht positions in the breakthrough zone, as well as to airfields, control posts, communications and railway junctions in the enemy rear. Tons of metal fell on the Germans, destroying their manpower, destroying defensive structures and suppressing morale. At 9 o'clock 30 minutes later, artillery preparation began: in the offensive zone of the 2nd Shock Army it lasted 1 hour 45 minutes, and in the sector of the 67th Army - 2 hours 20 minutes. 40 minutes before the infantry and armored vehicles began to move, attack aircraft, in groups of 6-8 aircraft, struck pre-reconnaissance artillery and mortar positions, strongholds and communications centers.
At 11 o'clock 50 min. under the cover of the “wall of fire” and the fire of the 16th fortified area, the divisions of the first echelon of the 67th Army went on the attack. Each of the four divisions - the 45th Guards, 268th, 136th, 86th Rifle Divisions - was reinforced by several artillery and mortar regiments, an anti-tank artillery regiment and one or two engineering battalions. In addition, the offensive was supported by 147 light tanks and armored cars, the weight of which could be supported by the ice. The particular difficulty of the operation was that the Wehrmacht’s defensive positions were along the steep, icy left river bank, which was higher than the right. The German fire weapons were arranged in tiers and covered all approaches to the shore with multi-layered fire. In order to break through to the other bank, it was necessary to reliably suppress German firing points, especially in the first line. At the same time, we had to be careful not to damage the ice on the left bank.
The Baltic Fleet destroyer Opytny is shelling enemy positions in the Nevsky Forest Park area. January 1943
Soviet soldiers carry boats to cross the Neva River
Scouts of the Leningrad Front during the battle near the wire fences
The assault groups were the first to make their way to the other side of the Neva. Their fighters selflessly made passages in the barriers. Behind them rifle and tank units crossed the river. After a fierce battle, the enemy’s defenses were broken north of the 2nd Gorodok (268th Rifle Division and 86th Separate Tank Battalion) and in the Maryino area (136th Division and formations of the 61st Tank Brigade). By the end of the day, Soviet troops broke the resistance of the 170th German Infantry Division between the 2nd Gorodok and Shlisselburg. The 67th Army captured a bridgehead between the 2nd Gorodok and Shlisselburg, and construction began on a crossing for medium and heavy tanks and heavy artillery (completed on January 14). On the flanks the situation was more difficult: on the right wing, the 45th Guards Rifle Division in the “Neva patch” area was able to capture only the first line of German fortifications; on the left wing, the 86th Rifle Division was unable to cross the Neva at Shlisselburg (it was transferred to a bridgehead in the Maryino area to attack Shlisselburg from the south).
In the offensive zone of the 2nd shock and 8th armies, the offensive developed with great difficulty. Aviation and artillery were unable to suppress the main enemy firing points, and the swamps were impassable even in winter. The most fierce battles took place at the points of Lipka, Workers' Village No. 8 and Gontovaya Lipka; these strong points were located on the flanks of the breaking through forces and even when completely surrounded they continued the battle. On the right flank and in the center - the 128th, 372nd and 256th rifle divisions were able to break through the defenses of the 227th Infantry Division by the end of the day and advance 2-3 km. The strongholds of Lipka and Workers' Village No. 8 could not be taken that day. On the left flank, only the 327th Infantry Division, which occupied most of the fortifications in the Kruglaya Grove, was able to achieve some success. The attacks of the 376th Division and the forces of the 8th Army were unsuccessful.
The German command, already on the first day of the battle, was forced to bring operational reserves into battle: formations of the 96th Infantry Division and the 5th Mountain Division were sent to help the 170th Division, two regiments of the 61st Infantry Division (Major General Hüner’s group) were introduced into the center of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge.
On the morning of January 13, the offensive continued. The Soviet command, in order to finally turn the situation in its favor, began to introduce the second echelon of the advancing armies into battle. However, the Germans, relying on strongholds and a developed defense system, offered stubborn resistance and constantly counterattacked, trying to restore their lost position. The fighting became protracted and fierce.
In the offensive zone of the 67th Army on the left flank, the 86th Infantry Division and a battalion of armored vehicles, supported from the north by the 34th Ski Brigade and the 55th Infantry Brigade (on the ice of the lake), stormed the approaches to Shlisselburg for several days. By the evening of the 15th, the Red Army soldiers reached the outskirts of the city, the German troops in Shlisselburg found themselves in a critical situation, but continued to fight stubbornly.
Soviet soldiers in battle on the outskirts of Shlisselburg
Soldiers of the 67th Army of the Leningrad Front move through the territory of the Shlisselburg Fortress
In the center, the 136th Infantry Division and the 61st Tank Brigade developed an offensive in the direction of Workers' Village No. 5. To secure the left flank of the division, the 123rd Infantry Brigade was brought into the battle; it was supposed to advance in the direction of Workers' Village No. 3. Then, to secure the right flank, the 123rd Infantry Division and a tank brigade were brought into battle; they advanced in the direction of Rabochy Settlement No. 6, Sinyavino. After several days of fighting, the 123rd Infantry Brigade captured Workers' Village No. 3 and reached the outskirts of villages No. 1 and No. 2. The 136th Division made its way to Workers' Village No. 5, but could not immediately take it.
On the right wing of the 67th Army, attacks by the 45th Guards and 268th Rifle Divisions were still unsuccessful. The Air Force and artillery were unable to eliminate the firing points in the 1st, 2nd Gorodoki and 8th State District Power Plant. In addition, German troops received reinforcements - formations of the 96th Infantry and 5th Mountain Rifle Divisions. The Germans even launched fierce counterattacks, using the 502nd heavy tank battalion, which was armed with heavy tanks"Tiger I". Soviet troops, despite the introduction of second echelon troops into battle - the 13th Infantry Division, 102nd and 142nd Infantry Brigades, were unable to turn the situation in this sector in their favor.
In the zone of the 2nd Shock Army, the offensive continued to develop more slowly than that of the 67th Army. German troops, relying on strong points - Workers' settlements No. 7 and No. 8, Lipka, continued to offer stubborn resistance. On January 13, despite the introduction of part of the second echelon forces into the battle, the troops of the 2nd Shock Army did not achieve serious success in any direction. In the following days, the army command tried to expand the breakthrough in the southern sector from the Kruglaya grove to Gaitolovo, but without visible results. The 256th Infantry Division was able to achieve the greatest success in this direction; on January 14, it occupied Workers' Village No. 7, Podgornaya station and reached the approaches to Sinyavino. On the right wing, the 12th Ski Brigade was sent to help the 128th Division; it was supposed to go across the ice of Lake Ladoga to the rear of the Lipka stronghold.
On January 15, in the center of the offensive zone, the 372nd Infantry Division was finally able to take Workers' Villages No. 8 and No. 4, and on the 17th they reached village No. 1. By this day, the 18th Infantry Division and the 98th Tank Brigade of the 2nd UA had already been there for several days fought a stubborn battle on the outskirts of Workers' Village No. 5. It was attacked from the west by units of the 67th Army. The moment of unification of the two armies was close.
By January 18, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts were fighting a fierce battle in the area of Workers' Village No. 5, and they were separated by only a few kilometers. The German command, realizing that there was no longer any need to hold the encircled strong points, gave the order to the garrisons of Shlisselburg and Lipka to make their way to Sinyavino. To facilitate the breakthrough, the forces defending Workers' Villages No. 1 and No. 5 (Hüner's group) had to hold out as long as possible. In addition, a counterattack was organized from the area of Workers' Village No. 5 against the 136th Infantry Division and the 61st Separate Tank Brigade in order to overturn it and facilitate the breakthrough of the encircled troops. However, the attack was repelled, up to 600 Germans were destroyed, and up to 500 people were taken prisoner. Soviet soldiers, pursuing the enemy, broke into the village, where at approximately 12 o'clock in the afternoon the troops of the 2nd shock and 67th armies united. The troops of the two armies also met in the area of Workers' Village No. 1 - these were the 123rd separate rifle brigade of the Leningrad Front, led by the deputy commander for political affairs, Major Melkonyan, and the 372nd rifle division of the Volkhov Front, led by the chief of the 1st division of the division headquarters Major Melnikov. On the same day, Shlisselburg was completely cleared of Germans, and at the end of the day the southern coast of Lake Ladoga was liberated from the enemy, and its scattered groups were destroyed or captured. Lipki was also liberated.
“I saw,” recalled G.K. Zhukov, - with what joy the soldiers of the fronts that broke the blockade rushed towards each other. Not paying attention to the enemy’s artillery shelling from the Sinyavinsky Heights, the soldiers hugged each other tightly like brothers. It was truly a hard-won joy!” Thus, on January 18, 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken.
V. Serov, I. Serebryany, A. Kazantsev. Breaking the blockade of Leningrad. 1943
However, it could not be said that the situation had completely stabilized. The common front of the 67th and 2nd shock armies was not yet dense enough, so part of the encircled German troops (about 8 thousand people), abandoning heavy weapons and dispersing, broke through Workers' Village No. 5 in a southerly direction and by January 20 reached to Sinyavino. The German command withdrew the retreating troops to previously prepared positions along the line of Towns No. 1 and No. 2 - Workers' Village No. 6 - Sinyavino - the western part of the Kruglaya grove. The SS Police Division, the 1st Infantry Division and units of the 5th Mountain Division were transferred there in advance. Later, the command of the 18th German Army reinforced this direction with units of the 28th Jaeger, 11th, 21st and 212th Infantry Divisions. The command of the 67th Army and the 2nd Shock Army did not exclude the possibility of the enemy launching a counter-offensive in order to restore lost positions. Therefore, the troops of the two armies stopped offensive operations and began to consolidate on the achieved lines.
On January 18, as soon as Moscow received news of the breaking of the blockade, the State Defense Committee decided to accelerate the construction of a railway line on the liberated strip of land, which was supposed to connect Leningrad with the Volkhov railway junction. The railway from Polyana station to Shlisselburg was supposed to be built in 18 days. At the same time, a temporary railway bridge was built across the Neva. The railway line was called the Victory Road. Already on the morning of February 7, Leningraders greeted with great joy the first railway train that arrived with Mainland and delivered 800 tons. butter. In addition, automobile traffic began to function along the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. The Road of Life continued to operate. Two weeks later, food supply standards established for the country's largest industrial centers began to apply in Leningrad: workers began to receive 700-600 grams of bread per day, employees - 500, children and dependents - 400 grams. The supply standards for other types of food have increased.
True, Victory Road operated in the most difficult conditions. German artillery shot right through the narrow corridor liberated by Soviet troops, since the path passed 4-5 km from the front line. The trains had to be driven under bombing and artillery fire. It happened that fragments hit drivers, stokers, and conductors. Track repairs were often done with improvised means. With the onset of summer, the lineups, against all odds existing rules, moved along the hub in the water. As a result of shelling and bombing, railway communications were often disrupted. The main cargo flows still went along the Road of Life through Ladoga. In addition, there was a threat that the Germans would be able to restore the situation.
Thus, the largest political, economic and cultural center of the USSR, after a difficult 16-month struggle, again found land connections with the country. The city's supply of food and essential goods was significantly improved, and industrial enterprises began to receive more raw materials and fuel. Already in February 1943, electricity production in Leningrad increased sharply, and weapons production increased noticeably. The restoration of communications made it possible to continuously strengthen the troops of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Fleet with reinforcements, weapons and ammunition. This improved the strategic position of the Soviet troops operating in the northwestern direction.
Meeting of soldiers of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts at Workers' Village No. 1 during the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad
Meeting of soldiers of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts near Workers' Village No. 5 during the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad
After the troops of the 67th and 2nd Shock Army formed a common front and gained a foothold on new lines, it was decided to continue the operation and reach the Mustolovo-Mikhailovsky line (along the Moika River), and then capture the Kirov Railway. On January 20, Zhukov reported to Stalin the plan for the Mginsk operation, prepared jointly with Voroshilov, Meretskov and Govorov.
However, the German command had already managed to prepare well for a possible Soviet offensive. The pre-prepared defensive line was defended by 9 divisions, significantly reinforced by artillery and aviation. The enemy transferred the 11th and 21st infantry divisions to Sinyavino, exposing the rest of the front to the limit: from Novgorod to Pogost, near Leningrad and Oranienbaum, Lindemann was left with 14 infantry divisions. But the risk was worth it. In addition, the advancing Soviet armies were deprived of maneuver, and they had to attack enemy positions head-on. The formations of the Soviet armies were already severely exhausted and bleeding from previous brutal battles for the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge. It was difficult to count on success in such conditions.
On January 20, after artillery preparation, the armies went on the offensive. The 67th Army, with the forces of the 46th, 138th Infantry Divisions and the 152nd Tank Brigade, struck southeast of the 1st and 2nd Gorodki. The army was supposed to capture Mustolovo and bypass Sinyavino from the west. The 142nd Marine Brigade and the 123rd Rifle Brigade advanced on Sinyavino. The 123rd Rifle Division, 102nd Rifle, 220th Tank Brigade had the task of breaking enemy resistance in the area of the 1st and 2nd Gorodki and reaching Arbuzovo. But Soviet troops met powerful resistance and were unable to complete their tasks. The successes were insignificant. Front Commander Govorov decided to continue the attacks and allocated 4 rifle divisions, 2 rifle and 1 tank brigades from the front reserve. On January 25, the troops went on the offensive again, but, despite the introduction of reinforcements into the battle, they failed to break through the German defenses. Stubborn fighting continued until the end of January, but the 67th Army was unable to break the German lines.
Events developed in a similar way in the sector of the 2nd Shock Army. The troops were forced to advance through swampy terrain, which deprived them of adequate artillery and tank support. German troops, relying on strong positions, offered fierce resistance. On January 25, the 2nd Shock Army was able to capture Workers' Village No. 6. Until the end of the month, army units fought heavy battles for the Sinyavino Heights, part of the Krugloya Grove and the Kvadratnaya Grove in the area of Workers' Village No. 6. On January 31, the 80th Rifle Division was even able to occupy Sinyavino , but German troops knocked it out with a strong counterattack. In other sectors the army did not have much success.
By the end of the month, it became clear that the offensive had failed and the plan for the liberation of the Neva and the Kirov railway had not yet been implemented. The plan needed a lot of adjustment; the German positions on the line: 1st and 2nd Gorodkov - Sinyavino - Gaitolovo turned out to be too strong. To exclude possible attempts by the enemy to restore the blockade, the troops of the 67th and 2nd Shock Armies on January 30 went over to the defensive at the line north and east of the 2nd Gorodok, south of Rabochiy Poselok No. 6 and north of Sinyavino, west of Gontovaya Lipka and east of Gaitolovo. The troops of the 67th Army continued to hold a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva in the area of Moscow Dubrovka. The Soviet command begins to prepare a new operation, which will be carried out in February 1943.
Message from the Sovinformburo about breaking the siege of Leningrad
Results of the operation
Soviet troops created a “corridor” along the shore of Lake Ladoga, 8–11 km wide, and broke through the long enemy blockade that was strangling Leningrad. The event that everyone has been waiting for so long has happened soviet people. A land connection appeared between the second capital of the USSR and the mainland. The military-strategic plans of the German military-political leadership regarding Leningrad were thwarted - the city was supposed to be “cleared” of its inhabitants through a long blockade and famine. The possibility of a direct connection between German and Finnish troops east of Leningrad was thwarted. The Leningrad and Volkhov fronts received direct communications, which increased their combat capabilities and significantly improved the strategic position of the Red Army in the northwestern direction. Thus, Operation Iskra became turning point in the battle for Leningrad, from that moment the strategic initiative completely passed to the Soviet troops. The threat of storming the city on the Neva was ruled out.
It should be noted that breaking the blockade of Leningrad was a serious blow to the prestige of the Third Reich in the world. It is not for nothing that a military observer for the British agency Reuters noted that “the breakthrough of the German fortified line south of Lake Ladoga is the same blow to the prestige of A. Hitler as the crushing defeat of German troops at Stalingrad.”
American President F. Roosevelt, on behalf of his people, sent a special letter to Leningrad “... in memory of his valiant warriors and his faithful men, women and children who, isolated by the invader from the rest of their people and despite constant bombing and untold suffering from cold, hunger and disease, successfully defended their beloved city during the critical period from September 8, 1941 to January 18, 1943 and thereby symbolized the undaunted spirit of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all the peoples of the world resisting the forces of aggression.”
Soviet soldiers in this battle showed increased military skill, defeating the troops of the 18th German Army. For courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazis, 25 soldiers were awarded high rank Hero of the Soviet Union, about 22 thousand soldiers and commanders were awarded orders and medals. Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, in an order dated January 25, 1943, thanked the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts for the successful military operations to break the blockade of Leningrad and congratulated them on their victory over the enemy. For the courage and heroism of the personnel, the 136th (commander Major General N.P. Simonyak) and 327th (commander Colonel N.A. Polyakov) rifle divisions were transformed into the 63rd and 64th Guards Rifle Divisions, respectively. The 61st Tank Brigade (commanded by Colonel V.V. Khrustitsky) was reorganized into the 30th Guards Tank Brigade, and the 122nd Tank Brigade was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The losses speak well of the difficult conditions in which the operation took place and the strength of the German defense on this section of the front. During the period January 12-30 (Operation Iskra), Soviet troops lost 115,082 people (of which 33,940 were irretrievable losses). The losses of the Leningrad Front were 41,264 people (12,320 dead), and those of the Volkhov Front were 73,818 people (21,620 irrevocably). During the same period, 41 tanks (according to other sources, more than 200), 417 guns and mortars and 41 aircraft were lost. The Germans report the destruction of 847 tanks and 693 aircraft (for the period January 12 - April 4). Soviet sources report that during the period January 12–30, the Germans lost more than 20 thousand people killed, wounded and prisoners. Soviet troops 7 enemy divisions.
At the same time, Soviet troops were unable to complete the operation victoriously. Army Group North was still a serious adversary, and the German command promptly responded to the loss of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavino salient. The Soviet strike forces were weakened by fierce battles for the heavily fortified area and were unable to break through the new German defensive line. The defeat of the Mginsk-Sinyavinsk German group had to be postponed until February 1943. Leningrad, after breaking the blockade, was under siege for another year. The city on the Neva was completely liberated from the German blockade only in January 1944 during Operation January Thunder.
Monument “Broken Ring” of the Green Belt of Glory of the Defenders of Leningrad. Authors of the memorial: the author of the idea of the monument, sculptor K.M. Simun, architect V.G. Filippov, design engineer I.A. Rybin. Opened October 29, 1966
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