:ResultSoviet victory. Siege lifted by Soviet forcesTerritorialchangesAxis forces are repelled 60–100 km away from Leningrad.BelligerentsCommanders and leadersStrengthInitial: 725,000Initial: 930,000Casualties and lossesArmy Group North: 1941: 85,371 total casualties1942: 267,327 total casualties1943: 205,937 total casualties1944: 21,350 total casualtiesTotal: 579,985 casualtiesNorthern Front:1,017,881 killed, captured or missing2,418,185 wounded and sickTotal: 3,436,066 casualtiesSoviet Civilians:642,000 during the siege, 400,000 at evacuations. Contents.Background Leningrad's capture was one of three strategic goals in the German and the main target of Army Group North. The strategy was motivated by 's political status as the former capital of and the symbolic capital of the, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet, and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories. By 1939, the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output.It has been reported that was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had invitations printed to the victory celebrations to be held in the city's.Although various theories have been put forward about Germany's plans for Leningrad, including renaming the city Adolfsburg (as claimed by Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski) and making it the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich in, it is clear Hitler's intention was to utterly destroy the city and its population.
According to a directive sent to Army Group North on 29 September, 'After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban centre. Following the city's encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, we can have no interest in maintaining even a part of this very large urban population.'
Hitler's ultimate plan was to raze Leningrad to the ground and give areas north of the to the. Preparations German plans.
For Pit People (OST) by Patric Catani, released 09 March 2018 1. Pit People - It's Us! Goblinbling 3. Flamingo Cartel 4. Here We Come (Freeware Level R3dc0at5) 5. The Cannibals Attack (Meltonisia) 6. No Gravity 7. Chog - Level 1 8. Chog - Level 2 9. Chog - Level 3 10.
With in September 1941under Field Marshal advanced to Leningrad, its primary objective. Von Leeb's plan called for capturing the city on the move, but due to Hitler's recall of 4th Panzer Group (persuaded by his Chief of General Staff, to transfer this south to participate in 's push for Moscow), von Leeb had to lay the city under siege indefinitely after reaching the shores of, while trying to complete the encirclement and reaching the under Marshal waiting at the, east of Leningrad.Finnish military forces were north of Leningrad, while German forces occupied territories to the south.
Both German and Finnish forces had the goal of encircling Leningrad and maintaining the blockade perimeter, thus cutting off all communication with the city and preventing the defenders from receiving any supplies – although Finnish participation in the blockade mainly consisted of recapture of lands lost in the. Thus, it is argued that much of the Finns participation was merely defensive. The Germans planned on lack of food being their chief weapon against the citizens; German scientists had calculated the city would reach starvation after only a few weeks.
Leningrad fortified region. Antiaircraft guns guarding the sky of Leningrad, in front ofOn Friday, 27 June 1941, the Council of Deputies of the Leningrad administration organised 'First response groups' of civilians. In the next days, Leningrad's civilian population was informed of the danger and over a million citizens were mobilised for the construction of. Several lines of defences were built along the city's perimeter to repulse hostile forces approaching from north and south by means of civilian resistance.In the south, the fortified line ran from the mouth of the to, and then through the. Another line of defence passed through to Gatchina, Pulkovo, and Koltushy.
In the north the defensive line against the Finns, the, had been maintained in Leningrad's northern suburbs since the 1930s, and was now returned to service. A total of 306 km (190 mi) of timber barricades, 635 km (395 mi) of wire entanglements, 700 km (430 mi) of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earth-and-timber emplacements and reinforced concrete weapon emplacements and 25,000 km (16,000 mi) of open trenches were constructed or excavated by civilians. Even the guns from the cruiser were removed from the ship to be used to defend Leningrad. Establishment The from took following a swift advance and managed to reach by 16 August. The Soviet defenders fought to the death, despite the German discovery of the Soviet defence plans on an officer's corpse. After the capture of Novgorod, General Hoepner's 4th Panzer Group continued its progress towards Leningrad.
However, the – despite some 350,000 men lagging behind – forced its way to and Pskov after the Soviet troops of the retreated towards Leningrad. On 10 July, both Ostrov and Pskov were captured and the reached and, from where advance toward Leningrad continued from the line. This had the effect of creating siege positions from the to, with the eventual aim of isolating Leningrad from all directions. The Finnish Army was then expected to advance along the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga. Orders of battle.
Map of Army Group North's advance into the USSR in 1941.Coral up to 9 July.Pink up to 1 September.Green up to 5 December. Germany.
I Corps (2 infantry divisions). II Corps (2 infantry divisions). IV Corps (3 infantry divisions)Italy. ( Mezzi d'Assalto) (Italian for '12th Assault Vessel Squadron') ( C.C. Map showing the Axis encirclement of LeningradFinnish intelligence had broken some of the Soviet military codes and read their low-level communications. This was particularly helpful for Hitler, who constantly requested intelligence information about Leningrad. Finland's role in Operation Barbarossa was laid out in Hitler's Directive 21, 'The mass of the Finnish army will have the task, in accordance with the advance made by the northern wing of the German armies, of tying up maximum Russian (sic – Soviet) strength by attacking to the west, or on both sides, of Lake Ladoga'.
The last rail connection to Leningrad was severed on 30 August, when the Germans reached the. On 8 September, the road to the besieged city was severed when the Germans reached Lake Ladoga at, leaving just a corridor of land between Lake Ladoga and Leningrad which remained unoccupied by forces. Bombing on 8 September caused 178 fires.On 21 September, German High Command considered how to destroy Leningrad. Occupying the city was ruled out 'because it would make us responsible for food supply'. The resolution was to lay the city under siege and bombardment, starving its population. 'Early next year we enter the city (if the Finns do it first we do not object), lead those still alive into inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions, and hand the area north of the Neva to the Finns.'
On 7 October, Hitler sent a further directive signed by reminding Army Group North not to accept capitulation. Finnish participation. Two Soviet soldiers, one armed with a, in the trenches of the Leningrad Front on 1 September 1941The (initially the ) was commanded by Marshal.
It included the in the northern sector between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, and the 48th Army in the western sector between the Gulf of Finland and the – position. The Leningrad Fortified Region, the Leningrad garrison, the Baltic Fleet forces, and, and Slutsk– operational groups were also present. Defence of civilian evacuees According to Zhukov, 'Before the war Leningrad had a population of 3,103,000 and 3,385,000 counting the suburbs. As many as 1,743,129, including 414,148 children were evacuated' between 29 June 1941 and 31 March 1943. They were moved to the Volga area, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan.: 439By September 1941, the link with the (commanded by ) was severed and the defensive sectors were held by four armies: in the northern sector, 42nd Army on the western sector, 55th Army on the southern sector, and the 67th Army on the eastern sector. The of the Volkhov Front had the responsibility of maintaining the to the city in coordination with the Ladoga Flotilla. Air cover for the city was provided by the and Baltic Fleet naval aviation units.The defensive operation to protect the 1,400,000 civilian evacuees was part of the Leningrad counter-siege operations under the command of,.
Additional military operations were carried out in coordination with naval forces under the general command of Admiral. The Ladoga Flotilla under the command of V. Baranovsky, S.V.
Zemlyanichenko, P.A. Traynin, and B.V. Khoroshikhin also played a major military role in helping with evacuation of the civilians. Bombardment.
Nurses helping wounded people during a German bombardment on 10 September 1941The first success of the Leningrad air defense took place on the night of June 23. The bomber from the KGr.806 was damaged by the fire of the 15th battery of the 192nd anti-aircraft artillery regiment, and made an. All crew members, including commander, Lieutenant Hans Turmeyer, were captured on the ground.
The commander of the 15th battery, lieutenant, Alexey Pimchenkov was awarded the.By Monday, 8 September, German forces had largely surrounded the city, cutting off all supply routes to Leningrad and its suburbs. Unable to press home their offensive, and facing defences of the city organised by, the Axis armies laid to the city for '900 days and nights'.The air attack of Friday, 19 September was particularly brutal. It was the heaviest air raid Leningrad would suffer during the war, as 276 German bombers hit the city killing 1,000 civilians. Many of those killed were recuperating from battle wounds in hospitals that were hit by German bombs. Six air raids occurred that day.
Five hospitals were damaged in the bombing, as well as the city's largest shopping bazaar. Hundreds of people had run from the street into the store to take shelter from the air raid.Artillery bombardment of Leningrad began in August 1941, increasing in intensity during 1942 with the arrival of new equipment. It was stepped up further during 1943, when several times as many shells and bombs were used as in the year before. Against this, the Soviet Navy aviation made over 100,000 air missions to support their military operations during the siege. German shelling and bombing killed 5,723 and wounded 20,507 civilians in Leningrad during the siege. Supplying the defenders. The diary of, a girl of 11, her notes about starvation and deaths of her sister, then grandmother, then brother, then uncle, then another uncle, then mother.
The last three notes say 'Savichevs died', 'Everyone died' and 'Only Tanya is left.' She died of progressive dystrophy shortly after the siege.
Her diary was used by the prosecution at the.The 872 days of the siege caused extreme famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more (mainly women and children), many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment. Alone in Leningrad holds half a million civilian victims of the siege. Economic destruction and human losses in Leningrad on both sides exceeded those of the, the, or the.
The siege of Leningrad ranks as the, and some historians speak of the siege operations in terms of, as a 'racially motivated starvation policy' that became an integral part of the unprecedented German war of extermination against populations of the Soviet Union generally. Three men burying victims of Leningrad's siege in 1942Civilians in the city suffered from extreme, especially in the winter of 1941–42. From November 1941 to February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 of bread per day, of which 50–60% consisted of and other inedible admixtures.
In conditions of extreme temperatures (down to −30 °C (−22 °F)), and with city transport out of service, even a distance of a few kilometres to a food distribution kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens. Deaths peaked in January–February 1942 at 100,000 per month, mostly from starvation. People often died on the streets, and citizens soon became accustomed to the sight of death. Cannibalism While reports of appeared in the winter of 1941–42, records on the subject were not published until 2004. Most evidence for cannibalism that surfaced before this time was anecdotal. Points out that 'for most people at the time, cannibalism was a matter of second-hand horror stories rather than direct personal experience'.
Indicative of Leningraders' fears at the time, police would often threaten uncooperative suspects with imprisonment in a cell with cannibals. Dimitri Lazarev, a diarist during the worst moments in the Leningrad siege, recalls his daughter and niece reciting a terrifying nursery rhyme adapted from a pre-war song. A walked alongWith a dull lookIn a basket he carried a corpse's arse.I'm having human flesh for lunch,This piece will do!Ugh, hungry sorrow!And for supper, clearlyI'll need a little baby.I'll take the neighbours',Steal him out of his cradle.NKVD files report the first use of human meat as food on 13 December 1941. The report outlines thirteen cases, which range from a mother smothering her eighteen-month-old to feed her three older children to a plumber killing his wife to feed his sons and nieces.By December 1942 the NKVD had arrested 2,105 cannibals – dividing them into two legal categories: corpse-eating ( trupoyedstvo) and person-eating ( lyudoyedstvo). The latter were usually shot while the former were sent to prison.
The Soviet Criminal Code had no provision for cannibalism, so all convictions were carried out under Code Article 59–3, 'special category banditry'. Instances of person-eating were significantly lower than that of corpse-eating; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers. 64% of cannibals were female, 44% were unemployed, 90% were illiterate, 15% were rooted inhabitants, and only 2% had any criminal records. More cases occurred in the outlying districts than in the city itself. Cannibals were often unsupported women with dependent children and no previous convictions, which allowed for a certain level of clemency in legal proceedings.Given the scope of mass starvation, cannibalism was relatively rare. Far more common was murder for ration cards. In the first six months of 1942, Leningrad witnessed 1,216 such murders.
At the same time, Leningrad was experiencing its highest mortality rate, as high as 100,000 people per month. Lisa Kirschenbaum notes that rates 'of cannibalism provided an opportunity for emphasizing that the majority of Leningraders managed to maintain their cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances.' Soviet relief of the siege. Main article:The Sinyavino Offensive was a Soviet attempt to break the blockade of the city in early autumn 1942. The and the armies were to link up with the forces of the Leningrad Front. At the same time the German side was preparing an offensive to capture the city, (Northern Light), using the troops freed up after of.
Neither side was aware of the other's intentions until the battle started. The offensive began on 27 August 1942 with some small-scale attacks by the Leningrad front, pre-empting ' Nordlicht' by a few weeks. The successful start of the operation forced the Germans to redirect troops from the planned ' Nordlicht' to counterattack the Soviet armies. The counteroffensive saw the first deployment of the tank, though with limited success.
After parts of the 2nd Shock Army were encircled and destroyed, the Soviet offensive was halted. However, the German forces also had to abandon their offensive. Operation Iskra. Exultant Leningrad, 1944. The sign on the wall says:The encirclement was broken in the wake of Operation Iskra (Spark), a full-scale offensive conducted by the.
This offensive started in the morning of 12 January 1943. After fierce battles the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the south of Lake Ladoga, and on 18 January 1943, the Volkhov Front's met troops of the 123rd Rifle Brigade of the Leningrad Front, opening a 10–12 km (6.2–7.5 mi) wide land corridor, which could provide some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad. Lifting the siege The siege continued until 27 January 1944, when the Soviet expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city.
This was a combined effort by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts, along with the. The provided 30% of aviation power for the final strike against the. In the summer of 1944, the Finnish Defence Forces to the other side of the and the.The siege was also known as the Leningrad Blockade and the 900-Day Siege.Timeline The Timeline is based off of various sources such as work done. 1,496,000 Soviet personnel were awarded the medal for the defence of Leningrad from 22 December 1942. 14 January – 1 March: Several Soviet offensive operations begin, aimed at ending the siege. 27 January: Siege of Leningrad ends.
Germans forces pushed 60–100 km away from the city. January: Before retreating the German armies loot and destroy the historical Palaces of the Tsars, such as the, the, the and the Palace. Many other historic landmarks and homes in the suburbs of St. Petersburg are looted and then destroyed, and a large number of valuable art collections are moved to Nazi Germany. During the siege some 3,200 residential buildings, 9,000 wooden houses were burned, and 840 factories and plants were destroyed in Leningrad and suburbs. Later evaluation American evaluation Historian summarized that 'The Siege of Leningrad killed more civilians than bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.' The evaluated that Russian casualties during the siege were bigger than combined American and British casualties during the entire war.
Controversial issues Controversy over Finnish participation Almost all Finnish historians regard the siege as a German operation and do not consider that the Finns effectively participated in the siege. Russian historian Nikolai Baryshnikov argues that active Finnish participation did occur, but other historians have been mostly silent about it, most likely due to the friendly nature of post-war Soviet–Finnish relations.The main issues which count in favour of the former view are: (a) the Finns mostly stayed at the pre-Winter War border at the Karelian Isthmus (with small exceptions to straighten the frontline), despite German wishes and requests, and (b) they did not bombard the city from planes or with artillery and did not allow the Germans to bring their own land forces to Finnish lines. Baryshnikov explains that the Finnish military in the region was strategically dependent on the Germans, and lacked the required means and will to press the attack against Leningrad any further. Although the Finnish Army had no other intentions besides regaining their own land lost in the Winter War, the advances made contributed greatly to the war efforts of Germany. Soviet deportation of civilians with enemy nations ethnic origin – Germans and Finns Deportations of Finns and Germans from the Leningrad area to inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union began in March 1942 using the; many of their descendants still remain in those areas today. However, the situation in Leningrad during the blockade was worse in comparison with the eastern areas where most of the city residents were evacuated.
Inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union hosted millions of the evacuees; many factories, universities, and theatres were also evacuated there. Legacy Commemoration, monuments. Personnel from the on, 27 January 2019Every year, on January 27, as part of the celebrations of the lifting of the siege, a military parade of the troops of the and the St.
Petersburg Garrison on takes place. Close to 3,000 soldiers and cadets take part in the parade, which includes historical reenactors in uniforms, wartime tanks such as the and carrying wartime flags such as the and the standards of the different military fronts. Musical support is provided by the Massed Military Bands of the St. Petersburg Garrison under the direction of the Senior Director of Music of the.The parade, which is usually led by the Chief of Staff of ZVO riding on a (a parade variant used since May 9, 2009), begins to the tune of March 'Parad'. At this point, the ground column begins, starting with the corps of drums of the, followed by the following units:.
Combined Colour Guard. Historical Reenactors. Honour Guard Company of the Western Military District. Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy. General of the Army A.
Khrulev Military Logistics Academy. St. Petersburg Military Institute of Physical Fitness Culture and Sports. 9th Guards Artillery Brigade. 25th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade.
Military Police of the WMD. St. Petersburg Institute of the. Saint Petersburg University of the State Fire Service of EMERCOM of Russia.
St. Petersburg Young Army Patriotic Cadets Division (on behalf of the )See also.References Notes.
Benioff, David (2008). Viking Penguin. Dean, Debra (2006). The Madonnas of Leningrad.
HarperCollins. (2001).
2002, Penguin. Hannah,Kristin (2010). 'Winter Garden'. Martin's Griffin, New York.External links External images the Siege of LeningradThe German and allied Finnish troops are in blue.
The Soviet troops are in red.The German and allied Finnish troops are in blue. The Soviet troops are in red.
on. on (Retrieved on 29 June 2008). A documentary about the Siege of Leningrad by Jessica Gorter.,. An overview of the literature of the Siege of Leningrad. A collection of documents, articles, excerpts from books about the siege and links to photographs and footage.