During the siege of Leningrad, the Germans isolated it from the rest of the Soviet Union (Getty)

The city of Leningrad was besieged from September 1941 until January 1944, after German forces invaded Soviet territory, as part of Operation Barbarossa. The siege entered history as one of the most tragic events of World War II, as it caused human losses estimated at about one million people, including 140,000 children, who were killed during 842 days of the siege, due to bombing, hunger, disease, and hypothermia.

The beginning of the siege

Peter the Great, the fifth Tsar of Russia, founded the city of Leningrad as St. Petersburg in 1703 (the original name of the city was returned in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union). It was considered a strategic location and a desirable center for German forces, a “window to the West,” where the marshy bank of the Neva River meets the Gulf of Finland. It was not only an important port and base for the Soviet Baltic Fleet, but it was also a symbol of the Soviet Revolution.

Leningrad was the capital of Tsarist Russia, and the site of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Because it was also the embodiment of the Russian nation in the eyes of many, the city had wide importance to German leader Adolf Hitler during his attempt to destroy the Soviet Union.

In the middle of World War II, specifically on June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa to attack the Union. He tightened the noose around Leningrad, and the city was completely besieged since September 8, 1941, and isolated from the rest of the country.

The unified armed forces of Germany (the Wehrmacht) rushed across Soviet territory after the start of Operation Barbarossa, and it took two and a half months to reach the gates of Leningrad, as the Finnish allies cut off the city from the north with the aim of isolating the Soviet Union from the Baltic Sea, which historians consider a very important strategic location for Hitler as he attempted to invade the Soviet Union, in order to create space for the Germans there.

With the fall of the Shlisselburg Fortress on the Neva River, Leningrad was no longer connected to the rest of the Soviet Union, as all land lines of communication were cut off, as were the railway lines connecting the city to the outside world. Hence, the “long siege” began, contrary to the expectations of the Nazis, who believed it to be a siege that would quickly lead to... Drop the city.

During the siege, the city's residents suffered from severe hunger and disease (Russian press)

Isolation of Leningrad

Between September and November 1941, Germany intensified its air raids on Leningrad. The aim of the bombing was to annihilate the city and force the resistance to surrender. Thus, by December 31, 1941, 3,295 explosive bombs and 99,717 incendiary bombs were dropped, in addition to 30 One thousand and 154 artillery shells hit the city.

Leningrad remained surrounded by the Germans to the south and the Finns to the north, and a number of key places in the city were destroyed, such as storage warehouses, supply sheds, the power plant south of the city, the gasoline reserve, the dairy factory, the butter factory, and others.

The city's residents found themselves cut off from all sources of supply, except for a small, non-permanently functioning corridor called the "Road of Life" on Lake Ladoga, at a time when food security reserves were only enough for one month.

Death from hunger and cold

The Soviet authorities in the city found themselves unable to provide sufficient food reserves for more than a month, so they began to change the rules of the supply system, by introducing special food cards, each card containing a share of the daily food, and according to which the daily amount of bread was distributed according to the condition of the holder.

In the face of this difficult situation, the people of Leningrad suffered severe hunger and disease, due to the reduction in the daily bread disbursement rate to 250 grams for workers and 125 grams for non-workers and children. The bread contains only less than 40% of flour, while the rest is a mixture of barley and sawdust. As a result, the population suffered greatly from hunger, especially in the winter of 1941-1942, until most of them died due to lack of food.

Hunger alone did not cause more lives to be claimed in Leningrad. The cold also had a share in this, as the winter of 1941 was freezing, and temperatures dropped to -38 degrees Celsius in the city, so the residents faced difficulty in warming themselves, which made Sometimes they were forced to start fires to keep warm.

The siege of Leningrad created catastrophic conditions, in which the most basic features of humanity disappeared. Reports indicated that the Soviet authorities recorded 2,015 arrests on charges of cannibalism due to the famine that struck the city, after bodies were stolen and residents ate dogs and cats.

Death corridor

The Soviet Red Army tried more than once to create a gap towards isolated Leningrad, hoping to transport some food supplies to it. The government made great efforts to save the city, and evacuation and supply routes were gradually established eastward across Lake Ladoga.

The frozen "Corridor of Life", as it was called, became the only route used by Soviet officials to transport supplies towards besieged Leningrad. When the lake freezes, the ice becomes thick enough to meet some supply needs and help evacuate thousands of civilians, most of them children and orphans. It quickly turned into a "death corridor", as the walking distance on it was 160 kilometers, which could expose it to collapse at any moment due to the weight of the trucks and the bombing of the Nazi air force planes, which controlled the sky of the corridor, which exposed the majority of users of this road to death.

Lift the siege

The "Leningrad-Novgorod" offensive launched by the Red Army on January 14, 1944, and joined by the forces of Red Army generals Leonid Govorov and Kirill Meretskov on January 25, played a major role in breaking the siege and defeating the Nazi forces.

Once the Soviets were able to open a land crossing to the city, the Wehrmacht was forced to retreat, and the siege on the city was completely lifted on January 27, 1944, and the liberation of Leningrad was officially announced after 842 days of siege.

The losses of this siege were estimated at about one million dead, as a result of hunger, cold, and disease. After the end of the siege, only 600,000 people remained of the population of Leningrad - which numbered 2.5 million people.

The siege on the city of Leningrad was completely lifted on January 27, 1944 (Russian press)

Cultural resistance

In the summer of 1942, the residents of Leningrad suffered from hunger, disease, cold, and the absence of water, which necessitated the necessity of crossing a number of kilometers to the ice of the Neva River in light of the lack of means of transportation, and digging to extract it under the severity of the German siege and bombing, and in light of the oppressive Stalinist context.

Despite all this, daily life continued in Leningrad, especially cultural life. Libraries, theaters and concert halls were opened intermittently, and the orchestra was able to perform a new symphony by composer Dmitri Shostakovich and broadcast it throughout the city.

The first rehearsal ended after just 15 minutes, as the small group of survivors had little energy. “This orchestra was composed of players who were victims of bombing, hunger and famine, and were barely able to hold their instruments to play,” says Soviet-born conductor Semyon Bychkov. One of the trumpet players offered Eliasberg a deep apology after he was unable to produce a single note.

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his famous Symphony No. 7, and musicians played it in the besieged city in August 1942. The composer said about it, “I wanted to write a work about the men of our country, who will become heroes in the battle they are waging against the enemy in the name of victory.”

Many considered this symphony an act of resistance against the Nazi invasion, and Stalin and the Soviets quickly made it a propaganda tool, and one of the symbols of the "Great Patriotic War."

Source: websites