the siege of the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) took place from September 1941 to January 1944 in the battles fought during the Second World War. For almost 900 days, the Soviet city of Leningrad was deprived of its access to clean water, electricity and, above all, food, being left by the Nazis to their fate. The reports that tell the drama of the population show the slow suffering caused by the lack of food.
What was the context of the siege of Leningrad?
The siege of Leningrad developed in the war scenarios of the dispute between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. The conflict between the two nations began in fact on June 6, 1941, when Germany began the Operation Barbarossa, the operation that coordinated the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The German invasion had as its central objective promote the destruction of Bolshevism,enslave the Slav population and use its workforce to support the German population in the imagined “living space”. Finally, the fundraising
The Soviet Union's abundant resources, particularly oil and minerals, were vital to the functioning of Germany's war economy.The German invasion found an opponent unprepared and with few organized defenses. This was because Stalin refused to believe the warnings he received about German intentions to attack. Thus, the advances of the Germans, at first, were fulminating. The central targets of the Germans were: Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and Stalingrad.
How did the siege of Leningrad come about?
The siege of Leningrad was consolidated as the German armies advanced into Soviet territory. As advances took place, the person responsible for the defense of the Leningrad region, foodVoroshilov, expected a direct assault on the Soviet city on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
The siege of Leningrad became official on the day September 8, 1941, when a motorized division of the German army gained a position north of the city. The only viable exit to the city of Leningrad was through Lake Ladoga. The Soviet city, at the beginning of the siege, housed three million people between soldiers and civilians |1|.
Because of Voroshilov's failures, Stalin chose to nominate Georgy Zhukov as responsible for the defense of Leningrad. Zhukov, like Voroshilov, was awaiting a ground attack and thus devised an entire strategy to repel the German forces and contain the feeling of defeatism in the forces defending the City.
Adolf Hitler, however, had other plans for the city of Leningrad. The intention of Hitler's headquarters was never to occupy the city, but to annihilate it. The Germans prepared to let the city of Leningrad starve. This action of the Nazis, according to Max Hastings, was suggested by Ernst Ziegelmeyer:
For weeks, the Russians remained oblivious to the fact that the Germans had no intention of attacking Leningrad […]. Instead, Hitler prepared to starve them to death. Professor Ernst Ziegelmeyer of the Munich Institute of Nutrition – one of the many scientists who gave diabolical advice to the Nazis – was consulted on the practical aspects. He agreed that there was no need for a battle; it would be impossible for the Russians to provide their beleaguered citizens with more than 250 grams of bread a day, insufficient ration to sustain human life for a long time. |2|.
Thus, the Nazis began the siege that, over 900 days, was responsible for the death of about 1 million people. The Germans' encirclement of Leningrad began with heavy bombings on the city, which were even responsible for destroying the warehouses that stocked enough food to feed the city for six months.
Finally, the German armies were positioned so that no one left or entered Leningrad. Soon, the results of the siege began to make themselves present, and famine became commonplace. The population without energy, without treated water, with food rations significantly reduced after the destruction of the warehouses and without access to a stock of firewood began to suffer daily.
The lack of food made the population of Leningrad, in despair, to consume every kind of food possible as the report by Hastings highlights:
For an incalculable number of citizens, death from starvation seemed inescapable: wallpaper was boiled to extract its glue and to cook and chew the leather. As scurvy became endemic, a pine extract was produced from pine needles to obtain vitamin C […]. Pigeons disappeared from the squares, hunted for food, as did crows and seagulls; later rats and pets|3|.
Furthermore, it has become common to attack people to steal their ration cards. When someone, because of weakness, fainted in public, one of the first things that happened was having their ration card stolen. People carrying food on the streets were robbed if they were inattentive.
The suffering and despair of lack of food brought out the worst in many people. During the siege time, about two thousand cases of cannibalism |4|. The suffering of the inhabitants of Leningrad was compounded by the harsh Russian winter, with temperatures reaching minus 30 degrees Celsius. The lack of energy made it impossible to use the heaters, and the lack of a stock of firewood made the population burn as much as possible.
The suffering in Leningrad, of course, was not the same for everyone, as members of the party and the commissariat In addition to their family and friends, they received sufficient supplies for their survival. Part of the population, especially housewives and teenagers, had access to a smaller dose of daily ration, and their cards became known as the "death card"|5|.
Food shortages in the city were modestly reduced when Lake Ladoga froze enough for Soviet trucks to cross it, carrying supplies into the city. Anyway, in the peak of the lack of food in Leningrad, they came to die about 20 thousand people a day because of hunger, spread of disease by the weakening of the body, use of untreated water and cold |6|.
The siege of Leningrad extended to the day January 27, 1944 and it only ended with the retreat of the German forces – a portrait of the weakening of the Nazi forces throughout the war. As mentioned, around 1 million people died during the siege.
|1| BEEVOR, Antony. The Second World War. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2015, p. 233.
|2| HASTINGS, Max. Hell: the world at war 1939-1945. Rio de Janeiro: Intrinsic, 2012, 183-184.
|3| Idem, p 185.
|4| BEEVOR, Antony. The Second World War. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2015, p. 329.
|5| Idem, p. 274.
|6| HASTINGS, Max. Hell: the world at war 1939-1945. Rio de Janeiro: Intrinsic, 2012, 188.
*Image credits: Lyudmila2509 and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/historia/o-que-foi-cerco-leningrado.htm