January 18, 1943 troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. The long-awaited victory came during Operation Iskra, which began on 12 January. The Red Army, advancing along the shore of Lake Ladoga, managed to break through a corridor about 10 km wide in the German defense. This made it possible to resume the supply of the city. The blockade was completely broken on January 27, 1944.
In July 1941, German troops entered the territory of the Leningrad Region. By the end of August, the Nazis occupied the city of Tosno, 50 km from Leningrad. The Red Army fought fierce battles, but the enemy continued to tighten the ring around the northern capital.
In the current situation, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, sent a telegram to Vyacheslav Molotov, a member of the GKO, who was then in Leningrad:
“We have just been informed that Tosno has been taken by the enemy. If this continues, I'm afraid that Leningrad will be surrendered idiotically stupid, and all the Leningrad divisions are at risk of being captured. What are Popov and Voroshilov doing? They do not even report on the measures they are thinking of taking against such a danger. They are busy looking for new lines of retreat, in this they see their task. Where do they get such an abyss of passivity and purely rustic submission to fate? In Leningrad there are now many tanks, aviation, eres (rockets). Why are such important technical means not operating on the Lyuban-Tosno section? ... Don't you think that someone deliberately opens the way for the Germans in this decisive section? ... What, in fact, is Voroshilov busy with and how is his assistance to Leningrad expressed? I am writing about this because I am very alarmed by the incomprehensible inaction of the Leningrad command ... ".
Molotov replied to the telegram as follows: “1. Upon arrival in Leningrad, at a meeting with Voroshilov, Zhdanov and members of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, the secretaries of the regional committee and the city committee, they sharply criticized the mistakes made by Voroshilov and Zhdanov ... regarding the artillery and aviation available here, possible assistance from the sailors, especially with naval artillery, issues of evacuation, eviction of 91 thousand Finns and 5 thousand Germans, as well as issues of food supply to Leningrad.
According to historians, there are no grounds to accuse Voroshilov of treason. In July and the first half of August 1941, being the commander-in-chief of the troops of the North-Western direction, Voroshilov carried out several successful counterattacks, regularly went to the front. The reasons why one of the first marshals of the USSR suddenly lost control of the situation are still unclear, experts say. On September 11, Voroshilov was removed from his post as commander of the North-Western Direction and the Leningrad Front. Georgy Zhukov became the new commander.
On September 2, the Germans cut the last railway connecting the city with the "mainland". The dense enemy ring around Leningrad closed on September 8, 1941. Now communication with the northern capital could be maintained only through Lake Ladoga and by air.
In the early days, the people of Leningrad were not told anything about the blockade. Moreover, the local command decided not to report the state of siege to the Headquarters either, hoping to break the blockade within two weeks.
The newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" published on September 13 a message from the head of the Sovinformburo Lozovsky: "The statement of the Germans that they managed to cut off all the railways connecting Leningrad with the Soviet Union is an exaggeration common for the German command."
Leningrad residents learned about the blockade only at the beginning of 1942, when they began to massively evacuate the population from the city along the Road of Life.
Young Leningrader Yura Ryabinkin left memories of the first day of the blockade hell in his notes: “And then the most terrible thing began. Gave alarm. I didn't even pay attention. But then I hear a noise in the yard. I looked out, looked first down, then up and saw ... 12 Junkers. Bombs exploded. One after another deafening explosions, but the glass did not rattle. It can be seen that the bombs fell far, but were extremely powerful. ... They bombed the harbor, the Kirov factory and, in general, that part of the city. The night has come. In the direction of the Kirov Plant, a sea of \u200b\u200bfire was visible. Little by little the fire subsides. Smoke penetrates everywhere, and even here we feel its pungent smell. It stings a little in my throat. Yes, this is the first real bombing of the city of Leningrad.”
There were not enough food supplies in the city, it was decided to introduce a system of food distribution by cards. Gradually, bread rations became smaller and smaller. From the end of November, the inhabitants of the besieged city received 250 grams of bread on a work card and half as much on an employee and a child.
“Aka handed me my 125g this morning. bread and 200 gr. candy. I have already eaten almost all of the bread, what is 125 gr., it is a small slice, and I need to stretch these sweets for 10 days ... The situation in our city continues to be very tense. We are being bombed from planes, fired upon from guns, but that's still nothing, we're already so used to it that we're just surprised at ourselves. But the fact that our food situation is deteriorating every day is terrible. We don’t have enough bread,” recalled seventeen-year-old Lena Mukhina.
In the spring of 1942, scientists from the Leningrad Botanical Institute published a brochure with drawings of forage grasses growing in parks and gardens, as well as a collection of recipes from them. So on the tables of the inhabitants of the besieged city appeared cutlets from clover and wood lice, casserole from goutweed, dandelion salad, soup and nettle cakes.
According to the data of the NKVD Directorate for the Leningrad Region dated December 25, 1941, if before the start of the war less than 3500 people died in the city every month, then in October the figure increased to 6199 people, in November - up to 9183 people, and 39,073 Leningraders died in 25 days of December . In the following months, at least 3 thousand people died per day. During the 872 days of the blockade, about 1.5 million people died.
However, despite the monstrous famine, the besieged city continued to live, work and fight the enemy.
According to legend, during the discussion of the name of the operation, Stalin, remembering previous failed attempts and hoping that during the fifth operation the troops of the two fronts would be able to unite and jointly develop success, said: “And let the Iskra burst into flames.”
By the time the operation began, almost 303 thousand people were at the disposal of the 67th and 13th air armies of the Leningrad Front, the 2nd shock army, as well as part of the forces of the 8th army and the 14th air army of the Volkhov Front, about 4, 9 thousand guns and mortars, more than 600 tanks and 809 aircraft. Command of the Leningrad Front was entrusted to Colonel-General Leonid Govorov, Volkhovsky - to Army General Kirill Meretskov. Marshals Georgy Zhukov and Klim Voroshilov were responsible for coordinating the actions of the two fronts.
Our troops were opposed by the 18th Army under the command of Field Marshal Georg von Küchler. The Germans had about 60 thousand people, 700 guns and mortars, about 50 tanks and 200 aircraft.
“At 9:30 am, the morning frosty silence was broken by the first salvo of artillery preparation. On the western and eastern sides of the Shlisselburg-Mga corridor of the enemy, thousands of guns and mortars from both fronts simultaneously spoke. For two hours a fiery hurricane raged over enemy positions in the directions of the main and auxiliary attacks of the Soviet troops. The artillery cannonade of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts merged into a single powerful roar, and it was difficult to make out who was firing and from where. Black fountains of explosions rose up ahead, trees swayed and fell, logs of the enemy's dugouts flew upwards. For every square meter of the breakthrough area, two or three artillery and mortar shells fell, ”Georgy Zhukov wrote in his Memoirs and Reflections.
A well-planned attack paid off. Overcoming the resistance of the enemy, the shock groups of both fronts managed to connect. By January 18, the soldiers of the Leningrad Front broke through the German defenses on the 12-kilometer section of Moscow Dubrovka - Shlisselburg. Having united with the troops of the Volkhov Front, they managed to restore the land connection between Leningrad and the country along a narrow strip of the southern shore of Lake Ladoga.
“January 18 is the day of the great triumph of our two fronts, and after them the entire Red Army, the entire Soviet people. ... The 18th Volkhov division in the south and the 372nd division in the north, together with the heroic defenders of Leningrad, broke through the fascist ring. The sparkle of the Iskra turned into the final fireworks - a salute with 20 volleys from 224 guns, ”recalled Kirill Meretskov.
During the operation, 34 thousand Soviet soldiers were killed. The Germans lost 23 thousand people.
Late in the evening of January 18, the Soviet Information Bureau informed the country about the breaking of the blockade, and volleys of festive fireworks sounded in the city. Over the next two weeks, engineers built a railway and a highway along the reclaimed corridor. A little more than a year remained before the final lifting of the blockade of Leningrad.
“The breaking of the blockade of Leningrad is one of the main events that marked a radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War. This instilled in the soldiers of the Red Army faith in the final victory over fascism. Also, one should not forget that Leningrad is the cradle of the revolution, a city that was of particular importance for the Soviet state,” said Vadim Trukhachev, Ph.D.
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. The centers of partisan resistance, plants and factories, collective farms operated in the territories occupied by the enemy, the Germans failed to break the spirit of the defenders of the Motherland. A striking example of resilience in the history of the Great Patriotic War was the hero city of Leningrad.
The fascists' strategy consisted in delivering a sudden, lightning strike in the directions that the Germans had chosen as priorities. Three army groups before the end of autumn were to capture Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. Hitler assessed the capture of these settlements as a victory in the war. Fascist military analysts planned in this way not only to "decapitate" the Soviet troops, but also to break the morale of the divisions retreating to the rear, to undermine the Soviet ideology. Moscow should be captured after the victories in the northern and southern directions, the regrouping and connection of the Wehrmacht armies were planned on the outskirts of the capital of the USSR.
Leningrad, according to Hitler, was the city-symbol of the power of the Soviets, 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 machine-building 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 produced specialists for work in various sectors of the national economy. On the other hand, the city was territorially isolated and located at a great distance from sources of raw materials and energy. Hitler was also helped by the geographical position of 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 basing Nazi aviation at the preparatory stage of the invasion. In June 1941, the Finns enter the Second World War on the side of Hitler. The huge at that time military and merchant fleet based in the Germans had to be neutralized and destroyed, and profitable sea routes should be used for their own military needs.
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 northerly direction. The creation of defensive lines was carried out in the Pskov and Luga directions. The 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 along the shortest path. For several weeks, their offensive was delayed by the Luga fortified areas. They were built by experienced engineers and allowed the Soviet troops to hold back the onslaught of the enemy for some time. This delay greatly angered Hitler and made it possible to partially prepare Leningrad for an attack by the Nazis. 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 they blocked a large number of transport routes connecting the city with the "mainland". The complete liberation of Leningrad from the blockade in this direction took place 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, Chudovo were captured in August 1941. The dates of the blockade of Leningrad, which are ingrained in the memory of many Soviet people, begin in September 1941. The capture of the Petrokrepost by the Nazis finally cuts off the city from land routes of communication with the country, this happened on September 8th. The ring has closed, but the defense of Leningrad continues.
An attempt to quickly capture Leningrad failed completely. Hitler cannot withdraw forces from the surrounded city and transfer them to the central direction - to Moscow. Quite quickly, the Nazis found themselves in the suburbs, but, having met with strong resistance, they were forced to fortify themselves and prepare for protracted battles. On September 13, G.K. Zhukov arrived in Leningrad. His main task was to defend the city, Stalin at that time recognized the situation as practically 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 was 3.1 million people. According to eyewitnesses, Zhukov was terrible in these 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 grouping. He ordered the mass extermination of the inhabitants of Leningrad to begin. Regular shelling and aerial bombardment gradually destroyed the city's infrastructure, food stores, and energy sources. German fortified areas were erected around the city, which excluded the possibility of evacuating civilians and supplying them with everything necessary. 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 the Leningrad region and adjacent areas, only a small percentage of the population managed to evacuate. A large number of people gathered at the railway stations, who tried to leave the besieged northern capital. Famine began among the population, which Hitler called his main ally in the capture of Leningrad.
January 18, 1943 - the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad. How far this day was from the autumn of 1941! Massive shelling, food shortages led to mass deaths. Already in November, the limits for issuing products on cards for the population and military personnel were cut. Delivery of everything necessary was carried out by air and through which the Nazis shot through. People began to faint from hunger, the first deaths from exhaustion and cases of cannibalism were recorded, which were punishable by executions.
With the advent of cold weather, the situation became much more complicated, the first, most severe, winter came. The blockade of Leningrad, the "road of life" - these are concepts that are inseparable from each other. All engineering communications were broken in the city, there was no water, heating, sewerage did not work, food supplies were running out, and urban transport did not function. Thanks to qualified doctors who remained in the city, mass epidemics were avoided. Many people died on the street on their way home or to work, most Leningraders did not have enough strength to carry their dead relatives on a sled to the cemetery, so the corpses lay on the streets. The created sanitary brigades could not cope with such a number of deaths, not everyone could be buried.
The winter of 1941-42 was much colder than the average meteorological indicators, but there was Ladoga - the road of life. Under the constant fire of the occupiers, cars and convoys drove along the lake. They brought food and necessary things to the city, 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, still remember all the horrors of the freezing city to this day.
According to the food card, dependents (children and the elderly) who could not work were given 125 grams of bread. Its composition varied depending on what the bakers had available: shake-outs from bags of corn grits, linen and cotton cake, bran, wallpaper dust, etc. From 10 to 50% of the ingredients that made up the flour were inedible , cold and hunger have become synonymous with the concept of "blockade of Leningrad".
The road of life, passing through Ladoga, saved many people. As soon as the ice cover gained strength, trucks began to move across it. In January 1942, the city authorities had the opportunity to open canteens at enterprises and factories, the menu of which was compiled specifically for malnourished people. In hospitals and established orphanages, they give enhanced nutrition, which helps to survive the terrible winter. Ladoga is the road of life, and this name, which the Leningraders gave to the crossing, is fully consistent with the truth. Food and essential goods were collected for the blockade, as well as for the front, by the whole country.
In a dense ring of enemies, fighting cold, hunger and constant bombing, Leningraders not only lived, but also worked for victory. On the territory of the city, factories produced military products. The cultural life of the city did not stop at the most difficult moments, unique works of art were created. Poems about the blockade of Leningrad cannot be read without tears, they are written by participants in those terrible events and reflect not only the pain and suffering of people, but also their desire for life, hatred for the enemy and fortitude. Shostakovich's symphony is saturated with the feelings and emotions of the people of Leningrad. Libraries and some museums partly worked in the city, emaciated people continued to look after non-evacuated animals in the zoo.
Without heat, water and electricity, the workers stood at the machines, investing the rest of their vitality in victory. Most of the men went to the front or defended the city, so women and teenagers worked in factories and plants. The city's transport system was destroyed in massive shelling, so people went to work on foot for several kilometers, in a state of extreme exhaustion and in the absence of roads cleared of snow.
Not all of them saw the complete liberation of Leningrad from the blockade, 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, they chewed leather belts and wallpaper pasted with paste, but they lived and resisted the enemy. wrote poems about the siege of Leningrad, lines from which became winged, they 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.
The most terrible side of any war is its indiscriminate choice of victims. Hundreds of thousands of children died in the occupied city, many died in the evacuation, but the rest participated in the approach of victory along with adults. They stood at the machine tools, collecting shells and cartridges for the front line, were on duty at night on the roofs of houses, neutralizing incendiary bombs that the Nazis dropped on the city, raising the spirit of the soldiers holding the defense. The children of besieged Leningrad became adults at the moment when the war came. Many teenagers fought in the regular units of the Soviet army. The hardest thing was for the smallest, who 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 during the blockade of the children's dance ensemble of A. E. Obrant. The guys were gathered around the city, treated for exhaustion and rehearsals began. During the blockade, this famous ensemble gave more than 3,000 concerts; it performed at the front line, at factories and in hospitals. The contribution of young artists to the victory was appreciated after the war: all the guys were awarded medals "For the Defense of Leningrad".
The liberation of Leningrad was a paramount task for the Soviet leadership, but there were no opportunities for offensive actions and resources in the spring of 1942. Attempts to break through the blockade were carried out in the autumn of 1941, but they did not produce results. The German troops fortified quite well and surpassed the Soviet army in terms of weapons. By the autumn of 1942, Hitler had significantly depleted the resources of his armies and therefore made an attempt to capture Leningrad, which was supposed to release the troops located in the northern direction.
In September, the Germans launched Operation Northern Lights, which failed due to a counterattack by Soviet troops seeking to lift the blockade. Leningrad in 1943 was a well-fortified city, built by the townspeople, 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 fortified areas of the Nazis.
On January 18, 1943, the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad laid the foundation for the liberation of the city. The military formations of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts participated in the operation, they were supported by the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Flotilla. Preparation was carried out within a month. Operation Iskra was developed from December 1942, it included two stages, the main of which was the breakthrough of 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 fettered by strong ice, and the surrounding impenetrable swamps froze to a depth sufficient to pass through. after a massive artillery barrage of Soviet artillery. The fighting took on a protracted character, for six days the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts pierced 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 grouping of German troops was ordered to leave the encirclement and join the main forces, which occupied more advantageous positions and were additionally equipped and fortified. For the inhabitants of Leningrad, this date became one of the main milestones in the history of the blockade. The formed corridor was no more than 10 km wide, but it made it possible to lay railroad tracks for the full supply of the city.
Hitler completely lost the initiative in the northern direction. The divisions of the Wehrmacht had a strong defensive position, but could no longer take the recalcitrant city. The Soviet troops, having achieved their first success, planned to launch a large-scale offensive in a southerly 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 grouping, which were called Operation Polar Star. Unfortunately, they failed, there were many objective reasons that prevented the army from developing the offensive. Firstly, the German grouping 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 a territory with difficult terrain. The swampy terrain made it difficult to move heavy guns and tanks. Fourthly, when analyzing the actions of the fronts, obvious errors of command were revealed, which led to large losses of equipment and people. But a start had been made. The liberation of Leningrad from the blockade was a matter of careful preparation and time.
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 of their participants. This victory was given by the great bloodshed of Soviet soldiers and officers and by the millions of deaths of civilians. In 1943, the 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 blockade of Leningrad on January 27, 1944 is a date that symbolizes victory. For this victory, a lot was done 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 at that time were quite strong military units), the Ladoga Navy with the support of aviation. 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 the battlefield could not explain. On January 20, Novgorod and adjacent territories were liberated. The full January 27 was the occasion for festive fireworks in the exhausted but unconquered city.
The date of the liberation of Leningrad is a holiday for all residents of the once united Land of 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 the inhabitants the opportunity to contact the mainland. The supply of the city with food, medicines, energy resources, raw materials for factories was 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. The year 1944 brought the complete lifting of the blockade, the Soviet army began its victorious march across the country, victory is close.
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 stamina and courage in history. 900 days of hunger, overwork under shelling and bombing. Death followed every inhabitant of besieged Leningrad, but the city survived. Our contemporaries and descendants must not forget the great feat of the Soviet people and their role in the fight against fascism. This will be a betrayal of all the dead: children, old people, women, men, soldiers. The hero city of Leningrad should be proud of its past and build the present, regardless of all the renaming and attempts to distort the history of the great confrontation.
Leningrad blockade- one of the most tragic and important episodes of the Great Patriotic War. The blockade began on September 8, 1941, its breakthrough was carried out on January 18, 1943, and the date for the complete lifting of the blockade was January 27, 1944. The exit of German troops to Leningrad
The capture of Leningrad was an important part of the Barbarossa plan developed by the Nazi command. Hitler believed that such a takeover would bring both military and political benefits. First, Germany would gain control over the Baltic coast, as well as the ability to destroy the Baltic Fleet and the troops defending the city. Secondly, Hitler believed that the capture of Leningrad would demoralize the Soviet command and population.
From the very beginning of the blockade, the Nazi command assumed the complete destruction of the city, not seeing any benefit for themselves in the existence of Leningrad and its inhabitants. On the part of the Soviet command, the option of surrendering the city was not considered.
Even before the blockade began, attempts were made to evacuate the urban population. Initially, children were evacuated (many of them were sent to the Leningrad region and, as the hostilities developed, they were returned back). Subsequently, people were taken out of the city along the ice road through Lake Ladoga and with the help of aircraft.
Marshal Zhukov played a decisive role in the defense of Leningrad. It was he who, as commander of the Leningrad Front, managed to stop the German offensive on the Pulkovo Heights and prevent the enemy from entering the city.
food problemAfter that, the tactics of conducting battles by the German troops changed. Their main goal was the destruction of the city, and he was subjected to new attacks. In an effort to cause fires in Leningrad, the Germans subjected it to massive bombardments. Thus, they managed to destroy the large Badaev warehouses, where significant food supplies were stored. This made the prospect of famine real.
On September 8, 1941, land communication between Leningrad and the rest of the country was completely interrupted. The free sale of food was banned, and the norms for issuing products decreased. The real famine in the city began by November. The most difficult period of the Leningrad blockade was the winter of 1941-1942.
During this period, the lowest norms for the issuance of bread were introduced (250 g - workers, 125 g - employees, dependents and children under 12 years old). To the problem of hunger was added cold, turning off the heating, stopping all transport in the city. The winter was cold, and there were almost no thaws. The main means of heating were wood-burning stoves, they went to the ice-holes on the Neva for water. Gradually, death from starvation became massive. The sudden death of passers-by on the streets has become commonplace. Special funeral services picked up about a hundred corpses daily from the streets. Dystrophy became the main Leningrad disease. People fell from weakness and exhaustion. On the streets of the besieged, there was a sign: one who fell once did not get up again. Movement along the streets was extremely difficult, since the transport did not work, and all the streets were covered with snow. The death toll rose to thousands a day. The corpses lay for a long time on the streets and in apartments - there was almost no one to clean them up. The situation was aggravated by constant shelling and air raids.
During 1942, many attempts were made to break the blockade, but none of them were successful. The only means of communication between Leningrad and the mainland was the ice road along Lake Ladoga - the "Road of Life".
The situation in the city improved in the spring and summer of 1942 as the cold weather receded. The number of street deaths has decreased, vegetable gardens have been arranged in squares, boulevards and squares. Gradually, the norms for issuing bread increased. The first tram was launched, effective measures were taken to prevent epidemics in the city.
As the food situation in the city improved, shelling intensified, and the number of bombings increased. Information about the raids for the population throughout the blockade was carried by the Leningrad radio network. The famous Leningrad metronome was broadcast through it. Its fast rhythm meant an air alert, slow - the end. Subsequently, the metronome became a monument to the resistance of Leningraders.
Cultural life continued in the besieged, starving Leningrad. With the exception of a few of the most difficult months, schools continued to operate, theatrical life continued. Dmitri Shostakovich's symphony, dedicated to Leningrad, was first played in the city during the siege and was broadcast by the Leningrad radio. The radio itself was of great importance in supporting the spirit of the people of Leningrad.
People at that time fought not only for survival, but also for the preservation of other values. Museum collections, architectural monuments, collections of the largest libraries, the precious collection of seeds of the Institute of Plant Growing were saved by Leningraders during the blockade.
Breaking the blockadeIn January 1943, the Iskra operation of the Soviet troops was crowned with success. During it, on January 18, 1943, the blockade ring was broken and a permanent connection between Leningrad and the mainland was established. The final lifting of the blockade was carried out on January 27, 1944.
The Soviet fleet played a significant role during the blockade. He participated in the suppression of enemy artillery, the defense of the "Road of Life", his personnel brigades were involved in land battles.
According to the Nuremberg Trials, 632,000 people died during the blockade, most of them starved to death. Most of the dead Leningraders were buried at the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery, where a monument to the blockade was erected. Another blockade memorial is the Moscow Victory Park: during the war years there was a brick factory there, in the ovens of which the bodies of the dead were cremated.
In 1965, for the courage and heroism of its defenders, Leningrad was one of the first to be awarded the title of Hero City.
Special blockade awards were established - the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" and the badge "Inhabitant of the besieged Leningrad".
The text was prepared by Maria Shustrova
Literature:
Granin D., Adamovich A. blockade book. St. Petersburg, 1994.
Matyushina O. K. Song about life. M., 1978.
Hass G. German occupation policy in the Leningrad region (1941-1944) No. 6, 2003
The offensive of the fascist troops on Leningrad, the capture of which the German command attached great strategic and political importance, began on July 10, 1941. In August, heavy fighting was already on the outskirts of the city. On August 30, German troops cut the railroads connecting Leningrad with the country. On September 8, 1941, the Nazi troops captured Shlisselburg and cut off Leningrad from the whole country from the land. An almost 900-day blockade of the city began, communication with which was maintained only through Lake Ladoga and by air.
Having failed in their attempts to break through the defenses of the Soviet troops inside the blockade ring, the Germans decided to starve the city out. According to all the calculations of the German command, Leningrad was to be wiped off the face of the earth, and the population of the city to die of hunger and cold. In an effort to implement this plan, the enemy carried out barbaric bombardments and artillery shelling of Leningrad: on September 8, the day the blockade began, the first massive bombardment of the city took place. About 200 fires broke out, one of them destroyed the Badaev food warehouses. In September-October, enemy aircraft made several raids a day. The purpose of the enemy was not only to interfere with the activities of important enterprises, but also to create panic among the population. To do this, during the hours of the beginning and end of the working day, especially intensive shelling was carried out. In total, during the blockade period, about 150 thousand shells were fired at the city and over 107 thousand incendiary and high-explosive bombs were dropped. Many died during shelling and bombing, many buildings were destroyed.
The autumn-winter of 1941-1942 is the most terrible time of the blockade. Early winter brought cold with it - heating, there was no hot water, and Leningraders began to burn furniture, books, and dismantled wooden buildings for firewood. The transport stopped. Thousands of people died from malnutrition and cold. But Leningraders continued to work - administrative offices, printing houses, polyclinics, kindergartens, theaters, a public library worked, scientists continued to work. 13-14-year-old teenagers worked, replacing their fathers who had gone to the front.
The struggle for Leningrad was fierce. A plan was developed that provided for measures to strengthen the defense of Leningrad, including anti-aircraft and anti-artillery. More than 4,100 pillboxes and bunkers were built on the territory of the city, 22,000 firing points were equipped in buildings, over 35 kilometers of barricades and anti-tank obstacles were installed on the streets. Three hundred thousand Leningraders participated in the detachments of the local air defense of the city. Day and night they kept their watch at enterprises, in the courtyards of houses, on roofs.
In the difficult conditions of the blockade, the working people of the city gave the front weapons, equipment, uniforms, and ammunition. From the population of the city, 10 divisions of the people's militia were formed, 7 of which became personnel.
(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing. Moscow. In 8 volumes -2004. ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)
In autumn, on Lake Ladoga, due to storms, the movement of ships was complicated, but tugboats with barges made their way around the ice fields until December 1941, some food was delivered by aircraft. Hard ice on Ladoga was not established for a long time, the norms for issuing bread were again reduced.
On November 22, the movement of vehicles along the ice road began. This highway was called "Road of Life". In January 1942, traffic on the winter road was already constant. The Germans bombed and shelled the road, but they failed to stop the movement.
In winter, the evacuation of the population began. The first to take out were women, children, the sick, the elderly. In total, about a million people were evacuated. In the spring of 1942, when it became a little easier, the people of Leningrad began to clean up the city. Bread rations have increased.
In the summer of 1942, a pipeline was laid along the bottom of Lake Ladoga to supply Leningrad with fuel, and in the fall, an energy cable.
Soviet troops repeatedly tried to break through the blockade ring, but achieved this only in January 1943. South of Lake Ladoga, a corridor 8-11 kilometers wide was formed. A 33-kilometer-long railway was built along the southern coast of Ladoga in 18 days and a crossing across the Neva was built. In February 1943, trains with food, raw materials, and ammunition went along it to Leningrad.
The memorial ensembles of the Piskarevsky cemetery and the Seraphim cemetery are dedicated to the memory of the victims of the blockade and the fallen participants in the defense of Leningrad, and the Green Belt of Glory was created around the city along the former blockade ring of the front.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
Leningrad blockade |
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Leningrad, USSR |
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The victory of the Red Army, the final lifting of the blockade of Leningrad |
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Third Reich |
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Finland |
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blue division |
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Commanders |
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K. E. Voroshilov |
W. von Leeb |
G. K. Zhukov |
G. von Küchler |
I. I. Fedyuninsky |
K. G. Mannerheim |
M. S. Khozin |
A. Munoz Grandes |
L. A. Govorov |
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V. F. Tributs |
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Side forces |
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unknown |
unknown |
Military casualties 332,059 killed 24,324 non-combat casualties 111,142 missing Civilian casualties 16,747 shelling and bombing deaths 632,253 starved to death |
Unknown |
Leningrad blockade- military blockade by German, Finnish and Spanish (Blue Division) troops with the participation of volunteers from North Africa, Europe and the Italian naval forces during the Great Patriotic War of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). It lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944 (the blockade ring was broken on January 18, 1943) - 872 days.
By the beginning of the blockade, the city did not have enough food and fuel supplies. The only way to communicate with Leningrad was Lake Ladoga, which was within the reach of the artillery and aircraft of the besiegers; the enemy’s united naval flotilla also operated on the lake. The capacity of this transport artery did not meet the needs of the city. As a result, the massive famine that began in Leningrad, aggravated by the especially harsh first blockade winter, problems with heating and transport, led to hundreds of thousands of deaths among residents.
After the blockade was lifted, the siege of Leningrad by enemy troops and fleet continued until September 1944. In order to force the enemy to lift the siege of the city, in June - August 1944, Soviet troops, with the support of ships and aircraft of the Baltic Fleet, carried out the Vyborg and Svir-Petrozavodsk operations, liberated Vyborg on June 20, and Petrozavodsk on June 28. In September 1944, the island of Gogland was liberated.
For mass heroism and courage in defending the Motherland in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, shown by the defenders of besieged Leningrad, according to the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, 1965, the city was awarded the highest degree of distinction - the title of Hero City.
The capture of Leningrad was an integral part of the war plan developed by Nazi Germany against the USSR - the Barbarossa plan. It provided that the Soviet Union should be completely defeated within 3-4 months of the summer and autumn of 1941, that is, during a lightning war ("blitzkrieg"). By November 1941, German troops were to capture the entire European part of the USSR. According to the plan "Ost" ("East"), it was supposed to exterminate a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union within a few years, primarily Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, as well as all Jews and Gypsies - in total at least 30 million people. None of the peoples inhabiting the USSR should have had the right to their own statehood or even autonomy.
Already on June 23, the commander of the Leningrad Military District, Lieutenant General M. M. Popov, ordered the start of work on the creation of an additional line of defense in the Pskov direction in the Luga region.
On July 4, this decision was confirmed by the Directive of the Headquarters of the High Command signed by G.K. Zhukov.
On June 17, 1941, a decree was issued in Finland on the mobilization of the entire field army, and on June 20, the mobilized army concentrated on the Soviet-Finnish border. On June 21-25, the naval and air forces of Germany acted from the territory of Finland against the USSR. On June 25, 1941, in the morning, on the orders of the Headquarters of the Air Force of the Northern Front, together with the aircraft of the Baltic Fleet, they launched a massive attack on nineteen (according to other sources - 18) airfields in Finland and Northern Norway. Aircraft of the Finnish Air Force and the German 5th Air Army were based there. On the same day, the Finnish parliament voted for war with the USSR.
On June 29, 1941, Finnish troops, having crossed the state border, began a ground operation against the USSR.
In the first 18 days of the offensive, the 4th enemy tank group fought over 600 kilometers (at a rate of 30-35 km per day), crossed the Western Dvina and Velikaya rivers.
On July 4, units of the Wehrmacht entered the Leningrad Region, crossing the Velikaya River and overcoming the fortifications of the Stalin Line in the direction of Ostrov.
On July 5-6, enemy troops occupied the city, and on July 9 - Pskov, located 280 kilometers from Leningrad. From Pskov, the shortest route to Leningrad is along the Kievskoe Highway through Luga.
On July 19, by the time the advanced German units left, the Luga defensive line was well prepared in engineering terms: defensive structures were built with a length of 175 kilometers and a total depth of 10-15 kilometers. Defensive structures were built by the hands of Leningraders, mostly women and teenagers (men went into the army and the militia).
Near the Luga fortified area, there was a delay in the German offensive. Reports of the commanders of the German troops to the headquarters:
The command of the Leningrad Front took advantage of the delay of Gepner, who was waiting for reinforcements, and prepared to meet the enemy, using, among other things, the latest heavy tanks KV-1 and KV-2, just released by the Kirov Plant. In 1941 alone, more than 700 tanks were built and remained in the city. During the same time, 480 armored vehicles and 58 armored trains were produced, often armed with powerful ship guns. At the Rzhev artillery range, a combat-ready ship gun with a caliber of 406 mm was not found. It was intended for the lead battleship "Soviet Union", which was already on the slipway. This gun was used in the shelling of German positions. The German offensive was suspended for several weeks. The enemy troops failed to capture the city on the move. This delay caused a sharp discontent of Hitler, who made a special trip to Army Group North in order to prepare a plan for the capture of Leningrad no later than September 1941. In conversations with military leaders, the Fuhrer, in addition to purely military arguments, brought up many political arguments. He believed that the capture of Leningrad would give not only a military gain (control over all the Baltic coasts and the destruction of the Baltic Fleet), but also bring huge political dividends. The Soviet Union will lose the city, which, being the cradle of the October Revolution, has a special symbolic meaning for the Soviet state. In addition, Hitler considered it very important not to give the Soviet command the opportunity to withdraw troops from the Leningrad region and use them in other sectors of the front. He expected to destroy the troops defending the city.
In long exhausting battles, overcoming crises in different places, the German troops prepared for the assault on the city for a month. The Baltic Fleet approached the city with its 153 guns of the main caliber of naval artillery, as shown by the experience of the defense of Tallinn, which, in its combat effectiveness, is superior to guns of the same caliber of coastal artillery, also numbering 207 barrels near Leningrad. The sky of the city was protected by the 2nd Air Defense Corps. The highest density of anti-aircraft artillery during the defense of Moscow, Leningrad and Baku was 8-10 times greater than during the defense of Berlin and London.
On August 14-15, the Germans managed to break through the wetlands, bypassing the Luga SD from the west and, having crossed the Luga River near Bolshoi Sabsk, entered the operational space in front of Leningrad.
On June 29, having crossed the border, the Finnish army began hostilities on the Karelian Isthmus. On July 31, a major Finnish offensive began in the direction of Leningrad. By the beginning of September, the Finns crossed the old Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus, which existed before the signing of the 1940 peace treaty, to a depth of 20 km, and stopped at the turn of the Karelian fortified area. Communication between Leningrad and the rest of the country through the territories occupied by Finland was restored in the summer of 1944.
On September 4, 1941, General Jodl, Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces, was sent to Mannerheim's headquarters in Mikkeli. But he was refused the participation of the Finns in the attack on Leningrad. Instead, Mannerheim led a successful offensive in the north of Ladoga, cutting off the Kirov railway and the White Sea-Baltic Canal in the area of Lake Onega, thereby blocking the route for the supply of goods to Leningrad.
It was on September 4, 1941 that the city was subjected to the first artillery shelling from the city of Tosno occupied by German troops:
In September 1941, a small group of officers, on instructions from the command, was driving a lorry along Lesnoy Prospekt from the Levashovo airfield. A little ahead of us was a crowded tram. He brakes before the stop, where there is a large group of people waiting. A shell burst is heard, and many at the bus stop fall, covered in blood. The second gap, the third ... The tram is smashed to pieces. Piles of the dead. The wounded and maimed, mostly women and children, are scattered along the cobblestone pavement, moaning and crying. A blond-haired boy of seven or eight years old, who miraculously survived at a bus stop, covering his face with both hands, sobs over his murdered mother and repeats: - Mom, what have they done ... |
On September 6, 1941, Hitler, by his order (Weisung No. 35), stops the advance of the North group of troops on Leningrad, which has already reached the suburbs of the city, and orders Field Marshal Leeb to give up all Hoepner tanks and a significant number of troops in order to start "as soon as possible" attack on Moscow. Subsequently, the Germans, having given their tanks to the central sector of the front, continued to encircle the city with a blockade ring, no more than 15 km from the city center, and switched to a long blockade. In this situation, Hitler, who realistically imagined the huge losses that he would suffer if he entered into urban battles, by his decision doomed his population to starvation.
On September 8, the soldiers of the "North" group captured the city of Shlisselburg (Petrokrepost). From that day began the blockade of the city that lasted 872 days.
On the same day, German troops unexpectedly quickly found themselves in the suburbs of the city. German motorcyclists even stopped the tram on the southern outskirts of the city (route No. 28 Stremyannaya St. - Strelna). At the same time, information about the closing of the encirclement was not reported to the Soviet high command, hoping for a breakthrough. And on September 13, Leningradskaya Pravda wrote:
This silence cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens, since the decision to bring food was taken too late.
Throughout the summer, day and night, about half a million people created defense lines in the city. One of them, the most fortified, called the "Stalin Line" passed through the Obvodny Canal. Many houses on the defensive lines were turned into long-term strongholds of resistance.
On September 13, Zhukov arrived in the city, who took command of the front on September 14, when, contrary to popular belief, replicated by numerous feature films, the German offensive had already been stopped, the front had been stabilized, and the enemy had canceled his decision to storm ..
The evacuation of the inhabitants of the city began already on 06/29/1941 (the first trains) and was of an organized nature. At the end of June, the City Evacuation Commission was established. Explanatory work began among the population about the need to leave Leningrad, as many residents did not want to leave their homes. Before the German attack on the USSR, there were no pre-developed plans for the evacuation of the population of Leningrad. The possibility of the Germans reaching the city was considered minimal.
The very first stage of the evacuation lasted from June 29 to August 27, when Wehrmacht units seized the railway linking Leningrad with the regions lying to the east of it. This period was characterized by two features:
During this period, 488,703 people were taken out of the city, of which 219,691 were children (395,091 were taken out, but later 175,000 were returned back) and 164,320 workers and employees who were evacuated along with enterprises.
In the second period, evacuation was carried out in three ways:
During this period, 33,479 people were taken out by water transport (of which 14,854 people were non-Leningrad population), by aviation - 35,114 (of which 16,956 were non-Leningrad population), marching order across Lake Ladoga and unorganized vehicles from the end of December 1941 until January 22 1942 - 36,118 people (population not from Leningrad), from January 22 to April 15, 1942 along the "Road of Life" - 554,186 people.
In total, during the second period of evacuation - from September 1941 to April 1942 - about 659 thousand people were taken out of the city, mainly along the "Road of Life" across Lake Ladoga.
From May to October 1942, 403 thousand people were taken out. In total, during the blockade period, 1.5 million people were evacuated from the city. By October 1942, the evacuation was completed.
Part of the exhausted people taken out of the city could not be saved. Several thousand people died from the consequences of starvation after they were transported to the "mainland". Doctors did not immediately learn how to care for starving people. There were cases when they died, having received a large amount of high-quality food, which for an exhausted organism turned out to be essentially poison. At the same time, there could have been much more victims if the local authorities of the regions where the evacuees were placed had not made extraordinary efforts to provide Leningraders with food and qualified medical care.
The blockade became a cruel test for all city services and departments that ensured the vital activity of the huge city. Leningrad gave a unique experience of organizing life in conditions of famine. The following fact attracts attention: during the blockade, unlike many other cases of mass starvation, no major epidemics occurred, despite the fact that hygiene in the city was, of course, much lower than the normal level due to the almost complete absence of running water, sewerage and heating. Of course, the severe winter of 1941-1942 helped prevent epidemics. At the same time, researchers also point to effective preventive measures taken by the authorities and the medical service.
At the end of August 1941, the German offensive resumed. The German units broke through the Luga defensive line and rushed to Leningrad. On September 8, the enemy reached Lake Ladoga, captured Shlisselburg, taking control of the source of the Neva, and blocked Leningrad from land. This day is considered the day the blockade began. All rail, river and road communications were cut off. Communication with Leningrad was now supported only by air and Lake Ladoga. From the north, the city was blocked by Finnish troops, who were stopped by the 23rd Army near the Karelian UR. Only the only railway connection with the coast of Lake Ladoga from the Finland Station has survived - the Road of Life.
This partly confirms the fact that the Finns stopped on the orders of Mannerheim (according to his memoirs, he agreed to take the post of Supreme Commander of the Finnish Forces on the condition that he would not attack the city), at the turn of the state border of 1939, that is, the border that existed between The USSR and Finland on the eve of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, on the other hand, is disputed by Isaev and N. I. Baryshnikov:
As early as September 11, 1941, Finnish President Risto Ryti told the German envoy in Helsinki:
The total area taken in the ring of Leningrad and suburbs was about 5000 km².
According to G.K. Zhukov, “Stalin assessed the situation that had developed near Leningrad at that moment as catastrophic. Once he even used the word "hopeless." He said that, apparently, a few more days would pass, and Leningrad would have to be considered lost. After the end of the Elninsk operation, by order of September 11, G.K. Zhukov was appointed commander of the Leningrad Front, and began his duties on September 14.
The formation of the city's defense was led by the commander of the Baltic Fleet V.F. Tributs, K.E. Voroshilov and A.A. Zhdanov.
On September 4, 1941, the Germans began regular shelling of Leningrad, although their decision to storm the city remained in effect until September 12, when Hitler's order to cancel it followed, that is, Zhukov arrived two days after the cancellation of the assault order (September 14). The local leadership prepared the main factories for the explosion. All ships of the Baltic Fleet were to be scuttled. Trying to stop the enemy offensive, Zhukov did not stop at the most cruel measures. At the end of the month, he signed code number 4976 with the following text:
In particular, he issued an order that for unauthorized retreat and leaving the defense line around the city, all commanders and soldiers were subject to immediate execution. The retreat has stopped.
The soldiers who defended Leningrad these days fought to the death. Leeb continued successful operations on the nearest approaches to the city. Its purpose was to strengthen the blockade ring and divert the forces of the Leningrad Front from the help of the 54th Army, which had begun operations to unblock the city. In the end, the enemy stopped 4-7 km from the city, in fact, in the suburbs. The front line, that is, the trenches where the soldiers were sitting, was only 4 km from the Kirov Plant and 16 km from the Winter Palace. Despite the proximity of the front, the Kirov Plant did not stop working throughout the entire period of the blockade. A tram even ran from the factory to the front line. It was an ordinary tram line from the city center to the suburbs, but now it was used to transport soldiers and ammunition.
In Hitler's directive No. 1601 of September 22, 1941 "The future of the city of St. Petersburg" (German. Weisung Nr. Ia 1601/41 vom 22. September 1941 "Die Zukunft der Stadt Petersburg") clearly stated:
2. The Fuhrer decided to wipe the city of Leningrad off the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia, the continued existence of this largest settlement is of no interest ... 4. It is supposed to surround the city with a tight ring and, by shelling from artillery of all calibers and continuous bombing from the air, raze it to the ground. If, due to the situation that has developed in the city, requests for surrender are made, they will be rejected, since the problems associated with the stay of the population in the city and its food supply cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for the right to exist, we are not interested in saving at least part of the population. |
According to Jodl's testimony during the Nuremberg Trials,
It should be noted that in the same Order No. S.123 there was the following clarification:
... not a single German soldier should enter these cities [Moscow and Leningrad]. Whoever leaves the city against our lines must be driven back by fire. Small unguarded passages that make it possible for the population to leave one by one for evacuation to the interior of Russia should only be welcomed. The population must be forced to flee the city by artillery and aerial bombardment. The more numerous the population of cities, fleeing deep into Russia, the more chaos the enemy will have and the easier it will be for us to manage and use the occupied regions. All senior officers must be aware of this desire of the Fuhrer |
German military leaders protested against the order to shoot civilians and said that the troops would not comply with such an order, but Hitler was adamant.
The battles near Leningrad did not stop, but their character changed. German troops began to destroy the city with massive artillery shelling and bombing. Bombing and artillery strikes were especially strong in October-November 1941. The Germans dropped several thousand incendiary bombs on Leningrad in order to cause massive fires. They paid special attention to the destruction of food depots, and they succeeded in this task. So, in particular, on September 10, they managed to bomb the famous Badaev warehouses, where there were significant food supplies. The fire was grandiose, thousands of tons of food burned, molten sugar flowed through the city, soaked into the ground. Nevertheless, contrary to popular belief, this bombardment could not be the main cause of the ensuing food crisis, since Leningrad, like any other metropolis, is supplied “on wheels”, and the food stocks destroyed along with warehouses would be enough for the city only for a few days. .
Taught by this bitter lesson, the city authorities began to pay special attention to the disguise of food stocks, which were now stored only in small quantities. So, famine became the most important factor determining the fate of the population of Leningrad. The blockade imposed by the German army was deliberately aimed at the extinction of the urban population.
As of January 1, 1941, a little less than three million people lived in Leningrad. The city was characterized by a higher than usual percentage of the disabled population, including children and the elderly. It was also distinguished by an unfavorable military-strategic position associated with its proximity to the border and isolation from raw material and fuel bases. At the same time, the city medical and sanitary service of Leningrad was one of the best in the country.
Theoretically, the Soviet side could have the option of withdrawing troops and surrendering Leningrad to the enemy without a fight (using the terminology of that time, declare Leningrad an “open city”, as happened, for example, with Paris). However, if we take into account Hitler's plans for the future of Leningrad (or, more precisely, the absence of any future for him at all), there is no reason to assert that the fate of the population of the city in the event of capitulation would be better than the fate of the real conditions of the blockade.
September 8, 1941 is considered the beginning of the blockade, when the land connection between Leningrad and the whole country was interrupted. However, the inhabitants of the city lost the opportunity to leave Leningrad two weeks earlier: the railway connection was interrupted on August 27, and tens of thousands of people gathered at the stations and in the suburbs, waiting for the possibility of a breakthrough to the east. The situation was further complicated by the fact that with the outbreak of the war, Leningrad was flooded with at least 300,000 refugees from the Baltic republics and neighboring Russian regions.
The catastrophic food situation of the city became clear on September 12, when the check and accounting of all edible stocks were completed. Food cards were introduced in Leningrad on July 17, that is, even before the blockade, but this was done only in order to restore order in the supply. The city entered the war with the usual supply of food. The rationing rates for food rationing were high, and there was no food shortage before the blockade began. The reduction in the norms for issuing products for the first time occurred on September 15. In addition, on September 1, the free sale of food was banned (this measure was in effect until mid-1944). While the "black market" was preserved, the official sale of products in the so-called commercial stores at market prices ceased.
In October, the inhabitants of the city felt a clear shortage of food, and in November a real famine began in Leningrad. First, the first cases of loss of consciousness from hunger on the streets and at work, the first cases of death from exhaustion, and then the first cases of cannibalism were noted. In February 1942, more than 600 people were convicted of cannibalism, in March - more than a thousand. It was extremely difficult to replenish food supplies: it was impossible to supply such a large city by air, and shipping on Lake Ladoga temporarily stopped due to the onset of cold weather. At the same time, the ice on the lake was still very weak, so that cars could drive over it. All these transport communications were under constant enemy fire.
Despite the lowest norms for the distribution of bread, death from starvation has not yet become a mass phenomenon, and the bulk of the dead so far have been victims of bombing and artillery shelling.
Based on the actual consumption, the availability of basic food products on September 12 was (the figures are given according to the accounting data made by the trade department of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, the commissariat of the front and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet):
The norms for the release of goods on food cards, introduced in the city back in July, decreased due to the blockade of the city, and turned out to be minimal from November 20 to December 25, 1941. The size of the food ration was:
At the same time, up to 50% of the bread was made up of practically inedible impurities, which were added instead of flour. All other products almost ceased to be issued: already on September 23, beer production ceased, and all stocks of malt, barley, soybeans and bran were transferred to bakeries in order to reduce flour consumption. On September 24, 40% of bread consisted of malt, oats and husks, and later cellulose (at different times from 20 to 50%). On December 25, 1941, the norms for issuing bread were increased - the population of Leningrad began to receive 350 g of bread on a work card and 200 g on an employee, child and dependent. On February 11, new supply norms were introduced: 500 grams of bread for workers, 400 for employees, 300 for children and the unemployed. Impurities have almost disappeared from the bread. But the main thing is that the supply has become regular, products on the cards have begun to be issued in a timely manner and almost completely. On February 16, even high-quality meat was issued for the first time - frozen beef and lamb. There has been a turning point in the food situation in the city.
Date of establishment of the norm |
Hot shop workers |
Workers and engineers |
Employees |
Dependents |
Children under 12 |
In the first months of the blockade, 1,500 loudspeakers were installed on the streets of Leningrad. The radio network carried information for the population about raids and air raids. The famous metronome, which went down in the history of the blockade of Leningrad as a cultural monument of the resistance of the population, was broadcast during the raids through this network. A fast rhythm meant an air alert, a slow rhythm meant a hang up. Announcer Mikhail Melaned also announced the alarm.
In November 1941, the situation of the townspeople deteriorated sharply. Death from starvation has become massive. Special funeral services daily picked up about a hundred corpses alone on the streets.
Countless stories have been preserved of people falling from weakness and dying - at home or at work, in stores or on the streets. Elena Skryabina, a resident of the besieged city, wrote in her diary:
Death rules the city. People die and die. Today, when I was walking down the street, a man was walking in front of me. He could barely move his legs. Overtaking him, I involuntarily drew attention to the terrible blue face. I thought to myself, I'm probably going to die soon. Here one could really say that the seal of death lay on the face of a person. After a few steps, I turned around, stopped, followed him. He sat down on the pedestal, his eyes rolled back, then he slowly began to slide to the ground. When I approached him, he was already dead. People are so weak from hunger that they do not resist death. They die like they fall asleep. And the surrounding half-dead people do not pay any attention to them. Death has become a phenomenon observed at every step. They got used to it, there was complete indifference: after all, not today - tomorrow such a fate awaits everyone. When you leave the house in the morning, you stumble upon corpses lying in the gateway on the street. The corpses lie for a long time, as there is no one to clean them up. |
D. V. Pavlov, authorized by the GKO to provide food for Leningrad and the Leningrad Front, writes:
Despite the low temperatures in the city, part of the water supply network worked, so dozens of water taps were opened, from which residents of neighboring houses could take water. Most of the Vodokanal workers were transferred to the barracks, but the residents also had to take water from damaged pipes and holes.
The number of victims of famine grew rapidly - every day more than 4,000 people died in Leningrad, which was a hundred times higher than the death rates in peacetime. There were days when 6-7 thousand people died. In December alone, 52,881 people died, while the losses for January-February were 199,187 people. Male mortality significantly exceeded female - for every 100 deaths, there were an average of 63 men and 37 women. By the end of the war, women made up the bulk of the urban population.
Another important factor in the increase in mortality was cold. With the onset of winter, the city practically ran out of fuel supplies: electricity generation was only 15% of the pre-war level. The centralized heating of houses stopped, the water supply and sewerage froze or were turned off. Work has stopped at almost all factories and plants (except defense ones). Often, city dwellers who came to the workplace could not do their work due to the lack of water supply, heat and energy.
The winter of 1941-1942 turned out to be much colder and longer than usual. The average daily temperature steadily dropped below 0 ° C already on October 11, and became steadily positive after April 7, 1942 - the climatic winter was 178 days, that is, half a year. During this period, there were 14 days with an average daily t > 0 °С, mainly in October. Even in May 1942, there were 4 days with a negative average daily temperature; on May 7, the maximum daytime temperature rose only to +0.9 °C. There was also a lot of snow in winter: the height of the snow cover by the end of winter was more than half a meter. In terms of the maximum height of snow cover (53 cm), April 1942 is the record holder for the entire observation period, up to 2010 inclusive.
In the book "Memoirs" by Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, it is said about the years of the blockade:
The main heating means for most inhabited apartments were special mini-stoves, potbelly stoves. They burned everything that could burn, including furniture and books. Wooden houses were taken apart for firewood. Fuel extraction has become an important part of the life of Leningraders. Due to the lack of electricity and the massive destruction of the contact network, the movement of urban electric transport, primarily trams, stopped. This event was an important factor contributing to the increase in mortality.
According to D.S. Likhachev,
"The candle burned from two ends"- these words expressively characterized the position of a city resident who lived in conditions of starvation rations and enormous physical and mental stress. In most cases, families did not die out immediately, but one at a time, gradually. While someone could walk, he brought food on the cards. The streets were covered with snow, which was not removed all winter, so it was very difficult to move along them.
By decision of the bureau of the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Leningrad City Executive Committee, additional medical nutrition was organized at increased rates in special hospitals created at plants and factories, as well as in 105 city canteens. The hospitals functioned from January 1 to May 1, 1942 and served 60 thousand people. From the end of April 1942, by decision of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, the network of canteens for enhanced nutrition was expanded. Instead of hospitals, 89 of them were created on the territory of factories, plants and institutions. 64 canteens were organized outside the enterprises. Food in these canteens was produced according to specially approved standards. From April 25 to July 1, 1942, 234 thousand people took advantage of them, of which 69% were workers, 18.5% were employees and 12.5% were dependents.
In January 1942, a hospital for scientists and creative workers began to operate at the Astoria Hotel. In the dining room of the House of Scientists during the winter months, 200 to 300 people ate. On December 26, 1941, the Leningrad City Executive Committee ordered the Gastronom office to organize a one-time sale at state prices without food cards to academicians and corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences with home delivery: animal butter - 0.5 kg, wheat flour - 3 kg, canned meat or fish - 2 boxes, sugar 0.5 kg, eggs - 3 dozen, chocolate - 0.3 kg, cookies - 0.5 kg, and grape wine - 2 bottles.
By decision of the city executive committee, from January 1942, new orphanages were opened in the city. For 5 months, 85 orphanages were organized in Leningrad, which accepted 30 thousand children left without parents. The command of the Leningrad Front and the leadership of the city sought to provide orphanages with the necessary food. By a resolution of the Military Council of the Front of February 7, 1942, the following monthly norms for supplying orphanages per child were approved: meat - 1.5 kg, fats - 1 kg, eggs - 15 pieces, sugar - 1.5 kg, tea - 10 g, coffee - 30 g , cereals and pasta - 2.2 kg, wheat bread - 9 kg, wheat flour - 0.5 kg, dried fruits - 0.2 kg, potato flour - 0.15 kg.
Universities are opening their own hospitals, where scientists and other university employees could rest for 7-14 days and get enhanced nutrition, which consisted of 20 g of coffee, 60 g of fat, 40 g of sugar or confectionery, 100 g of meat, 200 g of cereals , 0.5 eggs, 350 g of bread, 50 g of wine per day, and the products were issued with cutting coupons from food cards.
An additional supply of the leadership of the city and the region was also organized. According to the surviving evidence, the leadership of Leningrad did not experience difficulties in feeding and heating residential premises. The diaries of party workers of that time preserved the following facts: any food was available in the Smolny canteen: fruits, vegetables, caviar, buns, cakes. Milk and eggs were delivered from a subsidiary farm in the Vsevolozhsk region. In a special rest house, high-class food and entertainment were at the service of vacationing representatives of the nomenklatura.
The instructor of the personnel department of the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Nikolai Ribkovsky, was sent to rest in a party sanatorium, where he described his life in his diary:
“For three days now I have been in the hospital of the city party committee. In my opinion, this is simply a seven-day rest house and it is located in one of the pavilions of the now closed rest house of the party activists of the Leningrad organization in Melnichny Creek. The situation and the whole order in the hospital is very reminiscent of a closed sanatorium in the city of Pushkin ... From the cold, somewhat tired, you tumble into the house, with warm cozy rooms, blissfully stretch your legs ... Every day meat - lamb, ham, chicken, goose, turkey, sausage; fish - bream, herring, smelt, and fried, and boiled and aspic caviar, salmon, cheese, pies, cocoa, coffee, tea, 300 grams of white and the same amount of black bread per day ... and to all this, 50 grams of grape wine, good port wine for lunch and dinner. The comrades say that the district hospitals are in no way inferior to the Gorkomovsky hospital, and that some enterprises have hospitals that make our hospital pale before them. |
Ribkovsky wrote: “What is even better? We eat, drink, walk, sleep, or just sit back listening to the gramophone, exchanging jokes, having fun playing dominoes or playing cards with the “tragus” ... In a word, we have a rest! ... And in total, having paid only 50 rubles for vouchers "
At the same time, Ribkovsky argues that "such a rest, in the conditions of the front, a long blockade of the city, is possible only among the Bolsheviks, only under Soviet power."
In the first half of 1942, hospitals, and then canteens for enhanced nutrition, played a huge role in the fight against hunger, restoring the strength and health of a significant number of patients, which saved thousands of Leningraders from death. This is evidenced by the numerous reviews of the blockade survivors themselves and the data of polyclinics.
In the second half of 1942, in order to overcome the consequences of the famine, 12,699 patients were hospitalized in October and 14,738 patients in need of increased nutrition were hospitalized in November. As of January 1, 1943, 270,000 Leningraders received food security increased compared to the all-Union norms, another 153,000 people visited canteens with three meals a day, which became possible due to a more successful navigation than in 1941 in 1942.
An important role in overcoming the problem of food supply was played by the use of food substitutes, the conversion of old enterprises to their production and the creation of new ones. The certificate of the Secretary of the City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Y.F. Kapustin, addressed to A. A. Zhdanov, reports on the use of substitutes in the bread, meat, confectionery, dairy, canning industries, and in public catering. For the first time in the USSR, food cellulose produced at 6 enterprises was used in the baking industry, which made it possible to increase bread baking by 2,230 tons. As additives in the manufacture of meat products, soy flour, intestines, technical albumin obtained from egg white, animal blood plasma, and whey were used. As a result, an additional 1,360 tons of meat products were produced, including table sausage - 380 tons, jelly - 730 tons, albumin sausage - 170 tons and vegetable-blood bread - 80 tons. 320 tons of soybeans and 25 tons of cotton cake were processed in the dairy industry, which produced an additional 2,617 tons of products, including: soy milk 1,360 tons, soy milk products (yogurt, cottage cheese, cheesecakes, etc.) - 942 tons. wood. The technology of preparing vitamin C in the form of an infusion of pine needles was widely used. Until December alone, more than 2 million doses of this vitamin were produced. In public catering, jelly was widely used, which was prepared from vegetable milk, juices, glycerin and gelatin. For the production of jelly, oat grinding waste and cranberry cake were also used. The food industry of the city produced glucose, oxalic acid, carotene, tannin.
In the autumn of 1941, immediately after the blockade was established, the Soviet troops undertook two operations in order to restore land communications between Leningrad and the rest of the country. The offensive was carried out in the area of the so-called "Sinyavino-Slisselburg ledge", the width of which along the southern coast of Lake Ladoga was only 12 km. However, German troops were able to create powerful fortifications. The Soviet army suffered heavy losses, but did not manage to move forward. The soldiers who broke through the blockade ring from Leningrad were severely exhausted.
The main battles were fought on the so-called "Nevsky Piglet" - a narrow strip of land 500-800 meters wide and about 2.5-3.0 km long (this is according to the memoirs of I. G. Svyatov) on the left bank of the Neva, held by the troops of the Leningrad Front . The entire patch was shot through by the enemy, and the Soviet troops, constantly trying to expand this bridgehead, suffered heavy losses. However, it was by no means possible to surrender a patch - otherwise the full-flowing Nevuzanovo would have to be crossed, and the task of breaking the blockade would become much more complicated. In total, about 50,000 Soviet soldiers died on the Nevsky Piglet in 1941-1943.
At the beginning of 1942, inspired by the success in the Tikhvin offensive operation and clearly underestimating the enemy, the Soviet high command decided to attempt the complete liberation of Leningrad from the enemy blockade by the forces of the Volkhov Front with the support of the Leningrad Front. However, the Luban operation, which initially had strategic objectives, developed with great difficulty, and ultimately ended in a severe defeat for the Red Army. In August - September 1942, Soviet troops made another attempt to break through the blockade. Although the Sinyavin operation did not achieve its goals, the troops of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts managed to thwart the plan of the German command to capture Leningrad under the code name "Northern Lights" (it. Nordlicht).
Thus, during the years 1941-1942, several attempts were made to break through the blockade, but all of them were unsuccessful. The area between Lake Ladoga and the village of Mga, in which the distance between the lines of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts was only 12-16 kilometers (the so-called "Sinyavino-Shlisselburg ledge"), continued to firmly hold the units of the 18th Wehrmacht Army.
Main article:The road of life
"Road of Life" - the name of the ice road through Ladoga in the winters of 1941-42 and 1942-43, after reaching the thickness of the ice, allowing the transportation of goods of any weight. The road of life was actually the only means of communication between Leningrad and the mainland.
In the spring of 1942, when I was 16 years old, I just graduated from the school of drivers, and went to Leningrad to work on a "lorry". Just my first flight lay through Ladoga. Cars broke down one after another and food for the city was loaded into cars not just "to the eyeballs", but much more. It looked like the car was about to fall apart! I drove exactly half the way and I just had time to hear the cracking of ice, as my "lorry" was under water. They saved me. I don’t remember how, but I woke up already on the ice about fifty meters from the hole where the car fell through. I quickly began to freeze. They took me back in a passing car. Someone threw on me either an overcoat or something similar, but it did not help. My clothes began to freeze and I could no longer feel my fingertips. Passing by, I saw two more drowned cars and people trying to save the cargo. I was in the blockade area for another six months. The worst thing I saw was when the corpses of people and horses surfaced during the ice drift. The water looked black and red... |
On March 29, 1942, a partisan convoy with food for the inhabitants of the city arrived in Leningrad from the Pskov and Novgorod regions. The event was of great propaganda value and demonstrated the inability of the enemy to control the rear of his troops, and the possibility of releasing the city by the regular Red Army, since the partisans managed to do this.
On March 19, 1942, the executive committee of the Lensoviet adopted the regulation "On personal consumer gardens of workers and their associations", which provides for the development of personal consumer gardening both in the city itself and in the suburbs. In addition to the actual individual gardening, subsidiary farms were also created at enterprises. To do this, vacant plots of land adjacent to enterprises were cleared, and employees of enterprises, according to lists approved by the heads of enterprises, were provided with plots of 2-3 acres for personal gardens. Ancillary farms were guarded around the clock by the personnel of enterprises. Garden owners were assisted in acquiring seedlings and using them economically. So, when planting potatoes, only small parts of the fruit with a sprouted “eye” were used.
In addition, the Leningrad City Executive Committee obliged some enterprises to provide residents with the necessary equipment, as well as to issue agricultural benefits (“Agro-rules for individual vegetable growing”, articles in Leningradskaya Pravda, etc.).
In total, in the spring of 1942, 633 subsidiary farms and 1,468 associations of gardeners were created, the total gross harvest from state farms, individual gardening and subsidiary farms amounted to 77 thousand tons.
In the spring of 1942, due to warming and improved nutrition, the number of sudden deaths on the streets of the city was significantly reduced. So, if in February about 7,000 corpses were picked up on the streets of the city, then in April - about 600, and in May - 50 corpses. In March 1942, the entire able-bodied population came out to clean up the city from garbage. In April-May 1942, there was a further improvement in the living conditions of the population: the restoration of communal services began. Many businesses have reopened.
On December 8, 1941, Lenenergo cut off electricity supply and partial redemption of traction substations took place. The next day, by decision of the city executive committee, eight tram routes were abolished. Subsequently, individual cars were still moving along the streets of Leningrad, finally stopping on January 3, 1942 after the power supply was completely cut off. 52 trains remained frozen in the snow-covered streets. Snow-covered trolleybuses stood on the streets all winter. More than 60 cars were smashed, burned down or seriously damaged. In the spring of 1942, the city authorities ordered the removal of cars from highways. The trolleybuses could not go on their own, so we had to organize towing. On March 8, for the first time, voltage was given to the network. The restoration of the city's tram economy began, a freight tram was put into operation. On April 15, 1942, voltage was given to the central substations and a regular passenger tram was launched. In order to reopen freight and passenger traffic, it was necessary to restore approximately 150 km of the contact network - about half of the entire network in operation at that time. The launch of a trolleybus in the spring of 1942 was considered inexpedient by the city authorities.
Incomplete figures of official statistics: with a pre-war mortality rate of 3,000 people, in January-February 1942, about 130,000 people died in the city every month, 100,000 people died in March, 50,000 people died in May, 25,000 people died in July, in September - 7000 people. The radical decrease in mortality occurred due to the fact that the weakest have already died: the elderly, children, the sick. Now the main victims of the war among the civilian population were mostly those who died not from starvation, but from bombing and artillery attacks. In total, according to recent studies, approximately 780,000 Leningraders died during the first, most difficult year of the blockade.
In April - May, the German command during the operation "Aisstoss" unsuccessfully tried to destroy the ships of the Baltic Fleet standing on the Neva.
By the summer, the leadership of Nazi Germany decided to intensify hostilities on the Leningrad front, and, first of all, to intensify artillery shelling and bombardment of the city.
New artillery batteries were deployed around Leningrad. In particular, super-heavy guns were deployed on railway platforms. They fired shells at a distance of 13, 22 and even 28 km. The weight of the shells reached 800-900 kg. The Germans drew up a map of the city and outlined several thousand of the most important targets, which were shelled daily.
At this time, Leningrad turns into a powerful fortified area. 110 large defense centers were created, many thousands of kilometers of trenches, communication lines and other engineering structures were equipped. This created the opportunity to carry out covert regrouping of troops, the withdrawal of soldiers from the front line, and the pulling up of reserves. As a result, the number of losses of our troops from shell fragments and enemy snipers has sharply decreased. Reconnaissance and camouflage positions were established. Counter-battery combat with enemy siege artillery is being organized. As a result, the intensity of shelling of Leningrad by enemy artillery significantly decreased. For these purposes, the naval artillery of the Baltic Fleet was skillfully used. The positions of the heavy artillery of the Leningrad Front were pushed forward, part of it was transferred across the Gulf of Finland to the Oranienbaum bridgehead, which made it possible to increase the firing range, moreover, to the flank and rear of the enemy artillery groups. Thanks to these measures, in 1943 the number of artillery shells that fell on the city decreased by about 7 times.
On January 12, after artillery preparation, which began at 9:30 and lasted 2:10, at 11:00 the 67th Army of the Leningrad Front and the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front went on the offensive and by the end of the day advanced three kilometers towards each other. friend from east and west. Despite the stubborn resistance of the enemy, by the end of January 13, the distance between the armies was reduced to 5-6 kilometers, and on January 14 - to two kilometers. The enemy command, striving to keep Workers' settlements No. 1 and 5 and strong points on the flanks of the breakthrough at any cost, hastily transferred its reserves, as well as units and subunits from other sectors of the front. The enemy grouping, located to the north of the settlements, several times unsuccessfully tried to break through the narrow neck to the south to their main forces.
On January 18, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts united in the area of Workers' settlements No. 1 and 5. On the same day, Shlisselburg was liberated and the entire southern coast of Lake Ladoga was cleared of the enemy. A corridor 8-11 kilometers wide, cut along the coast, restored the land connection between Leningrad and the country. For seventeen days, automobile and railway (the so-called "Victory Road") roads were laid along the coast. Subsequently, the troops of the 67th and 2nd Shock armies tried to continue the offensive in a southerly direction, but to no avail. The enemy continuously transferred fresh forces to the Sinyavino area: from January 19 to 30, five divisions and a large amount of artillery were brought up. To rule out the possibility of the enemy's re-entry to Lake Ladoga, the troops of the 67th and 2nd shock armies went on the defensive. By the time the blockade was broken, about 800 thousand civilians remained in the city. Many of these people were evacuated to the rear during 1943.
Food plants began to gradually switch to peacetime products. It is known, for example, that already in 1943, the Confectionery Factory named after N. K. Krupskaya produced three tons of sweets of the well-known Leningrad brand “Mishka in the North”.
After breaking through the blockade ring in the Shlisselburg area, the enemy, however, seriously fortified the lines on the southern approaches to the city. The depth of the German defense lines in the area of the Oranienbaum bridgehead reached 20 km.
On January 14, the troops of the Leningrad, Volkhov and 2nd Baltic fronts began the Leningrad-Novgorod strategic offensive operation. By January 20, Soviet troops had achieved significant success: the units of the Leningrad Front defeated the Krasnoselsko-Ropshinsky enemy grouping, and parts of the Volkhov Front liberated Novgorod. This allowed L. A. Govorov and A. A. Zhdanov to turn to I. V. Stalin on January 21:
JV Stalin granted the request of the command of the Leningrad Front and on January 27 a salute was fired in Leningrad to mark the final liberation of the city from the blockade, which lasted 872 days. The order to the victorious troops of the Leningrad Front, contrary to the established order, was signed by L. A. Govorov, and not by Stalin. None of the commanders of the fronts during the Great Patriotic War was awarded such a privilege.
During the years of the blockade, according to various sources, from 300 thousand to 1.5 million people died. So, at the Nuremberg trials, the number of 632 thousand people figured. Only 3% of them died from bombing and shelling; the remaining 97% starved to death.
Most of the inhabitants of Leningrad who died during the blockade are buried at the Piskarevsky memorial cemetery located in the Kalininsky district. The area of the cemetery is 26 hectares, the walls are 150 m long and 4.5 m high. Lines of the writer Olga Berggolts, who survived the siege, are carved on the stones. In a long row of graves lie the victims of the blockade, who in this cemetery alone number 640,000 people who died of starvation, and more than 17,000 people who fell victim to air raids and artillery shelling. The total number of civilian casualties in the city during the entire war exceeds 1.2 million people.
Also, the bodies of many dead Leningraders were cremated in the ovens of a brick factory located on the territory of the current Moscow Victory Park. A chapel was built on the territory of the park and a monument "The Trolley" was erected - one of the most terrible monuments of St. Petersburg. On such trolleys, the ashes of the dead were taken to nearby quarries after burning in the furnaces of the plant.
The Serafimovskoye cemetery was also a mass burial place for Leningraders who perished and died during the siege of Leningrad. In 1941-1944 more than 100 thousand people were buried here.
The dead were buried in almost all cemeteries of the city (Volkovsky, Krasnenkoe and others). During the battle for Leningrad, more people died than England and the United States lost during the entire war.
By order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of May 1, 1945, Leningrad, together with Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Odessa, was named a hero city for the heroism and courage shown by the inhabitants of the city during the blockade. On May 8, 1965, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Hero City of Leningrad was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
Enormous damage was done to historical buildings and monuments of Leningrad. It could have been even larger if very effective measures had not been taken to disguise them. The most valuable monuments, for example, the monument to Peter I and the monument to Lenin at the Finland Station were hidden under sandbags and plywood shields.
But the greatest, irreparable damage was caused to historical buildings and monuments located both in the suburbs of Leningrad occupied by the Germans, and in close proximity to the front. Thanks to the dedicated work of the staff, a significant number of storage items were saved. However, buildings not subject to evacuation and green spaces, directly on the territory of which hostilities were fought, were extremely damaged. The Pavlovsk Palace was destroyed and burned down, in the park of which 70,000 trees were cut down. The famous Amber Room, presented to Peter I by the King of Prussia, was completely taken out by the Germans.
The now restored Fedorovsky Sovereign Cathedral has been turned into ruins, in which a hole gaped in the wall facing the city for the entire height of the building. Also, during the retreat of the Germans, the Great Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo burned down, in which the Germans set up an infirmary.
Irreplaceable for the historical memory of the people was the almost complete destruction of the cemetery of the Holy Trinity Seaside Men's Hermitage, considered one of the most beautiful in Europe, where many Petersburgers were buried, whose names entered the history of the state.
For many years (until the 90s) the palace complex of Oranienbaum fell into disrepair.
In Leningrad, there was the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing, which possessed and still possesses a gigantic seed fund. Of the entire selection fund of the Leningrad Institute, which contained several tons of unique grain crops, not a single grain was touched. 28 employees of the institute died of starvation, but they kept materials that could help the post-war restoration of agriculture.
Tanya Savicheva lived in a Leningrad family. The war began, then the blockade. In front of Tanya, her grandmother, two uncles, mother, brother and sister died. When the evacuation of children began, the girl was taken out along the "Road of Life" to the "Mainland". Doctors fought for her life, but medical help came too late. Tanya Savicheva died of exhaustion and illness.
During the blockade, three churches were opened in the city: the Prince Vladimir Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior and St. Nicholas Cathedral. In 1942, Easter was very early (March 22, old style). All day on April 4, 1942, the shelling of the city went on, intermittently. On Easter night from April 4 to April 5, the city was subjected to a brutal bombardment, in which 132 aircraft participated.
Easter matins were held in the churches: under the roar of shell explosions and broken glass.
Metropolitan Alexy (Simansky) emphasized in his Easter message that April 5, 1942 marked the 700th anniversary of the Battle of the Ice, in which Alexander Nevsky defeated the German army.
Main article:Citizens! During shelling, this side of the street is the most dangerous
During the blockade, there was no area in Leningrad that could not be reached by an enemy shell. Areas and streets were identified where the risk of becoming a victim of enemy artillery was greatest. Special warning signs were placed there with, for example, the text: “Citizens! During shelling, this side of the street is the most dangerous.” Several inscriptions have been recreated in the city to commemorate the blockade.
In the city, despite the blockade, continued cultural and intellectual life. In the summer of 1942, some educational institutions, theaters and cinemas were opened; there were even several jazz concerts. During the first blockade winter, several theaters and libraries continued to operate - in particular, the State Public Library and the library of the Academy of Sciences were opened throughout the entire period of the blockade. The Leningrad radio did not interrupt its work. In August 1942, the city philharmonic was reopened, where classical music began to be performed regularly. During the first concert on August 9 at the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee under Karl Eliasberg, the famous Leningrad Heroic Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich was performed for the first time, which became the musical symbol of the blockade. During the entire blockade in Leningrad, functioning churches worked.
The policy of extermination of the Jews pursued by the Nazis also affected the occupied suburbs of besieged Leningrad. So, almost the entire Jewish population of the city of Pushkin was destroyed. One of the punitive centers was located in Gatchina:
The Red Banner Baltic Fleet (KBF; commander - Admiral V.F. Tributs), the Ladoga Military Flotilla (formed on June 25, 1941, disbanded on November 4, 1944; commanders : Baranovsky V.P., Zemlyanichenko S.V., Trainin P.A., Bogolepov V.P., Khoroshkhin B.V. - in June - October 1941, Cherokov V.S. - from October 13, 1941) , cadets of naval schools (separate cadet brigade of the VMUZ of Leningrad, commander Rear Admiral Ramishvili). Also, at various stages of the battle for Leningrad, the Chudskaya and Ilmenskaya military flotillas were created.
At the very beginning of the war was created Naval Defense of Leningrad and the Lake District (MOLiOR). On August 30, 1941, the Military Council of the Troops of the North-Western Direction determined:
On October 1, 1941, MOLiOR was reorganized into the Leningrad Naval Base (Admiral Yu. A. Panteleev).
The actions of the fleet proved to be useful during the retreat in 1941, defense and attempts to break through the blockade in 1941-1943, break through and lift the blockade in 1943-1944.
Areas of activity of the fleet, which were important at all stages of the Battle of Leningrad:
Personnel brigades (1st, 2nd brigades) of the marines and units of sailors (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th brigades formed the Training Detachment, Main Base, Crew) from ships that were laid up in Kronstadt and Leningrad took part in the battles on land . In a number of cases, key areas - especially on the coast - were heroically defended by unprepared and small naval garrisons (defense of the Oreshek fortress). Parts of the marines and infantry units, formed from sailors, proved themselves in breaking through and lifting the Blockade. In total, 68,644 people were transferred from the KBF in 1941 to the Red Army for operations on the land fronts, in 1942 - 34,575, in 1943 - 6,786, not counting the part of the marines that were part of the fleet or temporarily transferred to the command of military commands.
Naval and coastal artillery (345 guns with a caliber of 100-406 mm, more than 400 guns were brought in if necessary) effectively suppressed enemy batteries, helped repel land attacks, and supported the offensive of troops. Naval artillery provided extremely important artillery support during the breakthrough of the Blockade, destroying 11 fortification sites, the enemy's railway echelon, as well as suppressing a significant number of his batteries and partially destroying a tank column. From September 1941 to January 1943, naval artillery opened fire 26,614 times, having used up 371,080 shells of 100-406 mm caliber, while up to 60% of the shells were spent on counter-battery combat.
Bomber and fighter aviation of the fleet operated successfully. In addition, in August 1941, a separate air group (126 aircraft) was formed from units of the KBF Air Force, operationally subordinate to the front. During the breakthrough of the Blockade, more than 30% of the aircraft used belonged to the fleet. During the defense of the city, more than 100 thousand sorties were made, of which about 40 thousand were to support the ground forces.
In addition to the role of the fleet in battles on land, it is worth noting the direct activity in the waters of the Baltic Sea and Lake Ladoga, which also influenced the course of battles in the land theater:
The fleet ensured the functioning of the "Road of Life" and water communication with the Ladoga military flotilla. During the autumn navigation of 1941, 60 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to Leningrad, including 45 thousand tons of food; more than 30 thousand people were evacuated from the city; 20,000 Red Army men, Red Navy men and commanders were transported from Osinovets to the eastern shore of the lake. In the navigation of 1942 (May 20, 1942 - January 8, 1943), 790 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to the city (almost half of the cargo was food), 540 thousand people and 310 thousand tons of cargo were taken out of Leningrad. In the navigation of 1943, 208 thousand tons of cargo and 93 thousand people were transported to Leningrad.
From 1942 to 1944, the Baltic Fleet was locked up within the Neva Bay. His combat operations were hindered by a minefield, where, even before the declaration of war, the Germans secretly set up 1060 anchor contact and 160 bottom non-contact mines, including north-west of the island of Naissaar, and a month later there were 10 times more of them (about 10,000 mines) , both own and German. The action of submarines was also hampered by mined anti-submarine nets. After several boats were lost in them, their operations were also stopped. As a result, the fleet carried out operations on the enemy's sea and lake communications mainly by forces of submarines, torpedo boats, and aviation.
After the blockade was completely lifted, minesweeping became possible, where, according to the armistice, Finnish minesweepers also participated. From January 1944, a course was set for cleaning the Bolshoi Ship Fairway, then the main outlet to the Baltic Sea.
On June 5, 1946, the Hydrographic Department of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet issued Notice to Navigators No. 286, which announced the opening of navigation during daylight hours along the Great Ship Fairway from Kronstadt to the Tallinn-Helsinki fairway, which by that time had already been cleared of mines and had access to Baltic Sea. Since 2005, by a decree of the government of St. Petersburg, this day has been considered an official city holiday and is known as Day of the breakthrough of the naval mine blockade of Leningrad . Combat trawling did not end there and continued until 1957, and all the waters of Estonia became open for navigation and fishing only in 1963.
The fleet carried out the evacuation of bases and isolated groupings of Soviet troops. In particular - evacuation from Tallinn to Kronstadt on August 28-30, from Hanko to Kronstadt and Leningrad on October 26 - December 2, from the north-west region. coast of Lake Ladoga to Shlisselburg and Osinovets on July 15-27, from about. Valaam to Osinovets on September 17-20, from Primorsk to Kronstadt on September 1-2, 1941, from the islands of the Bjerki archipelago to Kronstadt on November 1, from the islands of Gogland, Bolshoi Tyuters and others on October 29 - November 6, 1941. This made it possible to preserve the personnel - up to 170 thousand people - and part of the military equipment, partially remove the civilian population, and strengthen the troops defending Leningrad. Due to the unpreparedness of the evacuation plan, errors in determining the routes of the convoys, the lack of air cover and preliminary trawling, due to the actions of enemy aircraft and the death of ships, there were heavy losses in our own and German minefields.
Landing operations were carried out, diverting enemy forces at the beginning of the war (a number of them ended tragically, for example, the Peterhof landing, the Strelna landing) and allowing a successful offensive in 1944. In 1941, the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Flotilla landed 15 landings, in 1942 - 2, in 1944 - 15. Of the attempts to prevent enemy landing operations, the most famous are the destruction of the German-Finnish flotilla and the reflection of the landing during the battle for about. Dry in Lake Ladoga on October 22, 1942.
For merits during the defense of Leningrad and the Great Patriotic War as a whole, 66 formations, ships and units of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Flotilla were awarded government awards and distinctions during the war. At the same time, the irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet during the war amounted to 55,890 people, of which the main part falls on the period of the defense of Leningrad.
On August 1-2, 1969, the Komsomol members of the Smolninsky RK VLKSM installed a memorial plaque with the text from the records of the defense commander for the gunnery sailors who defended the "Road of Life" on Sukho Island.
Losses of minesweepers during the Second World War:
In total - 53 minesweepers. To perpetuate the memory of the lost ships, the sailors of the trawling brigade of the Baltic Fleet made commemorative plaques and installed them in the Mine Harbor of Tallinn on the pedestal of the monument. Before the ships left the Mine Harbor in 1994, the boards were removed and transported to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
May 9, 1990 at the TsPKiO im. S. M. Kirov, a memorial stele was opened, installed at the base during the years of the blockade of the 8th division of boat minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet. In this place, every May 9 (since 2006, also every June 5), veteran minesweepers meet and lower a wreath in memory of the fallen from a boat into the waters of the Middle Nevka.
On June 2, 2006, a solemn meeting dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the breakthrough of the naval mine blockade was held at the St. Petersburg Naval Institute - the Naval Corps of Peter the Great. The meeting was attended by cadets, officers, teachers of the institute and combat trawling veterans of 1941-1957.
On June 5, 2006, in the Gulf of Finland, the meridian of the lighthouse of Moshchny Island (formerly Lavensaari), by order of the commander of the Baltic Fleet, was declared a memorial place for "glorious victories and the death of the ships of the Baltic Fleet." When crossing this meridian, Russian warships, in accordance with the Ship Charter, give military honors "in memory of the minesweepers of the Baltic Fleet and their crews who died while clearing minefields in 1941-1957."
In November 2006, a marble plaque "GLORY TO THE MINERS OF THE RUSSIAN FLEET" was installed in the courtyard of the Naval Corps of Peter the Great.
June 5, 2008 at the pier on the Middle Nevka in the TsPKiO im. S. M. Kirov, a memorial plaque was opened on the stele “To the Minesweepers Sailors”.
The front side of the medal depicts the outlines of the Admiralty and a group of soldiers with rifles at the ready. On the perimeter there is an inscription "For the defense of Leningrad". The reverse side of the medal depicts a hammer and sickle. Below them is the text in capital letters: "For our Soviet Motherland." In 1985, about 1,470,000 people were awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". Among those awarded with it are 15 thousand children and teenagers.
Established by the decision of the Leningrad City Executive Committee "On the establishment of the sign "Inhabitant of besieged Leningrad" No. 5 dated January 23, 1989. On the front side - an image of a broken ring against the background of the Main Admiralty, a flame, a laurel branch and the inscription "900 days - 900 nights"; on the reverse - a sickle and a hammer and the inscription "To a resident of besieged Leningrad". As of 2006, there were 217,000 people living in Russia who were awarded the badge "Inhabitant of besieged Leningrad". It should be noted that the commemorative badge and the status of a resident of besieged Leningrad were not received by all those born during the siege, since the above decision limits the period of stay in the besieged city to four months, which is necessary to receive them.
Kirovsky district
