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- The story of the Day of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade: how the townspeople survived the blockade and learned about the lifting of the siege
The story of the Day of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade: how the townspeople survived the blockade and learned about the lifting of the siege
On Tuesday, January 27, Russia celebrates the Day of the complete Liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade. Exactly 82 years ago, Soviet troops finally lifted the siege of the city. Izvestia's article tells the story of the siege: how the Germans surrounded Leningrad, how the inhabitants fought hunger and cold, preserved cultural life, and how they celebrated liberation.
The beginning of the siege: how Leningrad ended up surrounded by the enemy
According to the diary entries of Hitler's adjutant Major Gerhard Engel, the German leadership discussed the possibility of the complete destruction of Leningrad, including in the context of the positions of the Finnish command.
"If St. Petersburg no longer exists as a major city, the Neva River would be the best border on the Karelian Isthmus.… Leningrad must be eliminated as a major city," declared Finnish President Risto Ryti in September 1941.
The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 Leningrad residents hide in bomb shelters during an air raid alert
At the end of August 1941, German troops blocked most of the roads connecting Leningrad with the southern regions of the country. As a result, on August 27, the evacuation of civilians from the city was stopped.
The siege of Leningrad began on September 8, 1941, after the capture of Shlisselburg by German troops. The city was cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union by land. In the following days, the enemy occupied Pushkin, Krasnoe Selo and Peterhof, but the Soviet troops managed to hold Kronstadt and the Oranienbaum bridgehead.
— The Wehrmacht implemented the Barbarossa plan — Army Group North was supposed to reach Arkhangelsk, and Leningrad made a stop for them. Although there are other versions, for example, that St. Petersburg is one of the capitals of Russia, albeit Soviet. That the very name — Lenin's city — had spiritual significance for the Soviet people. And it was necessary to take it, capture it and hold a "feast for the whole world" there, explains Olga Tsareva, a history teacher, in a conversation with Izvestia.
How people lived during the blockade
Living conditions in Leningrad became extremely difficult even before the official start of the blockade.
Leningrad residents work on the construction of defensive fortifications
The shelling and bombing of the city began in the first months of the war. So, in June 1941, Nazi aircraft attacked a military unit at the Pesochnaya station in the Pargolovsky district. The attack was witnessed by 11-year-old Leningrad schoolgirl Tonya, who made an entry in her diary.
"A fascist threw a bomb at a military unit at the Pesochnaya station in the Pargolovsky district. During the explosion, the windows of the frames and doors fell on us, the children, we were scared and, out of fright, crawled where to hide. This morning, my father was escorted to the front," she wrote.
As of September 8, 1941, there were about 2.5 million people in Leningrad. The food situation was critical at this point. Already in early September, products began to disappear from stores: since September 1, their free sale has been prohibited. There were very few supply routes left.
Residents of the city sorting through the rubble after the bombing at the Kirov factory
In the early days of the siege of Leningrad, on September 8 and 10, 1941, German aircraft launched massive strikes on the Badaevsky food warehouses. According to archival data, about 280 incendiary bombs were dropped on the territory of the complex. As a result of the fire, 38 wooden warehouses and 11 auxiliary buildings were destroyed.
According to officially published archival information, about 3 thousand tons of flour and 2.5 thousand tons of sugar were stored in warehouses at that time. After the fire was extinguished, up to 1,000 tons of burnt or waterlogged flour and up to 900 tons of burnt sugar were collected on site. These products were subsequently processed by the city's food processing enterprises.
Residents of the city sorting through the rubble after the bombing at the Kirov factory
The fire at the Badaevsky warehouses became one of the most memorable events of the first days of the blockade and became a symbol of the most difficult conditions of the 1941-1942 blockade in the mass consciousness of Leningraders.
At the same time, a number of historians note that even with the preservation of these reserves, they could provide the city with food only for a limited period of time.
In 1941, a card system was introduced in Leningrad, which established the norms for the distribution of bread. The minimum standards were fixed in November: 250 grams per day — for workers and engineers, 125 grams - for other categories of the population. These rules were in effect until December 20, 1941.
The residents of Leningrad did not immediately realize the gravity of their situation, but the desire to survive and preserve human dignity turned out to be stronger than the feeling of hunger. As Tatyana Milyaeva, a history teacher, told Izvestia, the townspeople continued to work at their enterprises, and then they were independently assigned to perform public works — they cleaned the streets, buried the dead, and helped each other.
A delegation of partisans and peasants living in the villages of the Partizansky region delivers food collected for residents of besieged Leningrad. The partisans are carrying grain carts
According to her, deaths from exhaustion on the streets of the city were massive. To prevent contamination of water and soil, the bodies of the dead were promptly removed and buried.
The supply of Leningrad continued until the spring of 1943 along the Road of Life, the only transport highway passing through Lake Ladoga. Food, weapons, and fuel were delivered to the city along this route, as well as civilians were evacuated.
According to the historian, the German troops regularly subjected the area of the Road of Life to air strikes, but did not have accurate data on the places of its operation. In addition, according to Milyaeva, the massive bombing of Lake Ladoga was considered impractical due to the high cost of ammunition.
Boats deliver food along Lake Ladoga to besieged Leningrad
The official markets were practically non-functioning under the blockade, but there were spontaneous places of exchange in the city, called "marketplaces". There, residents tried to exchange personal belongings for groceries and other basic necessities.
"The market itself is closed. Trade goes along Kuznechny Lane from Marat to Vladimirskaya Square and further along Bolshaya Moskovskaya. Human skeletons walk back and forth, wrapped in who knows what, with mismatched clothes hanging from them. They brought everything they could here with one desire — to exchange for food," says Boris Mikhailovich Mikhailov's memoirs "At the bottom of the Blockade and the War."
In addition to the food at the market, the townspeople also received other scarce goods, such as matches, soap, kerosene, sewing needles.
Cabbage growing on St. Isaac's Cathedral Square
The Leningraders also fought hunger by breaking up vegetable gardens. Vegetables grew all over the city, even on St. Isaac's Square — cabbage was grown there, and carrots, beets, potatoes, dill and cabbage were grown in the Summer Garden.
"Only 10 districts of the region received 1,188 tons of potatoes, 385 tons of grain, and 8 tons of flax seeds for the liberated areas. In addition, over a thousand plows and harrows, 140 carts, 215 winnowers, seeders and mowers, 15 threshing machines, 340 sets of harness and many other equipment have been allocated," LenTASS reported in December 1943.
Despite the extremely difficult conditions, cultural life continued to exist in besieged Leningrad. There were cinemas, theaters and a zoo in the city. Personal diaries attest to the residents' desire to keep in touch with art.
Performance at the Leningrad Musical Comedy Theater
For example, Igor Malakhov, a high school student, noted in his notes that he dreamed of going to the theater, but it was difficult to get tickets, since only the Musical Comedy Theater was operating at that time. According to him, the townspeople had to limit themselves to concerts and radio broadcasts of the Theater at the Microphone.
During the war years, the Musical Comedy Theater released 15 premieres, including the plays "Eva", "The Princess of Dollars", "Maritza", "The Three Musketeers", "The Bird Seller" and "The Sailor's Love". During the blockade, the theater was visited by about 1.3 million viewers.
According to N. Yukhnova's research, 33 cinemas were operating in Leningrad in the fourth quarter of 1941, which were visited by 3.3 million people during this period. In the first quarter of 1942, there were only two cinemas in the city, and the number of viewers decreased to 118 thousand people. Already in the third quarter of the same year, 22 cinemas showed films, and the number of visitors increased to 2 million.
"The day went well, it was fun, we were a little distracted from difficult experiences," Igor Malakhov wrote in his diary after the performance of The Wedding in Malinovka.
"We forgot about our sorrows. Lying down in cold beds in the dark, for the first time we didn't talk or think about food, but shared our impressions," admired a Leningrad resident who went to the theater to warm up.
Lifting the blockade: how the city learned about the victory
On January 12, 1943, the troops of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts launched Operation Iskra, the purpose of which was to defeat German troops south of Lake Ladoga and restore land communications with Leningrad. Already on January 18, Soviet units broke through the blockade ring, liberated Shlisselburg and ousted the enemy from the southern coast of Ladoga. In less than a month, roads and railways were laid along the corridor, and in early February, the first train arrived in the city.
Soviet soldiers in the attack near Leningrad, Operation Iskra
The complete liberation of Leningrad took place a year later. In mid-January 1944, Soviet troops launched an offensive operation that ended on January 27. On this day, the blockade was finally lifted.
— The Leningrad front is not the only one, Stalingrad was still active in February, and the Kursk Bulge in the summer, and the crossing of the Dnieper in the autumn. There were not enough resources for the entire front. The commander-in-chief decided that first the south and the center. I don't think there is any other intention here," Tsareva replied to Izvestia's question about why a year had passed between the breakthrough and the complete lifting of the blockade.
As historian Tatiana Milyaeva told Izvestia, Leningrad residents learned about the breakthrough and lifting of the blockade on the radio, from street loudspeakers and newspapers. According to her, people hugged, screamed and cried with happiness.
The meeting of the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts after the breakthrough, January 18, 1943
In honor of the victory in Leningrad, a salute was given — 24 artillery volleys from 324 guns.
Milyaeva also noted that there is a widespread legend that after the liberation of the city, two wagons of cats were allegedly delivered to Leningrad to fight rodents. According to the historian, during the years of the blockade, pets had nothing to feed, and they died quickly.
According to various estimates, by the end of the siege in Leningrad, from 1 to 1.5 million people had died, about 34 thousand residents were injured, and more than 700 thousand were left homeless.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
