27 January 1944: 872 Days of Starvation and Death - The Siege of Leningrad Ends

The Siege and Battle for Leningrad (8 September 1941 – 27 January 1944) were events of enormous significance, yet they are often overlooked in the history of World War II. This was a microcosm of the War on the Eastern Front, an epic clash that had far-reaching implications for both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In September 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, with the primary objective of capturing Leningrad, which was situated in the north. Hitler's strategy was to clear his Baltic flank and link up with Finnish troops, downplaying the importance of Moscow despite the objections of his army commanders. Army Group North's goal was to encircle, blockade, starve and ultimately destroy and level the city.

Right: Leningrad, Soviet Union. September 1941. German soldiers in front of burning houses and a church, near Leningrad in 1941. Source: Wikimedia.

Leningrad epitomized the brutal conflict on the Eastern Front during World War II. Despite its profound impact, the significance of Leningrad often remains overshadowed by other battles such as Stalingrad and Moscow. Anna Reid, in her seminal work Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944, highlights this oversight, noting that “Military historians have concentrated on the battles for Stalingrad and Moscow, despite the fact that Leningrad was the first city that Hitler failed to take, and that its fall would have given him the Soviet Union’s biggest arms manufacturies, shipyards and steelworks, linked his armies with Finland’s, and allowed him to cut the railway lines carrying Allied aid from the Arctic ports of Archangel and Murmansk.” The relative paucity of Soviet military literature on the siege may stem from a Soviet preference for celebrating victories rather than acknowledging prolonged struggles. 

For the Soviet Union, the Battle for Leningrad was as much a victory for the Soviet People as it was for the Red Army. However, the reality of the situation was that the German Army's siege of Leningrad was not militarily decisive towards the war's outcome. However, the Battle was a pivotal point for Soviet victory following the failed German offensive at Kursk in August 1943.

Hitler recognized the strategic importance of Leningrad and ordered its capture. However, the city proved to be a challenging target. The Germans had to divert troops from Army Group Center, based in Moscow, to bolster the siege effort outside of Leningrad. This, in turn, created a weakness in Army Group Center's strength and made it more vulnerable to attack by the Soviets. Hitler initially identified Leningrad as a primary objective in Operation Barbarossa in 1941. His strategy aimed to secure the Baltic flank, link up with Finnish forces, and ultimately encircle and destroy the city. While his generals prioritized Moscow, Hitler shifted focus to economic and ideological targets, revealing his broader ambitions. The capture of Leningrad would symbolize the eradication of Bolshevism and provide control over strategic industrial resources. However, the city’s defenders exhibited remarkable resilience, turning the siege into a pivotal episode in the Soviet struggle. 

For the Soviet Union, the defense of Leningrad represented not just a military endeavor but a testament to the collective resolve of its people. Although not militarily decisive, the siege became a crucial element in the narrative of Soviet victory, particularly after the failed German offensive at Kursk in August 1943. Conversely, for Germany, Leningrad became a drain on resources and manpower, weakening Army Group Center at Moscow and Army Group South in Ukraine. By redirecting troops northward, Germany inadvertently bolstered Soviet defenses, contributing to their eventual failure on the Eastern Front. 

For Hitler, the destruction of Leningrad symbolized the end of Bolshevism. He believed that Bolshevism and the Jews would undermine his nationalist goals. Hitler's hatred of Bolshevism clouded his military judgment, and he chose to go after economic targets and resources in the south and west, instead of the key military target of Moscow, which was the preferred target of his generals. Hitler detested the idea of Slavdom on the Baltic seacoast, which had once been a domain of the Teutonic Knights and the Hanseatic League. Leningrad was a cradle of revolutionary communism, and Hitler perceived Stalin's Bolshevik ideology as the main threat to western civilization—enemy number one. If Hitler had succeeded in capturing Leningrad, he would have gained control of the Soviet Union's major arms manufactories, shipyards, and steelworks. He would have linked his armies with Finland's and cut the railway lines carrying Allied aid from the Arctic ports of Archangel and Murmansk. Failure to capture Leningrad proved to be a considerable hindrance to Germany's need for additional troops. This impeded the strength of Army Group Center and Army Group South in the Ukraine. Troops from Army Group Center were redeployed northward to bolster the siege effort, turning it into a defensive action to keep the Soviet army at bay.

Right: A citizen or possibly a Red Army soldier stops to look at one of the many corpses of the starved and dead on the city streets of Leningrad. Public Domain, click to enlarge.

The devastating siege claimed the lives of nearly one million citizens within the city and an estimated 1.6 to 2.0 million Soviet citizens, including soldiers who died in battles surrounding the city. Hitler's strategy for Army Group North was to cut off and encircle the city and raze it to the ground using artillery and continuous air attacks. In September 1941, Hitler issued a decree calling for the destruction of Leningrad, claiming that its further existence held no interest once Soviet Russia fell. The citizens of Leningrad bore the brunt of the war's horrors, enduring starvation, harsh elements, and relentless bombardments. They also lost their lives while working to defend the city by building fortifications and digging anti-tank trenches outside of its borders. Despite the devastation, 98% of the Moscow section of Leningrad's citizens volunteered for the regular Soviet army in defense of their city, converting its economy to military production. Factory workers who remained on the job received greater shelter and rations, allowing them to continue working under difficult conditions.

Despite continuous air and artillery bombardments from Army Group North, Leningrad’s defensive infrastructure held firm. Historian David M. Glantz, in The Battle for Leningrad, 1941-1944, notes that Leningrad set a new standard for modern urban defense: 

Leningrad’s defenses set new standards of sophistication for the defense of a modern major city. Operating skillfully under the most trying of circumstances, the Northern and Leningrad Fronts erected complex and deeply echeloned defenses along the most critical southern and southwestern approaches to the city that incorporated the entire depth of the blockaded region and the city itself. For the first time during the war on the Soviet-German front, the defenses consisted of multiple fortified defensive lines, incorporating continuous trench lines, defensive regions, positions, and lines, and fortified regions, which while durable, also permitted forces to maneuver. The defense incorporated trenches, fortifications (pillboxes, bunkers, etc.), extensive obstacles, overhead cover for troops, and anti-artillery, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft defenses in the city itself. 

This comprehensive defensive network facilitated the continuation of vital supply deliveries across Lake Ladoga’s "Ice Road" and the addition of a rail line through the Schlissel’burg corridor in late 1943. Even former SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler acknowledged the formidable defense of Leningrad. His frustration with his officers’ competence led him to extol Soviet defensive methods, particularly those employed at Leningrad, as models to be studied and emulated. 

The failure of Army Group North to capture Leningrad in 1941 had significant strategic consequences for Nazi Germany's conquest of the Soviet Union. The concept of blitzkrieg failed for the first time in the Second World War at Leningrad, highlighting the growing resistance that Nazi Germany was facing. Army Group North's failure to capture Leningrad forced Hitler to alter his Barbarossa strategy significantly, weakening his main drive on Moscow and Stalingrad. The Wehrmacht was forced to reinforce Army Group North with 16 divisions and 2 brigades, including 7 divisions from Army Group Center, tying down 32% of its forces operating north of the Pripiat' Marshes in combat along the northwestern axis.

During the Siege and Battle for Leningrad, both Germany and the Soviet Union suffered significant losses. The Red Army lost a staggering 775,000 soldiers, which surpassed the total strength of Army Group North. The Germans lost a total of 414,000 soldiers, with the Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive Operation from January to March 1944 attributing to the combined loss. The Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive Operation had immense significance with the total Soviet casualty figure of 227,440 out of an initial strength of 417,600 at the Leningrad Front, which represents over 54% of their total strength. This operation was crucial, and the Russian forces deployed more fighting power here than they did at the counteroffensive at Stalingrad. At the time of commencing the operation on 14 January, the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts had 21,600 guns, 15,000 Katyusha multiple rocket-launchers, 1,475 tanks and self-propelled guns and 1,500 planes. It is worth noting that Soviet Red Army troop-strength was greater in 1944 for Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive Operation than for the Stalingrad front in September 1942.

The German Eighteenth and Sixteenth Armies were the first troops to see the reversal of Hitler's "No retreat" policy that had been in effect along the entire front and Leningrad since 1941. The overwhelming Soviet strength succeeded in driving the German forces rearward past the Panther Line and into the Courland Pocket.

Right: Leningrad, Soviet Union. 10 September 1941. Nurses helping wounded and dying Leningraders during a German bombardment. Source: Wikimedia. 

Army Group North weakened in mid-1943 from non-decisive battles, and it lost all initiative for the Leningrad siege. The outlook for Soviet victory at Leningrad became more feasible as Army Group North weakened, and the Stavka understood how weak it was. Raising the Leningrad blockade was still a priority of the Soviet Union, and thus, they began their 1944 winter campaign in the Leningrad region before expanding to the entire Soviet-German front.

Despite the heavy fighting at Leningrad, for several political, geographical, and military reasons, the Stavka did not consider the northwestern axis (Leningrad) the most vital strategic axis in the war. The critical western (Moscow-Minsk-Warsaw-Berlin) and southwestern (Kiev-Khar’kov-Stalingrad) strategic axes were more important, and both the Germans and the Soviets concentrated their most important offensive and defensive efforts along these axes to achieve victory. Although the Germans could not capture Moscow in 1941, 1942, and 1943 unless and until they weakened Soviet defenses along the Moscow axis by operating successfully along other axes, the Red Army cannot win along the western axis unless it has victory elsewhere.

For Germany, Leningrad was a failure on two levels: Firstly, it was a strategic miscalculation. The city, originally the prime objective of Hitler’s eastward conquest for Lebensraum and symbolic defeat of Bolshevism, represented a failure for Nazi Germany by abandoning Blitzkrieg warfare in favor of a static encirclement—a long-term strategy the Wehrmacht and Nazi Germany was not equipped to win. Germany had not mobilized its economy for war; as such, Army Group North did not have the requisite logistics and mobility to complete the encirclement—much of their logistical chain and infantry was equine-powered. Had the Eighteenth and Sixteenth Armies pushed through Leningrad employing their previously successful Blitzkrieg-style approach, before the Soviet construction of defensive fortifications, the outcome would have been different—even still with the continued reliance on horses. The Red Army, in disarray after the ‘Winter War’ with Finland, was incapable of winning or resisting a serious assault of Leningrad. Glantz describes the state of the Red Army’s ability to defend Leningrad in 1941:

… [As] required by Soviet war plans, Leningrad Military District’s forces were clearly adequate to defend the Leningrad region against any Finnish attack, Popov’s forces were not prepared to deal with aggression by the Wehrmacht, which in 1941 was the most formidable and accomplished military force in Europe. Like the Red Army as a whole, district forces were in serious disarray in June 1941, conceptually, organizationally, and with regard to the competence of its leaders and the effectiveness of its command and control organs. Conceptually, the Red Army’s overall military strategy as expressed in Defense Plan 1941 was clearly defensive in nature. As such, it was wholly incompatible with the offensive tactical and operational concepts of deep battle and deep operation, which the Red Army had developed in the 1930s and which still dominated Soviet military thought on the eve of war.

Right: Saint Petersburg, Russia (then Leningrad) 10 May 2019: Monument "Heroic defenders of Leningrad" on Victory Square. Monument to the feat of citizens in the tragic days of the siege of 1941-1944. Source: War History Network license.

Provided the lack of readiness and state of the Red Army at Leningrad in 1941, a blitzkrieg assault through the city would have succeeded, and as a result the operations at Moscow would have taken a different tone—for both Germany and Soviet Union. Secondly, Leningrad was a strategic collapse for Germany by way of the static defensive posture. This approach afforded the Red Army time to react and strategize, benefitted by numerical superiority in troops, armored vehicles, tanks and aircraft in 1943 and beyond.

By defeating Army Group North and lifting the siege, the Red Army turned the flank and the war itself in June 1944. Leningrad victory was essential for the westward drive to Berlin from the three Soviet axes as determined by Glantz: “… the Red Army’s victory at Leningrad in early 1944 paved the way for Soviet victory in Belorussia and western Ukraine in the summer of 1944 by weakening the Wehrmacht overall and by releasing fresh large reserves for employment along other critical axes.” Had the German Eighteenth and Sixteenth Armies conquered Leningrad by blitzkrieg or encirclement, the Wehrmacht would have joined forces with their apprehensive and reticent ally Finland, and provided a formidable northern-force stabilizing future operations southward: “If Leningrad had fallen or surrendered in September [1941], Army Group North might have swung south to tip the scales in the encirclement of Moscow.” The Gulf of Finland and North Sea would have been completely Nazi-owned, following the Baltic Fleet’s defeat. Soviet armaments factories such as Kirov, Izhora, Frunze, and Bol’shevik would have been completely shut-off, providing additional munitions to the Germans and crippling the Soviet war effort between Leningrad and Moscow. The Soviet T-34 tank—the workhorse of the Red Army, was produced at the Kirov Tank Factory  which had been moved to Chelyabinsk. This factory had sixty-four production lines—to have lost this early in the war to Nazi Germany would have been disastrous for the Red Army.

In closing, Max Hastings’ powerful summarization of the Siege and Battle for Leningrad, while replete with euphemism and rhetoric, is a haunting assessment of the costs paid by both dictators: “Both Hitler and Stalin displayed obsessive stubbornness about Leningrad. That of Stalin was finally rewarded, amid a mountain of corpses. A people who could endure such things displayed qualities the Western Allies lacked, which were indispensable to the destruction of Nazism. In the auction of cruelty and sacrifice, the Soviet dictator proved the higher bidder.” Leningrad’s contribution to victory on the Eastern Front is undeniable; the city’s war was won by soldiers, citizens,  and partisans alike. The Battle for Leningrad was an example of the Soviet People's determination to resist Nazi oppression despite their enormous losses. However, it is no surprise that Soviet military historians did not record the battle adequately. The Soviet Union had a long tradition of deference for the recording and remembrance of victories only, disregarding the losses, and remembering them would discredit the state's martial prowess. Leningrad, the northern target of Operation Barbarossa, was a significant event not only for the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany but also for the entire world.

Bibliography

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Bidlack, Richard and Nikita Lomagin. The Leningrad Blockade, 1941-1944: A New Documentary History from the Soviet Archives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

Erickson, John. The Road to Berlin: Stalin’s War with Germany. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983. Page references are to the 1999 edition.

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———. To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2009.

Glantz, David M. and Jonathan House. Armageddon at Stalingrad: September-November 1942. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2009.

———. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler.  Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

Hastings, Max. Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

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ABOVE: Saint-Petersburg, Russia (then Leningrad) 26 August 2020: Sculptural composition Siege of Leningrad.
Monument "Heroic defenders of Leningrad" on Victory Square. Source: War History Network license.