How did the Germans see the Siege of Leningrad? During World War II Leningrad, current St.
Petersburg, suffered a horrible ordeal: an almost 900 day-long sieg where countless of
Leningraders died because of famine, cold, sickness, air raids and artillery strikes.
But how did the besieging Germans see their siege of the former Russian capital. In this
video: the German Perspective on the Siege of Leningrad.
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The Siege of Leningrad is a tragic chapter in history in which countless of Soviet citizens
died. Well known are the Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" by Dmitri Shostakovich and the diary of Tanya
Savicheva, an 11-year old girl who saw her family members perish and herself wouldn't
survive the war. But how did the Germans view this siege. What were their plans? And how
did these unfold?
Leningrad, in WW1 called Petrograd and before that St. Petersburg, was the cradle of the
1917 Russian Revolution. Both the February and October Revolution had occured in this
city. Back then it was also Russia's capital, which was moved to Moscow one year later.
Interesting enough: this had to do with the advance of the German armies during the First
World War. Eventually the Germans never got that far as the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was signed.
I made a detailed video on that in case you're interested.
Flashforward. On 22 June 1941 Germany invaded the USSR. Army Group North under Field Marshal
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb had to advance through the Baltic states towards Leningrad: the cradle
of the Russian Revolution that created the Bolshevik State Hitler wanted to take down.
On 30 August the last rail link to Leningrad was cut. On 8 September Fortress Schlisselburg
fell. By land the city was encircled. Lake Ladoga was the only route in and out of the
city. German forces swept through the outer defences taking town after town. As the Germans
came closer to the city they had to fight yard for yard. If they Germans had broken
through to the city centre perhaps a Stalingrad-like house-to-house battle would've developed,
but it never got to that point.
The German Airforce, the Luftwaffe, carried out air raids in which food depots of the city were destroyed.
A German professor noted in his dairy:
Here we see how the Germans were implementing a plan that was widely known as the Hunger
Plan, devised by the State Secretary at the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, Herbert
Backe, back in December 1940 when planning for the Soviet campaign had begun. As Quartermaster-General
of the Wehrmacht, Eduard Wagner wrote to his wife:
The last statement was one of Hitler's favourite expressions when justifying murderous results.
German High Command did worry about possible epidemics spreading from the city to the troops,
as well as the psychological strain on German infantrymen who might have to shoot at women
and children trying to get away from the city. Commanders feared the consequences of genocidal
warfare on their soldiers. They questioned if this would lead to a ‘loss of inner balance’.
Where, they were asking, would the brutalisation end? Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, the commander
of Army Group North therefore ordered the artillery to fire at the fleeing civilians.
Surrender of the city was not to be accepted. The idea was that Leningrad had to be razed
to the ground.
By the end of the month a 250-gram bread ration was introduced for the Soviet citizens. The
Luftwaffe bombed the city 23 times and over 5,000 shells were fired into the city. Some
German artillerymen started a joke that they were feeding the city by reducing the numbers
of civilian mouths. On 29 September 1941 a German pilot – who
took part in the aerial bombing of Leningrad – writes home in a letter:
Do notice that this was still early in the siege. Many Germans were confident the best
of the Soviet troops were defeated and it was now only a matter of time because the
Russian bear would collapse. That clearly wasn't the case. What was the case, was that
Germany's main attack would focus on Moscow instead of Leningrad.
Over the course of the years the Leningrad Front remained fairly stagnent. Yet, there
was fierce fighting. It was at the Leningrad that the Dutch Volunteer Legion saw action.
As the Germans launched Operation Fall Blau June 1942, the following directive was sent
to Army Group North:
Hitler hoped that in 1942 the city would be taken. Adolf Hitler reportedly planned to
hold a victory banquet in Hotel Astoria. He was so convinced Leningrad would fall quickly
that invitations to the event were printed in advance.
As Fall Blau began successfully, German high command planned to reinforce AG North to launch
an offensive on Leningrad that Summer. This was part of Plan Nordlicht. This plan wasn't
carried out as the Soviets pre-empted it with an attack of their own (Sinyavino offensive)
that Summer and Fall in which the Soviets failed to synchronize their offensives, allowing
the Germans to shift their forces and thus halt the attack. However the Sinyavino offensive
was a faillure the Germans cancelled their Operation Nordlicht. The battle saw the first
deployment of the Tiger tank, though with limited success. The Battle of Stalingrad
became the focal point of the Germans and therefore Leningrad became lesser known to
the German public. Mid-January 1943 the Soviets launched Operation
Iskra. Here the Battle of Krasny Bor took place in which the Spanish Blue Division fought
and managed to hold their ground. Later the Soviets launched Operation Polar Star which
also ended in faillure. Mid-January 1944 the Red Army launched the
Leningrad–Novgorod offensive. In the following month the Germans were pushed out of the region.
After almost 900 days the Leningrad Siege had come to an end.
I know that there is much more to these operations I just talked fairly briefly about. Furthermore:
this video does NOT give a full explanation of the Siege of Leningrad. It's about the
German perspective.
An estimated one million Soviet civilians died during the
siege; 16,700 of them because of shelling and bombing, most of it by honger of which
most died during the winter of 1941-1942 which also was due to Stalin's policies of not evacuating
the city in time.