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The siege of Leningrad was the longest siege of the Second World War, lasting for nearly 900 days, and the most costly siege in history, with an estimated death toll in Leningrad of at least 1.5 million people. It was also a rare example of a siege in which the attackers had no interest in actually occupying the city after a victory, but instead intended to starve the population and destroy the city.
There are two aspects to this story. The first, and most gripping, is life in the city during the siege, with its dreadful food and fuel shortages, mass starvation and deaths to hypothermia, and the desperate attempts to get food into the city, mainly across Lake Lagoda, complicated by the Lake freezing over in the winter. Second is the associated campaign history – the German advance towards Leningrad, their failure to totally cut the city off during that advance, and the increasingly bitter battles that followed as the Soviets attempted to lift the siege and the Germans attempted to press it. Both sections are well written, with material from both sides, looking at the German plans for Leningrad and the reality of what that meant, as well as the many bitter battles fought on the approachs to Leningrad and around the city.
The focus here is on the first year of the siege. This was the period when starvation was at its worst, and the Germans posed the most serious threat to the city. Soviet attempts to push them back were generally unsuccessful, while attempts to get food into the city were at their most costly. The author’s account of life in the city pulls no punches, so we get a clear idea of just how ghastly life was for the besieged inhabitants, trapped, with almost no food or heat in an unusually cold winter, and dying in tragically vast numbers.
This is part one of two, with the second part due out in September 1924, so we stop at the end of 1942, after the failure of a series of Soviet counterattacks ment the city remained besieged, but the success of Soviet supply efforts and the evacuation of large numbers of survivors meant the city was in a much better state to face a second winter under siege. For all of the dreadful costs to Soviet civilians and soldiers, this is the story of a Soviet success, and a major setback for the Germans.
Chapters
1 – The Window to the West
2 – Stalin’s Purges
3 – Flawed Plans for War
4 – Barbarossa Unleashed
5 – The Approach to Leningrad
6 – Sinyavino and Tikhvin
7 – Starvation: The First Winter
8 – Bandenkrieg: The Partisan War
9 – Lyuban: The Price of Optimism
10 – Lyuban: Attrition and Failure
11 – Summer 1942
12 – A Bloodstained Autumn
13 – Towards the Second Winter
14 – A Bitter Stalemate
Author: Prit Buttar
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 464
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2023