The Siege of Leningrad: Epic of Survival

Purnell's History of the Second World War Battle Book No 5 - in good condition - due to differing weights in books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

Leningrad and Stalingrad; however history will judge the Communist experiment, there is little doubt that the two cities which most deservedly symbolised defiance to Hitler and ultimately the defeat of Fascism, bore the names of the most famous (or infamous) Communist leaders. And as Lenin had preceded Stalin, so Leningrad's period of appalling tribulation came in the winter of 1941 - a year before the holocaust on the Volga.

The first German shells landed in the city of Leningrad on 1st September 1941; the announcement of the lifting of the blockade was made on 27th January 1944, and the city was still ringed by the enemy for three weeks after that - so that siege lasted for nine hundred days. It was thus the longest siege of modern times, and it was also almost certainly the most violently conducted in history; for not only had modern industrialisation greatly improved the techniques of mass slaughter, but the besiegers' instructions had been lay to waste to the entire city and to annihilate its inhabitants without exception or remorse.

Though the Leningraders were not immediately aware of Hitler's intentions towards them, they acted from their first moment of appreciation of danger with a unanimity of purpose both admirable and at first sight astonishing; it is one of the greatest virtues of Alan Wyke's evocative and compelling text that from it emerges something of the ethos of the northern capital, and an understanding of that spirit of independence which inspires its population, forced upon it by such adverse factors as the winter weather and Stalin's chronic, churlish dislike.

I proved to be as well that they had learned to rely upon themselves. The first two months of the siege proved rigorous enough, for a population of three million souls devours an awesome tonnage of food each day - and all Russia was reeling under the shock of the German invasion, with cataclysmic results on every means of communication and supply. But on 9th November the railhead at Tikhvin fell into German hands, and as the author graphically recounts - 'There was now...no means at all of getting a single ounce of food into Leningrad.' No-one will ever know how many Leningraders died during that first grim winter, for the task of keeping alive was far too exacting for those who managed it, for any energy to be left over for corpse-counting; it was enough to extract some comfort from the reflection that the cold which killed would also keep corruption and disease at bay, and snow would cover the bodies in the streets until the Spring thaw. There would be time enough to worry about tomorrow's problems when one had found oneself alive tomorrow morning.

But for those for whom tomorrow came, the problems eased only fractionally during the months which followed. Despite the gradual absorption of the impetus of the German invasion by the Red Armies, despite the outstanding victories won by Russian forces to the south, Leningrad in the north lay in the Wehrmacht's iron grip until long after much occupied territory elsewhere had been liberated. Only a people of heroic cast could have withstood the trials and stresses for so long.

'But they were defending the city that Peter had built upon the bones of their ancestors.' writes Alan Wyke's in this worthy tribute to their fortitude, 'and perhaps in some inexplicable way this gave them courage. They never lacked that.'