Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944): 872 Days of Blockade and Hunger

The Siege of Leningrad was the blockade of the Soviet Union’s second city by German and Finnish forces during the Second World War. It lasted 872 days, from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944, and was one of the longest and deadliest sieges in history. Most of its victims were civilians who died of hunger and cold, and the city’s survival became a lasting symbol of endurance.

Background

Leningrad, today Saint Petersburg, was the former imperial capital, the birthplace of the 1917 revolution and a major centre of industry, shipbuilding and culture. In 1941 it had a population of around 2.5 to 3 million people, swollen by refugees from the west.

When Germany launched Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, Army Group North under Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb drove through the Baltic states towards the city. Finland, which had lost territory to the Soviet Union in the Winter War, joined the attack from the north as a co-belligerent of Germany.

Inside Leningrad, hundreds of thousands of residents dug anti-tank ditches and fortifications, and volunteer militia divisions were rushed to the front with little training. Some children and factories were evacuated, but many people remained, and food reserves were small.

The ring closes

On 8 September 1941 German troops captured Shlisselburg, where the Neva river leaves Lake Ladoga. This cut the city’s last land connection with the rest of the country. On the same day, German bombs set fire to the Badayev food warehouses, destroying stocks of flour and sugar, a loss that became legendary although historians note that the stores held only a fraction of the city’s needs.

Georgy Zhukov was sent to take command in September, and the German advance on the city was stopped at its southern edge. Hitler, however, had already decided not to storm Leningrad. Instead, German forces would surround it, shell it and starve it. German planning documents of the time made clear that the city’s population was not expected to survive and that a surrender would not be accepted.

The famine winter

The winter of 1941–1942 was the worst period of the siege. Bread rations were cut repeatedly. From 20 November 1941, manual workers received 250 grams of bread a day, and office workers, dependants and children only 125 grams, bread that was often mixed with cellulose, sawdust or other fillers. Other foods were scarce or absent.

The city had no fuel for heating, no running water in many districts and almost no public transport. Temperatures fell well below minus 30 °C. People burned furniture and books for warmth and ate whatever they could find, including wallpaper paste, leather and household pets. Cases of cannibalism occurred and were recorded by the authorities, though they were a small fraction of the suffering.

Deaths peaked in December 1941 to February 1942, when thousands of people died each day. Bodies were dragged on children’s sleds to collection points and buried in mass graves. The diary of eleven-year-old Tanya Savicheva, recording the deaths of her family members one by one, became one of the best-known documents of the siege.

Hunger changed the city’s population. Men, who generally had less body fat and did heavy work, died first and in larger numbers in the first winter; women, children and the elderly made up a growing share of survivors. Many deaths were caused by alimentary dystrophy, the medical term used at the time for extreme starvation, often combined with cold and disease. Diaries kept by ordinary residents, now held in archives and museums, record the slow loss of strength, the endless queues for bread and the constant fear of losing ration cards, which could not be replaced.

Crime and black-market trading in food grew, and the authorities punished theft of ration cards and food harshly. At the same time, neighbours, factory teams and volunteer groups visited flats to find the sick and orphaned, and special hospitals and canteens were set up to feed those closest to death.

Even in these conditions, institutions continued to work. Scientists at the plant research institute founded by Nikolai Vavilov guarded its seed collection, and several of them died of starvation rather than eat the seeds. Many of the Hermitage Museum’s treasures had been evacuated east before the blockade, and its staff protected what remained.

The Road of Life

The only link with the outside world was across Lake Ladoga, east of the city. In autumn 1941 barges and boats carried supplies over the water under German air attack. Once the lake froze, an ice road was opened in late November 1941, with the first trucks crossing on 22 November.

This route became known as the Road of Life. Lorries drove across the ice, often at night and under fire, and some fell through the ice. Over the winter it brought in food, fuel and ammunition and carried hundreds of thousands of people out of the city. Pipelines and power cables were later laid under the lake. In total, around 1.3 to 1.4 million people are estimated to have been evacuated from Leningrad during the siege.

Life, culture and defiance

Leningrad’s authorities, led by party chief Andrei Zhdanov, kept factories producing weapons and ammunition even at the height of the famine. Radio broadcasts continued, and when there was no programme, a metronome ticked over the loudspeakers so that people knew the city was still alive.

On 9 August 1942 Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, the “Leningrad”, was performed in the besieged city by the Radio Orchestra under Karl Eliasberg, with musicians weakened by hunger and some brought back from the front. The concert was broadcast on loudspeakers, including towards the German lines, and became a powerful symbol of resistance.

Breaking the blockade

Soviet attempts to relieve the city in 1941 and 1942 failed with heavy losses. In January 1943, during Operation Iskra (“Spark”), Soviet forces attacking from both inside and outside the ring met south of Lake Ladoga on 18 January. They opened a land corridor about 8 to 11 kilometres wide. A railway was built through it in a little over two weeks, though it remained within range of German artillery.

The siege continued, with constant shelling, for another year. German heavy artillery could still reach most of the city, and signs painted on the walls warned residents which side of the street was more dangerous during bombardment. Food supplies improved, however, as rail and lake routes brought in more goods, and vegetable plots were dug in parks and squares across the city. In January 1944 the Leningrad–Novgorod offensive, involving the Leningrad Front under Leonid Govorov and neighbouring fronts, drove Army Group North back. On 27 January 1944 the blockade was declared fully lifted, and the city celebrated with an artillery salute.

Consequences and losses

The human cost was immense. The Soviet figure presented at the Nuremberg trials was about 632,000 civilian deaths. Most historians now estimate between about 800,000 and over 1 million civilian dead, the large majority from starvation. Soviet military losses in the battles around Leningrad were also very heavy, running to several hundred thousand killed.

The Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery holds hundreds of thousands of victims of the siege in mass graves. In 1945 Leningrad was among the first cities named a “Hero City” of the Soviet Union.

After the war the siege became politically sensitive. In the “Leningrad Affair” of 1949–1950 several of the city’s wartime leaders were arrested and executed, and the Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad was closed. A fuller public history became possible only decades later, especially after 1991.

Myths and facts

“The Badayev warehouse fire caused the famine.” The fire was a real loss, but historians stress that the stores held only days or weeks of supplies for a city of millions. The famine was caused by the blockade itself.

“The whole population was starving equally.” Rations depended on category: workers received more than dependants, and some officials and soldiers had better access to food. Unequal access was a source of bitterness recorded in diaries.

“Finland besieged Leningrad alongside Germany.” Finnish forces closed the northern side of the ring but largely held near the old border and did not attack the city itself. The bombardment and starvation strategy was German.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1941, 22 June: Germany invades the Soviet Union.
• 1941, 8 September: Shlisselburg falls and the land blockade begins; the Badayev warehouses burn.
• 1941, 20 November: Bread rations fall to their lowest level.
• 1941, 22 November: The first trucks cross the ice road over Lake Ladoga.
• 1942, 9 August: Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony is performed in the city.
• 1943, 18 January: Operation Iskra opens a land corridor to the city.
• 1944, 27 January: The blockade is declared fully lifted.

Why it matters

The Siege of Leningrad showed the deliberate use of hunger as a weapon against a civilian population on a vast scale. Its memory remains central in Russia and in Europe’s understanding of the Second World War, alongside battles such as Stalingrad, and it stands as one of the war’s greatest human tragedies.