(2/10) Battlefield II Leningrad Ep6 World War II

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The Siege of Leningrad September 8, 1941 - January 27, 1944
For centuries the cultural heart of Russia and the second largest city in the Soviet Union, Leningrad was a prime target of the advancing German Army Group North in June 1941.
One of the stated reasons for the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 was to protect the former Czarist capital, St. Petersburg, later called Leningrad, from Finnish attack. When the Germans invaded, they called on the Finns to attack Leningrad from the north.
On the shore of Lake Ladoga, Leningrad had political significance as the city named for the founder of the Russian Revolution, but it also had military significance as it prevented the Germans from sweeping around the north of Russia and attacking Moscow from behind.
The population of Leningrad turned out shortly after the invasion and dug antitank ditches around the city. Two hundred thousand Red Army defenders protected 3,000,000 inhabitants.
Within weeks of crossing the border, the Germans cut the Leningrad-Moscow railway and the Germans advanced on the city. The attack failed and the Nazi Generals appealed to Hitler to start a siege, so panzer units badly needed elsewhere could be released.
Hitler readily agreed on September 29, 1941. Furthermore, he ordered that the city be reduced so that the Germans would not have to feed its population. Relentless shelling and air raids began and lasted for the next 872 days.
Soviet naval units tried to evacuate the sick and wounded, but Leningrad came to symbolize the horrors of the Eastern Front. Starvation claimed thousands of lives, and it was not uncommon to find corpses left in the street. Six hundred fifty thousand died in 1942 alone. The brutal winter of 1941-42 that stopped the Germans in the south only added to Leningrads agony.
Supplies came in sporadically by barge across Lake Ladoga during the summer of 1942 and during the winters trucks would drive over the frozen ice. Truck convoys would sink in bomb craters left by Stuka attacks and would disappear in the rapidly melting ice as the temperature increased in the spring. Some 500,000 residents were taken out, but most stayed and many died. The summer thaws would reveal more corpses in the streets, forgotten and buried by snow.
Starvation was eased in 1943 by vegetable gardens that were planted on any open ground. Incredibly, war production continued in factories frozen by winter air coming through shell holes and bomb craters in the ceiling.
In January 1943, the siege was broken by a Soviet offensive, but not completely lifted. The rail line with Moscow was reestablished. The Soviet offensive of January 1944 lifted the siege, and for the first time in almost 900 days the populace could walk openly in the streets without fear of air attack.
The siege of Leningrad was dramatized for the entire world. Dimitri Shostakovitch wrote his Seventh Symphony, the Leningrad Symphony, during the siege. Leningrad came to symbolize the Soviet-Nazi conflict, and Americans especially identified with the Leningrad inhabitants.
Stalin bestowed the Order of Lenin on the city in 1945, and the title Hero City of the Soviet Union was awarded in 1965. Leningrad still remains a symbol of Nazi brutality and aggression on the Eastern Front.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• World
• War
• II
• Leningrad
• Nazi
• Eastern
• Front
• Soviet
• Moscow
• Russia
• Germans
• Soviet-Finnish
• St.
• Petersburg
• Lake
• Ladoga

[illbetilbake]

They are making a pretty big mistake by calling Soviet troops 'Russians'.

[Stresemannite]

Partisans wrecked German suppl y and logistics, aswell as the stupid amount of weapons...Germany had too many types and only some could be relied on 100%. More types means more spare parts and without an outstanding economy that can mass produce, this is impossible.

[MarxistLenin93]

Stalin was a completely utter useless fuck. 

[Ryssak18]

@PreludeianGT As they said in this documentary it was all Stalins Purge

[Ryssak18]

@Richthofen100 True! +1

[Richthofen100]

@PhilipDK5800

well...not rly. Soviets could be mongols and kazakstans, uzbekis, ukrainians and so forth.

[PhilipDK5800]

@illbetilbake. Russians, soviets. Same same

[gettincrazywithit]

@gamadjedna9 Just like some historians say Barbarossa started with 2 million axis soldiers, some say 3 and some say 4 million. We will never get the correct #'s..sigh

[TheAdrianStalker]

@poppagdt3

Do you think that the German declaration of war on USA had anything to do with with the battle of eastern front? After the battle of Britain, Hitler launched offensive against soviet union in mid-1941. USSR is all but alone to fight the German with a little assistance from Britain and USA. It was until D-day in mid-1944, USA marine begin its offensive on France and to Germany. It was with blood of the Soviet soldier and determination to fight to the end which lead to theirs victory.

[PreludeianGT]

Russians failed to use their Tanks correctly as well. Coming out of tge Spanish Civil War the Soviets concluded tanks supported infantry while Germany saw it the other way around. Thus the under powered battleship tanks.

[gamadjedna9]

WTF? at 7: 11 he says they had 800 tanks

and at 8:11 says they had 600 tanks