"Siege of Petrograd" redirects here. Not to be confused with Battle of Petrograd.
Siege of Leningrad
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet antiaircraft battery in Leningrad near Saint Isaac's Cathedral, 1941
Date
8 September 1941 – 27 January 1944 (2 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 5 days)
Location
Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (present-day Saint Petersburg, Russia) 59°55′49″N30°19′09″E / 59.93028°N 30.31917°E / 59.93028; 30.31917
Result
Soviet victory
Siege lifted by Soviet forces
Territorial changes
Axis forces are repelled 60–100 km (37–62 mi) away from Leningrad.
Belligerents
Germany Finland[1][2] Naval support: Italy[3]
Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
Georg von Küchler
C.G.E. Mannerheim
Erik Heinrichs
Markian Popov
Kliment Voroshilov
Georgy Zhukov
Ivan Fedyuninsky
Mikhail Khozin
Leonid Govorov
Kirill Meretskov
Strength
Initial: 725,000
Initial: 930,000
Casualties and losses
Army Group North: 1941: 85,371 total casualties[4] 1942: 267,327 total casualties[5] 1943: 205,937 total casualties[6] 1944: 21,350 total casualties[7] Total: 579,985 casualties
Northern Front: 1,017,881 killed, captured or missing[8] 2,418,185 wounded and sick[8] Total: 3,436,066 casualties
500,000 troops died on the Leningrad front [9]
Russian estimate of killed, captured or missing:[10] Baltic Fleet: 55,890 Leningrad Front: 467,525 Total: 523,415
Soviet civilians: 1,042,000[8]
642,000 during the siege
400,000 at evacuations
Total dead: 1,300,000[11]–2,000,000[12]
v
t
e
Eastern Front
Naval warfare
Baltic Sea
Black Sea
Arctic Ocean
1941
Barbarossa
Brest
Białystok–Minsk
1st Baltic
Brody
Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
1st Smolensk
Uman
Odessa
1st Kiev
Tallinn
Leningrad
Sea of Azov
1st Kharkov
1st Crimea
Sevastopol
Rostov
Gorky
Moscow
Finland
Kerch
Chechnya
Air war 1941
1942
Lyuban
Barvenkovo–Lozovaya
Rzhev
Toropets–Kholm
Demyansk
Kholm
2nd Kharkov
Case Blue
Caucasus
Rzhev–Sychyovka
Sinyavino
Stalingrad
Velikiye Luki
Mars
Little Saturn
1943
Iskra
Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh
Voronezh–Kharkov
Polar Star
3rd Kharkov
Gorky Blitz
Kursk
1st Donbas
Belgorod-Kharkov
2nd Donbas
2nd Smolensk
Lenino
Dnieper
Nevel
2nd Kiev
1944
Dnieper–Carpathian
Leningrad–Novgorod
Narva
2nd Crimea
1st Jassy–Kishinev
Karelia
Bagration
Lvov–Sandomierz
Doppelkopf
2nd Jassy–Kishinev
Dukla Pass
2nd Baltic
Belgrade
Debrecen
Petsamo–Kirkenes
Courland
Gumbinnen
Budapest
1945
Vistula–Oder
Western Carpathian
East Prussia
Silesia
Breslau
Solstice
East Pomerania
Lake Balaton
Moravia–Ostrava
Vienna
Bratislava–Brno
Berlin
Prague
Prague uprising
v
t
e
Leningrad and the Baltics 1941–44
1941
June in Lithuania
Summer War
Strategic defensive
Evacuation of Tallinn
Leningrad
Oranienbaum
Tikhvin
1942
Lyuban
Toropets–Kholm
Demyansk
Kholm
Sinyavino
1943
Iskra
Polar Star
Krasny Bor
Mga
1944
Relief of Leningrad
Narva
Karelian Isthmus
Vilnius
Šiauliai
Kaunas
Tartu
Riga
Tallinn
Moonsund Archipelago
Memel
Courland
v
t
e
Operation Barbarossa
German declaration of war
Phase 1
Brest
Białystok–Minsk
1st Baltic
Raseiniai
Brody
Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
Mogilev
Phase 2
Smolensk
Roslavl–Novozybkov
Advance on Leningrad
Phase 3
Uman
Odessa
1st Kiev
Tallinn
Petrikowka
Yelnya
Leningrad
Sea of Azov
Phase 4
1st Kharkov
Beowulf
Donbas–Rostov
Bryansk
1st Crimea
Sevastopol
Tikhvin
1st Rostov
Bombing of Gorky
Moscow
Air war
Air war 1941
Air war 22 june 1941
The siege of Leningrad (Russian: Блокада Ленинграда, romanized: Blokada Leningrada; German: Leningrader Blockade; Finnish: Leningradin piiritys, Italian: Assedio di Leningrado) was a prolonged military siege (alternatively a genocide aimed blockade depending on the definition) undertaken by the Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front of World War II. Germany's Army Group North advanced from the south, while the German-allied Finnish army invaded from the north and completed the ring around the city.
The siege began on 8 September 1941, when the Wehrmacht severed the last road to the city. Although Soviet forces managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the Red Army did not lift the siege until 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. The siege became one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and it was possibly the costliest siege in history due to the number of casualties which were suffered throughout its duration. An estimated 1.5 million people died as a result of the siege. At the time, it was not classified as a war crime,[13] however, in the 21st century, some historians have classified it as a genocide, due to the intentional destruction of the city and the systematic starvation of its civilian population.[14][15][16][17][18]
^Cite error: The named reference autogenerated8 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference autogenerated3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Baryshnikov 2003; Juutilainen 2005, p. 670; Ekman, P-O: Tysk-italiensk gästspel på Ladoga 1942, Tidskrift i Sjöväsendet 1973 Jan.–Feb. Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 5–46.
^"Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Army/Army Group, 1941". Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^"Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Army/Army Group, 1942". Archived from the original on 28 December 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^"Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Army/Army Group, 1943". Archived from the original on 25 May 2013. Retrieved 25 May 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^"Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Army/Army Group, 1944". Archived from the original on 29 October 2012. Retrieved 3 May 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^ abcGlantz 2001, p. 179
^"The Siege of Leningrad: Hell on Earth During WWII". TheCollector. 24 August 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
^Krivosheev, G. F. (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. Greenhill Books. ISBN 978-1853672804. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
^Salisbury 1969, pp. 594
^Glantz 2001, p. 180.
^"Siege Warfare and the Starvation of Civilians as a Weapon of War and War Crime". justsecurity.org. 4 February 2016. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
^Bidlack, Richard; Lomagin, Nikita (2012). The Leningrad Blockade, 1941–1944: A New Documentary History from the Soviet Archives. Translated by Schwartz, Marian. Yale University Press. pp. 1, 36. ISBN 978-0300110296. JSTOR j.ctt5vm646. Next to the Holocaust, the Leningrad siege was the greatest act of genocide in Europe during the Second World War, because Germany, and to a lesser extent Finland, tried to bombard and starve Leningrad into submission. [...] The number of civilians who died from hunger, cold, and enemy bombardment within the blockaded territory or during and immediately following evacuation from it is reasonably estimated to be around 900,000.
^Ganzenmüller 2005 p. 334
^Hund, Wulf Dietmar; Koller, Christian; Zimmermann, Moshe (2011). Racisms Made in Germany. Münster: LIT Verlag. p. 25. ISBN 978-3-643-90125-5. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
^Vihavainen, Timo; Schrey-Vasara, Gabriele (2011). "Opfer, Täter, Betrachter: Finnland und die Leningrader Blockade". Osteuropa. 61 (8/9): 48–63. JSTOR 44936431.
^Siegl, Elfie (2011). "Die doppelte Tragödie: Anna Reid über die Leningrader Blockade". Osteuropa. 61 (8/9): 358–363. JSTOR 44936455.
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