Food rations in the city were reduced again and again, condemning tens of thousands to death by starvation.

Convoys frequently broke through the ice or came under strafing from German aircraft. The only route for goods to reach the city was across frozen Lake Ladoga (the “road of life”) by truck or horse sledge and then another thirty-five miles by a rail spur through the isthmus north of the German-held town of Schlusselburg. In November, the Germans advanced further to the east, cutting the last rail connection to the rest of the country. IvanovĪs the weather turned cold and fuel supplies disappeared, public transportation ceased, heating and electricity were turned off, and residents dismantled wooden houses and chopped down trees for warmth. Right: Military Patrol, by Sergei Zakharov (1944) / From The Leningrad School, 1930-1990, by S.V. Left: Beware of a Shelling (1943) / Russian State Film and Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk By early September, one Leningrader was recording in her diary that “We have returned to prehistoric times: life has been reduced to one thing - the hunt for food.” Even before Georgii Zhukov replaced Klement Voroshilov as commander of Leningrad’s defense, virtually all able-bodied adults who has not been called up or had volunteered for military service were mobilized as People’s Volunteers to dig trenches and otherwise fortify the city. By the beginning of the siege some 400,000 people - mostly children - had been evacuated from the city despite official assurances that food supplies were plentiful and the invaders were incurring huge losses. Within the city, grim determination struggled to overcome panic.

The aim was to terrorize and starve the population into surrender. The siege began in September 1941 after the Army Group North under General Ritter von Leeb had severed the city’s vital rail line to Moscow and began bombarding seemingly random targets. Heroic Leningrad, by The Aladzhalov Brothers (1944) / Wikimedia Commonsīy 1943, Leningraders were enduring their second winter of the German army’s siege of their city. Professor of Russian and European History

Nat geo russian tank battle ww2