The City of Peter ( The siege of Leningrad, Part 1)

Now, city of Peter, stand thou fast,
Foursquare, like Russia; vaunt thy splendour!”
Alexander Pushkin

Prologue.

Da: escursionisanpietroburgo.it

At the beginning of  the Eighteenth Century, Peter the Great, Tsar of all the Russias, made build Saint Petersburg on the banks of the Neva River, originally in a marsh and inhospitable land. No capital city was more expensive. For building it, indeed, were necessary huge wealth and the work of more than hundred thousand workers. But when Peter wished something, he spared no expense to obtain it. Some year after, for instance, for defeating the King of  Sweden, Charles XII, he will not hesitate to sacrifice in battle, at Poltava,  the life of ten of his soldiers in change for that one of a Swedish. Gaining in the exchange, he will boast about.
The land of Saint Petersburg was a borderland. From time immemorial. And from time immemorial, on that land much blood was shed. From when, centuries before, the prince of Novgorod, Alexander Jaroslavovic, had harshly defeated , near the Neva, the Swedish invaders, laying the foundations for the future  Russia  and gaining for all eternity the epithet of Alexander Nevskij. Much time after, on that blood and paid by other blood, Saint Petersburg was built. In the intentions of Peter the Great, its founder, the city would have had to be a bastion towards the Europe, a show of  Russian power,  a challenge and, at the same time, a warning.

Catherine the Great(1729-1796)

Catherine II  – the Great Catherine-  enlarged it and filled  it with colours, turning it into the cultural centre of Russia.  In the city of Peter, arts and sciences flourished; at court, French was spoken; in the intellectual environments  new ideas were taking form. Even political and social changes were being discussed . In the first half of the nineteenth century, some brilliant young officers( the so-called Decembrists) tried to modify the Russian society, but in vain. Almost a century later and at price of other blood, Vladimir Uliànovic Lenin  succeeded.
With him St. Petersburg and the whole  Russia became  Soviet.

Seventeen years after the October Revolution, on December 1, 1934, in Leningrad, Leonid Nikolayev killed with a gun shot the brilliant Party secretary, Sergeij Kirov. Kirov was, in his  own way, a troublesome man for the Communist Party. Rumour had it that he had , in the Country and at the top of the Party apparatus, more success than Stalin. His murder–never clarified, otherwise–was the pretext for a massive manhunt. The Leningrad Communist Party was dismantled, its leaders were deported or shot; throughout the Soviet Union the period of  the “purges” began. The Red Army paid a terrible price: three of its five Marshals disappeared into thin air, almost all the army commanders were dismissed or shot; many junior officers were deported or executed. The future hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal Konstantin Rokossovskij, was detained  long time in a “re-education” camp , before being found innocent.
Peter the Great had come back.

Something is happening.

Andreij Zhdanov, the powerful secretary of the Leningrad’s Communist Party, and according to many people, Stalin’s successor, never tired of repeating the usual refrain: “Germany can not afford a two-fronts war.” And then–someone countered — why all those movements of German troops  west of the Soviet Union? Why those continuing flights  on Russian positions in the Baltic Sea? “Psychological warfare or security issues, nothing more,” was the inevitable answer. The militaries of Leningrad District thought : if a so eminent member  of the Party  is not concerned about what is happening, should we be? But they had many doubts. Maybe Germany would not fight on two fronts, but, surely , she was keeping an eye on the Soviet Union.
Even too much.

It was late spring, it often was raining, it was still cold. But soon, very soon, the summer would have come with its “white nights” and, then, the inhabitants of “Piter”, as Leningrad was still called confidentially , would have had  a late night, enjoying the cool air along the Neva river or in the gardens of the city. Soon, very soon, the lovebirds, in the hot sun of June, would walk hand in hand , making plans about their future.
But what future?

For the time being,  the writer Alexander Luknitzkij walking around the streets of Leningrad with his dog Mishka, was not worried about the future. Everything was quiet, it was a beautiful day. The dog ran around far and wide as usual. It was happy and it  trusted in its master. And the writer greeted this or that lady, this or that acquaintance, always keeping an eye on his four-legged friend, taking care that it would not go too away.
It was Saturday, Saturday June 21. An ordinary Saturday in Leningrad.
An ordinary Saturday?

Not for Admiral Arseny Golovko, chief of the Soviet Navy’s land services. In the days before,  he had  reported to Moscow several spotting flights by German planes. Moscow had answered keeping things vague as ever, and warning, as always, of not falling into provocations of any kind. That Saturday, in the sky above Leningrad no airplane had appeared . Had the Germans got tired to make patrol  flights or were they  preparing anything? Golovko was worried. However, he thought, worrying is  useless: it is  better to go to the theatre and enjoy the show. And he did so.

Also the Vice-Admiral Vladimir Tributz, commander of the Baltic Fleet at anchor in the port of Riga, Latvia, was restless. Too many German flights, too many troop movements: something was brewing. But what? It was better to stay on the safe side: he put his fleet on alert 2 and asked Moscow for permission to lay mines as a precaution. Admiral N. G. Kutnètzov, Commissioner of the Navy, told him to be on the alert, but to avoid any provocation. As for laying mines, nothing to do.
But not even he was quiet. Perhaps it would have been more prudent to put the Baltic fleet,  the Black Sea fleet, all Soviet  ships on high  alert. But how doing it without sending Stalin into a rage? Stalin, indeed, was convinced that all those movements, all those rumours of war were only propaganda or a clever Anglo-American manoeuvre  to put the Germans and the Russians the ones  against the others.
The admiral thought a little bit about it, then he found the way out: he gave the fleets  the order to enter Alarm 1, passing it off as an exercise. He anticipated a little bit the times: a few hours later, in fact, the official order of high alert came directly from the Kremlin. It was signed  by  the new Chief of Staff, General Georgy Zhukov.

The  Zhukov’s order  must not mislead:  few, in the Soviet Union, seriously  believed yet  or wanted to believe that there would have been the war. A few days earlier, on June 13, the Tass, the Soviet press agency, had reiterated the groundlessness of all the rumours about a German attack. And the soldiers, the citizens should have doubted of the official organisms? There would have been no war: if Moscow said so, if the Tass wrote so, it was true.
It was not true.

Barbarossa.

The Germans launched their offensive, Operation Barbarossa, at dawn on June 22, Sunday, along three lines: Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev. The Soviets were caught completely by surprise.

But they had been warned in time, they even knew the date and time of the attack. And then, if they knew, why did they  not immediately try to batten down the hatches? The answer is simple: because Stalin did not believe in a German aggression or he did not want to believe in it. According to him, all those rumours of war were a provocation, nothing else. After all, the two Countries were still united by a  friendship and non-aggression pact (the “Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact”), always respected by the Soviets. And that , according to Stalin, was enough.

At the last minute, however, Stalin was assailed by scruples and tormented by doubts. And thus he moved, trying to see the cards in the hands of Hitler, but his attempt was clumsy and, above all, useless. Von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of the Reich , did not show up or find during the whole day of Saturday, June 21, while the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, Dekanozov,  was searching him everywhere. Von Weizaecker, the First Secretary of the Ministry, contacted in the evening, was not personable and helpful as usual. “Are our aircrafts attacking Russia? To me it seems  the opposite, “he coldly said  to a more and more confused Dekanozov. Nor  Molotov was luckier:  he had summoned at the Kremlin the German ambassador in Moscow, von Schulenburg, but he got no further with him.

Why all that diplomatic movement? Was Stalin  ready, in order to avoid war, to make even significant political and territorial concessions  ? Maybe yes, maybe no. However, it was too late for anything. In the evening, von Ribbentrop appeared: he was tense, excited and maybe drunk. He convened Dekanozov and gave him the declaration of war. Then, with tears in his eyes, he  claimed  he was not guilty about that decision.

It was the war, then. But, despite the evidence, it was difficult to believe it. When some Nazis aircraft attacked  Sevastopol, in Crimea, to a Soviet officer opening the anti-aircraft fire was forbidden  : he ignored that order, risking being shot. Elsewhere, at Libau, on the Baltic Sea, the authorization was granted only when the Nazi planes had dropped their bombs.

General D.G. Pavlov, commander of the West Special District , was at theatre in Minsk when he was informed about the German attack. “It can not be true!” said “It  is a nonsense!” Commissar to Defence Semjon Timoschenko called from Moscow and warned: “Do not open fire without authorization against German planes.” Maybe the Russians  were thinking, maybe they were hoping in a kind of bluff and they did not want to commit a faux pas, giving Hitler an excuse to sink his shot.

But Hitler was not bluffing. His Armies were running at full speed , surrounding the Soviet divisions, destroying the Russian aircraft  on the ground, taking one city after another. Marshal von Leeb was advancing towards Leningrad in two directions–with the XVIII Army towards Pskov-Ostrov, and with the XVI Army towards Kaunas and the river Dvina– smashing the Soviet land defences , using  as a hammer the formidable General Hoeppner’s  4th armoured Group.

Towards Leningrad.

West and south-east of Leningrad there were few defences. For the Soviets, the dangerous border was , as always, the northern one, i.e. that one with Finland. There many  fortifications had been erected, there troops had been massed . In Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, little  had been done. Firstly, because those states had been  joined  the Soviet Union from little more than a year, and secondly, because most of the Baltic population had not swallowed the annexation and it was not making mystery of it,  and, thirdly, because some hostile armed groups  were active. In the Baltic states, in short, the secret police(NKVD) was working at full capacity, the Red Army a little  less.

In Riga was based off the mighty Soviet Baltic Fleet, Hitler’s obsession;  in the hinterland  of the city had been erected here and there still approximate and defensive lines and some troops had been scattered around . There were always six hundred kilometres or more between the border with Germany and Leningrad, a far cry without any doubt, but there was no general plan of defence.

Given the situation, the Soviets, faced with the Nazi excessive power, could not work miracles. The city of Kaunas was captured in no time at all, despite the fierce resistance of the border guards; many divisions without orders or with orders without rhyme or reason (“Counterattack and take Kaunas again”, for instance),  were taken by surprise in motion and swept away. Others headed blindly towards far away positions  or already in enemy hands. Von Manstein, at the head of his armoured Corps,  crossed the Niemen River  at Alytus,  reached the Dvina River  at Dvinsk and pushed forward, exploiting the remained intact bridges . It was June 26th and the Nazis panzers,  on the north side, had penetrated to almost one hundred and eighty kilometres into Soviet territory. A disaster, in fact.

But a triumph for the attackers. Hitler was elated ; also General Franz Halder, the Chief of Staff, was elated. And Stalin? Stalin, after the hyperactivity shown on the first hours of the invasion, was not responding. It was as if he had fallen in catalepsy. For more than a week, he will spend hours in his room in the Kremlin or in his dacha outside the city, unable to make decisions, unable, almost, to speak.

Instead Molotov  spoke. At noon, hour of Leningrad: we have been attacked on betrayal, without any reason. But we are in the right  and we will win. In the City of Peter someone wonder: why is Molotov and not Stalin speaking ? Who had savings, ran to the bank to draw out them; all the population bought up food; the canned food—usually hated by the Russians– went like hot cakes, but also the caviar went like hot cakes.

The Nazis were advancing at the speed of lightning, but they had  reckoned without their  host. Although without orders or with inconsistent orders , the Soviet divisions began to fight  with bravery and tenacity, the civilian population cooperated. Be clear: not all in the city of Peter were “crazy” about Stalin and  about the Communism, but everyone fell duty bound to fight till the last for defending his own city. Thus, the inhabitants of Leningrad mobilized or were mobilized . Who was unable to take aim with a rifle, dug trenches or anti tanks traps or, as  the poets and the writers, spoke on the radio to keep up the population’s morale.

General Leliushenko succeeded to stop , even if for a short time, no less than von Manstein. Also in other  points of the front some counterattacks were attempted. For his part, General — later Marshal- – Kiril Meretzov,  veteran of  the Red Army, combatant during the Spanish civil war, sent to Leningrad directly from the Lubianka — where he was detained and tortured– to adopt the most effective measures to face an eventual aggression, made fortify the Pskov-Ostrov line, then the ancient border line with Finland, located at about thirty kilometres from Leningrad, then , west, the line on Luga River and finally he opened a second Front ( it was the name given by the Soviets to  their Army-Groups) around Volkov, north-east of the ancient Saint Petersburg.

The measures adopted by Meretzkov worked. Not entirely, but they worked. If they did not stop the Germans, they anyway slowed down their march. On the Luga river line, von Leeb took more than a month to overcome the soviet troops and the bad trained , raked up but brave popular militias – People’s Volunteers- and to go forward. But it was already August —  August 8, in particular– and the timetable fixed by Hitler had not been respected. On the northern front, after very heavy fights, the Finns were stopped or they preferred stopping. But it was not sufficient. When the Germans occupied the railway station of Mga, interrupting every communication between Leningrad and the rest of Russia , the city of Peter was isolated.

And  the Baltic Fleet, the so feared Baltic Fleet? It had left Tallin, Estonia( reached after having left Riga) amid a indescribable mix-up. Because of the mines and of the aerial attacks, it had had many losses and casualties, but it had been able to reach Kronstadt. And from there, the guns of the cruiser Kirov and of all other Soviet warships did not cease to hammer the enemy positions, trying to give breath  to the city.

That was a bad situation. At this point directly from Moscow, General Zhukov was sent to Leningrad. Georghij Konstantinovic Zhukov did not understand very much  the “sacred” Marxist texts, had a bad temper, but he was very capable. Son of a very poor cobbler, cavalry non-commissioned officer in the tsarist army, officer in the soviet Army, he had gained experience in Far East, where, around River Chalkin-Gol he had defeated the Japanese. After that success, Stalin had called him to the Kremlin and  had made of him one of the more heard officers of the Red Army. Zhukov was  outspoken, even with Stalin. In his presence, he often rose his voice. And, strangely, Stalin did not react and, in the first times at least, he seemed to suffer his personality.

There was a legend: before every battle, Zhukov picked up a handful of earth, sniffed it and, then, he decided if to attack or to wait. Legend a part, he was tough, determined, even ruthless. One time, General Eisenhower asked him what were the Soviet tactic to  attack the mine fields. Infantry attacks as if the mine field does not exist, was his answer.
This was Zhukov.

The enemy beyond the gates.

When Zhukov arrived in Leningrad, the situation was desperate. The Nazis, broken through the Luga line and occupied Mga, were pressing and  were about to capture the city. Zhukov ordered: from now on, we do not withdraw, we attack. In the meanwhile, however, defensives lines were fitted out; in the houses and in the buildings loopholes were opened ; casemates were built. The Soviets got ready  to counter the enemy house-to-house; the whole Leningrad was mined. The Kronstadt harbour was filled by depth-charges linked to a sole detonator: neither the harbour, nor the fleet had to fall in enemy hands. All would have had to blow up if the enemy had broken through.

But the Germans did not break through. They arrived at a step from the capture of the city, but they failed. Reached  the Neva’s banks, they were unable to cross it: they tried to do it, but in vain. So, the rejoining with the Finns and the Hitler’s dream to take behind Moscow failed. What stopped them? Perhaps they had not pontoons enough, perhaps they were not prepared to cross the river under a very heavy fire, perhaps they were tired and exhausted because of  the fierce soviet resistance; perhaps they underestimated the enemy.

And , however,  it would  not have been necessary very much. The Soviets were in deep trouble and they would have been unable to stop them, if they had attacked in forces. The Germans, instead, reached the river, tried some occasional sally, but they never try in forces. And to that unexplainable lightness, Leningrad owed, after the Luga line, its salvation.

In Ligovo, for instance, a suburb of Leningrad, the Soviets were lined up around a building, House Klinovskij, and they were a handful of people. But that handful of people, despite the heavy German attack, withstood and, as the day progressed, received reinforcements, artillery, rocket launchers Katyusha, they became more and more numerous and dislodging them from their shelters was impossible for the Germans.
Sometimes, the dead tired soldiers of both sides  stopped to draw breath. During one of these pauses, a Soviet soldier begun to  sing, as  only the Russian soldiers are able to do, an old folk song. When the song was over , something  unexpected happened: a voice was heard on the other bank of the Neva praying “Again, Russian! Again! “

In September, the Germans had tried from the sky. Successive waves of bombers had dropped  tons and tons of bombs on Leningrad, taking a heavy toll, threatening the art treasures of the Hermitage, stowed in a hurry in the basements  of the museum, hitting barracks, hospitals, military installations, civilian houses. And the Badajev warehouses , in particular. With the warehouses – – hit in the centre–  tons and tons of food had gone on fire: the whole stock of Leningrad. The imprudent  Soviets had culpably neglected to store food in different places, in order to make the warehouses less vulnerable to attacks.

Some people were leaving Leningrad. The kids, in particular. But they were still too few. In addition, since an evacuation plan lacked, their departure was improvised. Many of the places towards which they  were directed, for instance, were on the way of German advance. Underestimation of the events or hope to repulse the invaders?

At Leningrad someone arrived. The well-known woman poet Vera Imber and her husband, a famous doctor who was about to assume the office of director of the Leningrad’s hospital , for instance. Theirs was a issue of pure patriotism. The poet confided  to a friend of hers: staying behind the lines, seemed to us a sign of cowardice.

From Leningrad not only people were leaving. Also some of the treasures of the Hermitage, crated with care,  had left Leningrad : the paintings of Leonardo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, El Greco;  many dismantled industrial factories were leaving from Leningrad to be reassembled elsewhere. At Leningrad, all the inhabitants were fighting or were working for the city, women included. And all were expecting the worst.

Then, one day, the Germans began digging trenches. The formidable armoured Groups of General Hoeppner had been taken off to von Leeb around mid-September and sent on the Moscow front. Where, in a hurry, on 6 October even Zhukov had been recalled by Stalin, in order to do a new miracle. General Ivan Fediuniskij ( later general Michail Chozin) was appointed commander of Leningrad’s front. Without the Hoeppner’s armoured Group, the Germans, already inside Leningrad, had lost strength and speed and, on Hitler’s order, they had stopped. Zhukov, the spasitel(спаситель), the saviour, had won the battle of September.

When the population of Leningrad saw the Germans working by spade, sought with relief: the city and the remains of the Baltic Fleet were save, for the moment at least. In the ancient fortress of Schliessenburg – -the Oreshek, ” the hard bone” , “ the Nutlet” of Peter the Great– the red flag was flying:  how long would it have continued to fly?

For a long time Hitler had dreamed  to enter Leningrad as a winner to review his deployed troops and to celebrate the victory at the Hotel Astoria. The need to conquer Moscow,  had prevented him from fulfilling  his dream. For trying to capture the Soviet capital, German troops had been moved from Leningrad, weakening the von Leeb’s pressure on the city of Peter . But the need to conquer Moscow would not have prevented Hitler  from  ordering to starve to death  Leningrad. And it did not prevent him . He said: feeding the whole population of Leningrad is not our task. If we conquer the city, we should do it: we can not afford it. Von Leeb was warned to tighten the city into a deadly  grip and , if the city had offered to surrender, he should have to refuse it . Hitler had decided: Leningrad would  be wiped from the face of the earth, and with it, all its people. Asked about this matter,  the Finns made no objection.

For the city of Peter, the days of the supreme ordeal were about to come.

Read The City of Peter, Part 2.

To read:
David M. Glantz, The Battle for Leningrad, University Press of Kansas, 2002
David m. Glantz, The siege of Leningrad, Zenith, 2001
Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, The legacy of the siege of Leningrad, 1941-1995, Cambridge University Press, 2006 ( E-book, too)
Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 days: the siege of Leningrad, Da Capo Press, 2003

The events in short:

June, 22, 1941:

– The Germans invade the USSR, launching at dawn the ” Operation Barbarossa”;
– General Kiril Meretzkov arrives at Leningrad;
– Viaceslav Molotov, Commissioner of Soviet Foreign Affairs, announces  on radio the outbreak of war.

June, 23: in Moscow the Stavka is appointed. It is the Supreme Command with at its head Marshal Semiòn Konstantìnovich Timoschenko.

June, 24: the Soviet warships at anchor in Riga, Latvia, leave the city and head towards Tallin, Estonia, main seat of the Baltic Fleet.

June, 25: Kaunas, Lithuania, is occupied by General Georg von Kuechler.

June, 26: General Erich von Manstein , at the head of his units, reaches Dvinsk.

June, 27: Andreij Zdanov comes back at Leningrad from Soci, on the Black Sea, where he was spending his holidays.

July, 1: Riga falls.

Juky, 3; Stalin speaks on radio, in a low voice and often doing pauses, to his ” brothers, sisters, friends” of Russia: it is the beginning of the so called “Patriotic War”.

July, 5: the Germans capture Ostrov.

July: 8-9: Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb attacks the fortified Luga line. The Soviet defenders are, for more than a half, People’s Volunteers.

July, 9: the Nazi panzers enter Pskov, the ancient city tied to the name of Alexander Newskij.

July, 10: Marshal Kliment Voroscilov is appointed Commander in Chief of Leningrad Front; many officers are removed.

July, 21: on the walls of Leningrad’s houses appear the posters with the writing: “Enemy at the gates!”

August, 6: the Finns break the northern front and reach the Ladoga Lake, near Khitola.

August, 8: after a month of  fierce resistance and after having suffered terrible casualties, the Soviets are compelled to leave the Luga line.

August, 8: Stalin is appointed Commander in Chief of USSR’s armed forces.

August, 15: further Finnish advances on the northern front; the Soviets withdraw on the line of the previous fortifications. At cost of big sacrifices, the Finns are stopped and the front is steadied. It will be steady until the Soviet 1944 counter-offensive

August, 21: Hitler’ directive: Leningrad  first , then Moscow.

August, 26: the Stavka ( the Supreme Command) orders the evacuation of Tallin and of the Baltic Fleet, hit by a heavy Nazi attack.

August, 27-31: at cost of heavy casualties, both military and civilian, Tallin is evacuated by sea and the remains of the Baltic Fleet reach Kronstadt.

August, 30: the Germans capture Mga, a station railway on the Leningrad-Vologda- Moscow line and cut off the communication between the city and inland.

September, 8: the air bombing  of Leningrad begins: incendiary bombs hit the Badayev warehouses, where the food reserves for the whole city are stowed.

September 8: the German panzers reach Schlissenburg, the ancient fortress on the Neva River, and close the circle around Leningrad.

September, 9: von Leeb launches an attack along two directions: from southwest through Kràsnoje Selo and Ligovo towards the Kirov factories and from southeast , along the highway Leningrad-Moscow, just beyond Izhork e Kolpino. The Germans reach the Neva river, but, unexplainably, they do not cross it.

September, 13: General Georgij Zhukov assumes the command of Leningrad: he replaces Marshal Voroscilov, deposed because of ” passivity in front of the enemy”.

September 16-21: the whole Leningrad is mined.

September, 17: the General Hoeppner’s Panzer Corps is taken away to von Leeb and sent to Moscow front.

September, 18: the  Germans, stopped at Ligovo inside the city, begin to dig trenches.

September, 19: heavy aerial raid on Leningrad: the shopping centre Gostinij Dvor is hit. There are many dead.

October, 6: Zhukov is recalled to Moscow and General Ivan Fediuniskij replaces him at Leningrad.

November, 7: on the fortress of Schlissenburg — the ” Hard Bone” as it was commonly called– isolated by the Nazis from the rest of the town, the defenders run up the red flag: it will be there till the first Soviet counteroffensive, in winter 1943.