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Complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege
«The announcer said that the siege of Leningrad has been completely lifted, that we, people of Leningrad, will no longer hear these hateful attacks. <...> I ran up to my grandmother, put her at the table, took a piece of paper, drew the city of Leningrad, represented by a dot, then drew a circle, thus I depicted a ring of Germans, and explained all this to my grandmother. Then I crossed out the ring and left only the “city” and said: “That's it, there is no siege anymore.” Grandmother cried with joy...»
(From a school essay by a 4th grade student of School No. 218 of Kuybyshevsky District of Leningrad, Zinaida Itkina, on the topic “Lifting the Siege” (1944))
On January 27, 1944, as a result of the Leningrad-Novgorod strategic offensive operation, the German-Fascist troops near Leningrad were defeated, and the 872-day siege of the city was finally lifted.
The siege of Leningrad lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. According to the Leningrad City Commission on the deliberate extermination of Leningrad civilians by Nazi barbarians and the damage caused to the economy and cultural and historical monuments of the city during the war and the siege (1945), 107,158 high-explosive and incendiary bombs, over 150 thousand heavy artillery shells were dropped on the city during this time.
According to various sources, from 632,253 to 1,093 million people died during the years of the siege. The first number was determined by the Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders in the Occupied Territories and presented to the USSR at the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946). In 1965, Leningrad historians G. L. Sobolev and V. M. Kovalchuk in the Voprosy istorii (Questions of History) magazine published an article Leningrad Requiem (about the victims of the population in Leningrad during the war and the siege), in which they cited the figure of at least 800 thousand people who died only from hunger. This assessment was included, in particular, in the second edition of G. K. Zhukov's memoirs Memories and Reflections (1974). In 2022, during the trial initiated by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation on the recognition of the siege of Leningrad as genocide, the number of victims of the siege was estimated at 1,093 million people (more than a third of the population of Leningrad at the beginning of 1941). In addition, the so-called delayed effect of the siege was defined, meaning the negative impact of the siege conditions affected not only the health of the residents of the besieged city, but of their descendants as well.
On January 27, 1944, a celebratory salute (24 artillery volleys from 324 guns) was fired in honor of the victory on the Field of Mars, on the banks of the Neva River, and on the ships of the Baltic Fleet. The Military Council of the Leningrad Front published an order signed by its commander, Army General L. A. Govorov, and stating: “Citizens of Leningrad! Courageous and persistent Leningrad residents! Together with the troops of the Leningrad Front, you defended our hometown. With your heroic work and steel endurance, overcoming all the difficulties and torments of the siege, you forged a weapon of victory over the enemy, giving all your strength for the cause of victory. On behalf of the troops of the Leningrad Front, I congratulate you on the significant day of the great victory near Leningrad.”
On May 17, 1944, on behalf of the people of the United States of America and in commemoration of the heroic defence of Leningrad, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt handed over to the city a special letter in which he noted that the residents and soldiers of Leningrad, “being isolated by the invader from the rest of their people and despite constant bombing and untold suffering from cold, hunger and disease, successfully defended their beloved city during a critical period from September 8, 1941 to January 18, 1943, and symbolized the undaunted spirit of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all the peoples of the world resisting the forces of aggression.”
In Order No. 20 of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of May 1, 1945, Leningrad, along with Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Odessa, was for the first time named a Hero City. On May 8, 1965, for the heroism and courage shown by the residents of Leningrad during the siege, the city was awarded the honorary title of Hero City. On July 18, 1980, the “honorary title” was replaced by “the highest degree of distinction – the title of Hero City”.
Since 1996, on the basis of the Federal Law On days of military glory (victory days) of Russia dated March 13, 1995, January 27 marks the celebration of a holiday – the Day of Lifting the Siege of the City of Leningrad. On December 1, 2014, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed a federal law that clarified the name of the memorial day. In accordance with the new edition, it is called The Day of the Complete Liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi Siege.
On October 20, 2022, the St. Petersburg City Court honored the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation and recognized “the siege of Leningrad by the occupation authorities of Germany and their accomplices <...> in the period from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944 as a war crime, a crime against humanity, and genocide of national and ethical groups representing the population of the USSR, the peoples of the Soviet Union”. During the trial, the facts of the purposeful destruction of Leningrad by the Nazi invaders and their allies, the extermination of civilians through food isolation, massive shelling and bombing were established and documented. It was also proven that representatives of 11 countries participated in the siege of Leningrad. In addition to the Germans, these are citizens of Finland, Belgium (Volunteer Legion “Flanders”), Spain (Blue Division), the Netherlands (Volunteer Legion “Netherlands”), and Norway (Norwegian Legion), as well as individual volunteers from Austria, Latvia, Poland, France and Czech Republic.
Lit.: Великая победа под Ленинградом // Ленинград. Блокада. Подвиг. Режим доступа: http://blokada.otrok.ru/cont.php?y=4&s=gv; Ковальчук В. М., Соболев Г. Л. Ленинградский реквием (о жертвах населения в Ленинграде в годы войны и блокады) // Вопросы истории. 1965. № 12. С. 194; Федюнинский И. И. Поднятые по тревоге. М., 1961; Внесено изменение в закон о днях воинской славы. Режим доступа: http://kremlin.ru/acts/news/47142/print; Горсуд Петербурга признал геноцидом блокаду Ленинграда // Интерфакс. Режим доступа: https://www.interfax.ru/russia/868761.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Defence and Siege of Leningrad: [digital collection];
Грамота Ленинграду. Вашингтон, 17 мая 1944 / Франклин Д. Рузвельт;
Приказ Верховного Главнокомандующего 1 мая 1945 г. № 20 г. Москва. Омск, 1945;
Началась блокада Ленинграда // День в истории. 8 сентября 1941 г.;
Прорыв блокады Ленинграда // День в истории. 18 января 1943 г.