bombardment, a tight blockade would ensure that the population starved.

By November 1941 bread rations in the city were down to 125 grams a day and the people were dying of starvation. A road across the frozen lake Ladoga brought in vital supplies, however it didn’t prevent the deaths of around 1 million civilians.

The Red Army continued to suffer horrendous casualties in desperate attempts to break through to the city.

The Siege of Leningrad (The 900 Days)

On the 8th September 1941 the German and Finnish troops closed the ring around Leningrad, the second largest city in the Soviet Union, trapping nearly three million people. Hitler ordered the city to be ‘erased from the earth’ by artillery and arial

By the summer of 1942 the situation  had improved, most of the non-combatants had died or been evacuated and the city’s emaciated factory workers were again producing vital war materials.

 

In August 1942 the German’s made their final to destroy Leningrad, pounding the city night and day, but still, the population held on.

 

January 1943 Operation Spark, saw the vital breakthrough. A corridor through to the city was created and trains could now bring in vital supplies. On year later an overwhelming Red Army offensive drove the Germans back hundreds of miles into the Baltic states, the 900 day siege was over.

 

Right: The mass graves in the Piscarevsky , the worlds largest WW2 cemetery where an estimated 600,000 people are buried.