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The Siege of Leningrad

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Posts: 264 Mar 29 12 2:25 PM	Tags : None Remove this ad The Siege of Leningrad in German Documents What follows are transcriptions from German documents related to the siege of Leningrad, which led to the death, mainly by starvation, of about one million people, most of them in the winter of 1941/42. All quotes, except where otherwise indicated, were taken from the catalogue of the exhibition Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges. 1. From the personal war diary of Generaloberst Franz Halder, entry of 08.07.1941 (Generaloberst Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Bd. III: Generaloberst Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Bd. III: Der Rußlandfeldzug bis zum Marsch auf Stalingrad (22.6.1941 -24.9.1942), bearb. von Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Stuttgart 1964, page 53) [...] 8.7.1941: Ergebnis [...] 1. Feststehender Beschluß des Führers ist, Moskau und Leningrad dem Erdboden gleich zu machen, um zu verhindern, daß Menschen darin bleiben, die wir dann im Winter ernähren müßten. Die Städte sollen durch die Luftwaffe vernichtet werden. Panzer dürfen hierfür nicht eingesetzt werden. [...] My translation: [...] 8.7.1941: Result [...] 1. It is the established decision of the Fhrer to erase Moscow and Leningrad in order to avoid that people stay in there who we will then have to feed in winter. The cities are to be destroyed by the air force. Tanks may not be used for this purpose. [...] 2. Order of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres) to Army Group North of 28.09.1941 (Bundersarchiv/Militärarchiv, RM 7/1014) Betrifft: Abschließung der Stadt Leningrad An Heeresgruppe Nord Auf Grund der Weisung der Obersten Führung wird befohlen: 1.) Die Stadt Leningrad ist durch einen möglichst nahe an die Stadt heranzuschiebenden und dadurch Kräfte sparenden Ring einzuschließen. Eine Kapitulation ist nicht zu fordern. 2.) Um zu erreichen, daß die Stadt als Zentrum des letzten roten Widerstandes an der Ostsee möglichst bald ausgeschaltet wird, ohne daß größere eigene Blutopfer gebracht werden, ist die Stadt infanteristisch nicht anzugreifen. Sie ist vielmehr durch Niederkämpfen der Luftabwehr und der feindlichen Jäger, durch Zerstörung der Wasserwerke, Lagerhäuser, Licht- und Kraftquellen ihrer Lebens- und Verteidigungsfähigkeit zu berauben. Die militärischen Anlagen und Verteidigungskräfte des Gegners sind durch Feuer und Beschuß niederzukämpfen. Jedes Ausweichen der Zivilbevölkerung gegen die Einschließungstruppen ist - wenn nötig unter Waffeneinsatz - zu verhindern. 3.) Durch Verbindungsstab Nord wird bei Finnischem Oberkommando gefordert werden, dass die in der Karelischen Landenge vorgehenden finnischen Kräfte die Einschließung Leningrads von Norden und Nordosten her im Anschluß an die über die Newa vorgehenden deutschen Kräfte übernehmen und dass die Einschließung selbst nach obigen Gesichtspunkten erfolgt. Umgehende Verbindungsaufnahme zwischen Heeresgruppe Nord und Verbindungsstab Nord wegen Regelung der Einzelheiten wird von OKH zeitgerecht befohlen. I.A. gez. Halder My translation: Subject: Sealing off the city of Leningrad To Army Group North According to directives of the Supreme Command the following is ordered: 1.) The city of Leningrad is to be sealed off by a ring to be taken as close as possible to the city in order to save forces. A capitulation is not to be demanded. 2.) In order to achieve that the city as center of the last great Red resistance on the Baltic is eliminated as soon as possible without greater sacrifices in blood of our own being brought, the city is not to be attacked by infantry. It is to be deprived of its life and defense capacity by crushing the enemy air defense and fighter planes and destroying waterworks, stores and sources of light and power. The military installations and defense forces of the enemy are to be crushed by fire and bombardment. Any move by the civilian population in the direction of the encircling troops is to be prevented if necessary by force of arms. 3.) Liaison Staff North will require the Finnish high command to provide for the Finnish troops advancing in the Karelian isthmus taking over the encirclement from the north and north-east in connection with the German troops advancing over the Neva and the encirclement itself being carried out according to the above criteria. Immediate contact between Army Group North and Liaison Staff North for regulation of details will be ordered by Army Supreme Command in due time. By order signed Halder 3. From the letter of General Quarter Master Eduard Wagner to his wife of 09.09.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, N 510/48) [...] Der Nordkriegsschauplatz ist so gut wie bereinigt, auch wenn man nichts davon hört. Zunächst muß man sie in Petersburg schmoren lassen, was sollen wir mit einer 3 ½ Mill-Stadt, die sich nur auf unser Verpflegungsportemonnaie legt. Sentimentalitäten gibt's dabei nicht [...] My translation: [...] The northern theater of war is a good as cleaned up, even if you hear nothing about it. Now we first must let them fry in Petersburg, what are we to do with a city of 3 million that would only lie on our food supply wallet. Sentimentalities there will be none. [...] 4. Lecture note from the Wehrmacht Command Staff at the Wehrmacht High Command about possible variant of the siege of Leningrad, 21.9.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RW 4/v.578, Bl. 144-146) Vortragsnotiz Leningrad Möglichkeiten: 1.) Stadt besetzen, also so verfahren, wie wir es mit anderen russischen Großstädten gemacht haben: Abzulehnen, weil uns dann die Verantwortung für die Ernährung zufiele. 2.) Stadt eng abschließen, möglichst mit einem elektrisch geladenen Zaum umgeben, der mit M.Gs. bewacht wird. Nachteile: Von etwa 2 Millionen Menschen werden die Schwachen in absehbarer Zeit verhungern, die Starken sich dagegen alle Lebensmittel sichern und leben bleiben. Gefahr von Epidemien, die auf unsere Front übergreifen. Außerdem fraglich, ob man unseren Soldaten zumuten kann, auf ausbrechende Frauen und Kinder zu schießen. 3.) Frauen, Kinder, alte Leute durch Pforten des Einschließungsringes abziehen, Rest verhungern lassen: a) Abschieben über den Wolchow hinter die feindliche Front theoretisch gute Lösung, praktisch aber kaum durchführbar. Wer soll Hunderttausende zusammenhalten und vorwärtstreiben? Wo ist dann die russische Front? b) Verzichtet man auf den Abmarsch hinter die russische Front, verteilen sich die Herausgelassenen über das Land. Auf alle Fälle bleibt Nachteil bestehen, daß die verhungernde Restbevölkerung Leningrads einen Herd für Epidemien bildet und daß die Stärksten noch lange in der Stadt bleiben. 3.) Nach Vorrücken der Finnen und vollzogener Abschließung der Stadt wieder hinter die Newa zurückgehen und das Gebiet nördlich dieses Abschnitts den Finnen überlassen. Finnen haben inoffiziell erklärt, sie würden Newa gern als Landesgrenze haben, Leningrad müsse aber weg. Als politische Lösung gut. Frage der Bevölkerung Leningrads aber nicht durch Finnen zu lösen. Das müssen wir tun. Ergebnis und Vorschlag Befriedigende Lösung gibt es nicht. H.Gr. Nord muß aber, wenn es so weit ist, einen Befehl bekommen, der wirklich durchführbar ist. Es wird vorgeschlagen: a) Wir stellen vor der Welt fest, daß Stalin Leningrad als Festung verteidigt. Wir sind also gezwungen, die Stadt mit ihrer Gesamtbevölkerung als militärisches Objekt zu behandeln. Trotzdem tun wir ein Übriges: Wir gestatten dem Menschenfreund Roosevelt, nach einer Kapitulation Leningrads die nicht in Kriegsgefangenschaft gehenden Bewohner unter Aufsicht des Roten Kreuzes auf neutralen Schiffen mit Lebensmitteln zu versorgen oder in seinen Erdteil abzubefördern und sagen für diese Schiffsbewegung freies Geleit zu (Angebot kann selbstverständlich nicht angenommen werden, nur propagandistisch zu werten). b) Wir schließen Leningrad zunächst hermetisch ab und schlagen die Stadt, soweit mit Artillerie und Fliegern möglich, zusammen (vorerst nur schwache Fliegerkräfte verfügbar!). c) Ist die Stadt dann durch Terror und beginnenden Hunger reif, werden einzelne Pforten geöffnet und Wehrlose herausgelassen. Soweit möglich, Abschub ins innere Rußland, Rest wird sich zwangsläufig über das Land verteilen. d) Rest der "Festungsbesatzung" wird den Winter über sich selbst überlassen. Im Frühjahr dringen wir dann in die Stadt ein (wenn die Finnen es vorher tun, ist nichts einzuwenden), führen das, was noch lebt, nach Innerrußland bzw. in die Gefangenschaft, machen Leningrad durch Sprengungen dem Erdboden gleich und übergeben den Raum nördlich der Newa den Finnen. My translation: Lecture note Leningrad Possibilities : 1.) Occupy the city, i.e. proceed as we have in regard to other Russian big cities: To be rejected because we would then be responsible for the feeding. 2.) Seal off city tightly, if possible with an electrified fence guarded by machine guns. Disadvantages: Of about 2 million people the weak will starve to death within a foreseeable time, whereas the strong will secure all food supplies and stay alive. The danger of epidemics that carry over to our front. It is also questionable whether our soldiers can be burdened with having to shoot on women and children trying to break out. 3.) Take out women, children and elder men through gates in the encirclement ring, let the rest starve to death: a) Removal across the Volchov behind the enemy front theoretically a good solution, but can hardly be carried out in practice. Who is to keep hundreds of thousands together and drive them on? Where is the Russian front in this case? b) If we do without a march behind the Russian front, those let out will spread across the land. At any rate there remains the disadvantage that the starving remaining population of Leningrad constitutes a source of epidemics and that the strongest still remain in the city for a long time. 4.) After advance of the Fins and concluded sealing off of the city, we go back behind the Neva and leave the area to the north of this section to the Fins. The Finns have unofficially declared, that they would like to have the Neva as their countrys border, but that Leningrad must go. Good as a political solution. The question of the population is not to be solved by the Finns, however. This we have to do. Result and suggestion : There is no satisfactory solution. Army Group North must, however, receive an order that can actually be carried out when the time comes. The following is suggested: a) We determine before the world that Stalin is defending Leningrad as a fortress. We are thus forced to treat the city with its entire population as a military objective. We nevertheless do more: We allow the humanitarian Roosevelt to feed the inhabitants not becoming prisoners of war after a capitulation of Leningrad under the supervision of the Red Cross or to transport them to his continent and guarantee free escort for this shipping movement (the offer can of course not be accepted, it is to be seen merely under propaganda aspects). b) We seal off Leningrad hermetically for the time being and crush the city, as far as possible, with artillery and air power (only weak aerial forces available at the time!). c) As soon as the city is ripe through terror and beginning hunger, a few gates are opened and the defenseless are let out. Insofar as possible they will be pushed off to inner Russia, the rest will necessarily spread across the land. d) The rest of the fortress defenders will be left to themselves over the winter. In spring we then enter the city (if the Finns do it before us we do not object), lead those still alive to inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions and then hand over the area north of the Neva to the Finns. 5. Letter of the Navy Liaison Offices at Army Group North of 22.9.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RM 7/1014, Bl. 39-41) Sehr verehrter Herr Admiral, ich schreibe Ihnen wegen des Schicksals von Leningrad, welches jetzt der Entscheidung entgegengeht. Als ich am 19. dem Großadmiral in Reval Vortrag hielt, war ihm offenbar unbekannt, daß es nicht beabsichtigt ist, in die Stadt hineinzugehen. Bei der Eroberung von Warschau haben wir damit böse Erfahrungen gemacht. Das weitere Vorgehen hatte sich der Führer, als er vor etwa 8 Wochen die Heeresgruppe besuchte, persönlich vorbehalten. Ich habe aus gewissen Andeutungen, die mir der hiesige Chef des Generalstabes machte, den Eindruck, dass die Entscheidung etwa in folgendem Sinne nunmehr gefallen ist: Leningrad ist die Geburtsstätte des Bolschewismus. Solange sie in deutscher Hand ist, wird sie dieselbe Rolle spielen, wie Konstantinopel für das zaristische Rußland. Ihre Rückeroberung wird Programmpunkt Nr. 1 für den Bolschewismus sein, den der Führer in den asiatischen Raum zurückdrängen will. Die Stadt muß daher vom Erdboden verschwinden, wie s. Zt. Karthago. Auch aus raumpolitischen Gründen ist dies erforderlich, da die Newa die Grenze zwischen Finnland und Ostland werden soll. Zudem ist es klar, daß wir die Einwohner, z.Zt. auf etwa 5 Millionen geschätzt, nicht ernähren können. Vermutlich soll die Stadt durch Artillerie, Bomben, Feuer, Hunger und Kälte vernichtet werden, ohne daß ein deutscher Soldat ihren Boden betritt. Ich persönlich möchte bezweifeln, daß das bei der unglaublichen Zähigkeit des russischen Menschen gelingt. M.E. lassen sich nicht 4 - 5 Millionen Menschen so einfach umbringen. Ich habe das aus eigener Anschauung in Kowno gesehen, wo die Letten 6 000 Juden erschossen haben, darunter Frauen und Kinder. Selbst ein so rohes Volk wie die Letten konnten dieses Morden schließlich nicht mehr mit ansehen. Die ganze Aktion verlief dann im Sande. Wieviel schwieriger wird das mit einer Millionenstadt sein. Zudem würde das m.E. einen Entrüstungssturm in der ganzen Welt auslösen, den wir uns politisch nicht leisten können. Ich schneide diese Fragen an, da sie marine - politisch von großer Bedeutung sind. Als Hafen ist Leningrad ohne Zweifel eine Gewaltlösung, die Peter der Grosse zwangsweise wählen mußte. Für das kommende Ostland wird der eisfreie Hafen von Reval oder Baltischport das Einfallstor zur See sein. Vielleicht kommt noch als Sommerhafen ein weiter ostwärts gelegener Hafen, z.B. Ust-Luga oder Oranienbaum in Frage. Betreten wir Leningrad nicht, so bleibt der Marine die Ingangsetzung der Werften versagt. Es bleibt die Frage offen, ob wir uns das bei dem noch bevorstehenden Endkampf gegen England - U.S.A. leisten können. Schließlich kann Leningrad auch später verschwinden, wenn wir den Seekrieg gewonnen haben. Ich denke mir folgende Lösung: Wir erklären, daß wir wegen der Blockade durch England nicht in der Lage sind, die Bevölkerung dieser Riesenstadt noch zusätzlich zu ernähren. Zumal in einem Lande, dessen Ernährungsbasis durch die bolschewistische Mißwirtschaft so verkommen ist. Wir gestatten den Frauen, Kindern und alten Männern freien Abzug. England und U.S.A. können Schiffe schicken, um sie an einen anderen Ort der Welt nach freier Wahl zu fahren. Die wehr- und arbeitsfähigen Männer kommen in Gefangenschaft. Lehnt England / U.S.A. das Angebot ab, so tragen sie vor der Weltöffentlichkeit die Schuld am Untergang dieser Menschen. Nehmen sie es an, so sind wir die Sorge los und ihnen kostet es erheblichen Frachtraum. Wir nehmen nach der Kapitulation gleichzeitig die Werften und einige wenige Versorgungsbetriebe mit Kriegsgefangenen in Betrieb und bauen dort ohne Luftgefährdung die Flotte, die wir für den Endkampf brauchen. Währenddessen kann die Evakuierung der Stadt und ihr Abbau beginnen. Ist der Krieg siegreich beendet, verschwinden die noch verbliebenen Reste der Stadt. Die Werften werden nach Reval oder Baltisch Port verlegt. Ich habe hier den Eindruck, daß im engsten Kreise um den Führer der Entschluß, wie gegen die Stadt vorgegangen wird, seit etwa 14 Tagen vorliegt, aber die verschiedensten Kreise aus bestimmten Gründen nicht unterrichtet werden. Ich unterrichte Sie hierüber der Eile wegen unmittelbar. Vielleicht ist meine Sorge unnötig und die Seekriegsleitung genau im Bilde. Ich hielt es jedenfalls für meine Pflicht, meine Marinevorgesetzten über die hier gewonnenen Eindrücke zu unterrichten. Ich wäre dankbar, wenn die ganze Angelegenheit entsprechend vertraulich behandelt wird. Da das taktische Vorgehen gegen die russische Flotte, Kronstadt und Leningrad in hohem Masse von den Endabsichten abhängig ist, wäre ich für eine kurze Unterrichtung dankbar. Dies ist erforderlich, da ich nur so meinen Oberbefehlshaber, der sehr viel Verständnis für die Marine und die Gesamtkriegsführung hat, sachlich richtig beraten kann. Fällt die Entscheidung gegen die Marine, so können viele Bindungen fortfallen, wie z.B. das Schonen der Werften und Hafenanlagen. Das würde den ohnehin sehr blutigen Kampf erleichtern. Auch Kronstadt braucht dann nicht genommen zu werden. Mit ergebensten Grüssen und Heil Hitler Ihr [Unterschrift] Kapitän zur See My translation: Most Honored Admiral, I’m writing to you because of the fate of Leningrad, which is now approaching decision. When I held a lecture to the Great Admiral in Reval on the 19th, he obviously did not know that it is not intended to enter the city. During the conquest of Warsaw we had bad experiences with this. The further procedure the Führer reserved to himself personally when he visited the Army Group about 8 weeks ago. From several hints given to me by the local head of general staff I got the impression that the decision has by now been taken in about the following sense: Leningrad is the birthplace of Bolshevism. As long as it is in German hands it will have the same role that Constantinople used to have to the Czars Russia. Its re-conquest will be point no. 1 on the program of Bolshevism, which the Führer wants to displace into Asia. The city must thus disappear from the face of the earth, like Cartage in its time. Also for reasons of territorial policy this is necessary, because the Neva is to become the new frontier between Finland and the Eastern Territories. Besides it is clear than we cannot feed the inhabitants, which are currently estimated at about 5 million. The city is presumably to be destroyed by artillery, bombs, fire, hunger and cold, without a single German soldier stepping into it. I personally doubt that this will be possible, given the incredible toughness of the Russian. In my opinion 4 to 5 million people cannot be killed off that easily. I saw this with my own eyes in Kovno, where the Latvians shot 6 000 Jews, among them women and children. Even a people as rude as the Latvians could no longer bear the sight of this murder in the end. The whole action then ran out of steam. How much more difficult will this be with a city of millions. Besides this would in my opinion lead to a storm of indignation in the whole world, which we politically cannot afford. I address these questions because they are of great importance in terms of naval policies. As a port Leningrad is without doubt a makeshift solution that Peter the Great had to choose. For the future Eastern Territories the ice-free harbor of Reval or Baltischport will be the gateway to the sea. Maybe a port further to the East, e.g. Ust-Luga or Oranienbaum, is to be considered additionally as a summer port. If we don’t set foot in Leningrad, our navy is kept from putting the dockyards to function. The question is whether we can afford this in view of the final fight against England and the U.S.A. still in front of us. After all Leningrad can also disappear at a later stage, when we have won the war at sea. I imagine the following solution: We declare that due to the blockade by England we are not in conditions to additionally feed the population of this giant city. This especially in a land the food basis of which is so deteriorated due to Bolshevik mismanagement. We allow the women, children and old men to leave at will. England and the U.S.A. may send ships to take them to another part of the world at their choice. The men able to fight and to work will be taken into captivity. If England / U.S.A. refuse this proposal, they bear the responsibility for the demise of these people before world opinion. If they accept, we are rid of the problem and they have to expend additional freight room. After the capitulation we immediately start operating the dockyard and some supply installations with prisoners of war and without danger from the air build the fleet that we need for the final fight. In the meantime the evacuation and deconstruction of the city may commence. Once the war has been victoriously concluded, what still remains of the city will disappear. The dockyards will be taken to Reval or Baltisch Port. I have the impression that in the closest circle around the Führer the decision how to proceed against the city has been taken about 14 days ago but the most varied circles are not informed thereof for certain reasons. I inform you hereof directly due to the urgency of the matter. Maybe my concern is unnecessary and the Naval Command is accurately informed. At any rate I considered it my duty to inform my navy superiors about the impressions gained here. I would be grateful if the whole matter could accordingly be treated confidentially. As the tactical proceeding against the Russian fleet, Kronstadt and Leningrad depends to a great extent on the final intentions, I would be very grateful for a brief notice. This is necessary because only thus I will be able to provide accurate counsel in the matter to my supreme commander, who has much understanding for the navy and the overall conduct of the war. If the decision is taken against the navy, many constraints can eliminated, like for instance the sparing of the dockyards and port installations. This would make the anyway very bloody fighting easier. Neither would Kronstadt have to be taken in this case. With my most submissive regards and Heil Hitler Yours truly, [signature] Captain at See 6. The Führers Decision on Leningrad (*Entschluß der Führers über Leningrad), transmitted by the Naval Warfare Command (Seekriegsleitung) to Army Group North on 29.09.1941 (* Tagebuch der Seekriegsleitung, quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945, Volume 4, Page 1755) Betrifft: Zukunft der Stadt Petersburg II. Der Führer ist entschlossen, die Stadt Petersburg vom Erdboden verschwinden zu lassen. Es besteht nach der Niederwerfung Sowjetrußlands keinerlei Interesse an dem Fortbestand dieser Großsiedlung. Auch Finnland hat gleicherweise kein Interesse an dem Weiterbestehen der Stadt unmittelbar an seiner neuen Grenze bekundet. III. Es ist beabsichtigt, die Stadt eng einzuschließen und durch Beschuß mit Artillerie aller Kaliber und laufendem Laufeinsatz dem Erdboden gleichzumachen. IV. Sich aus der Lage der Stadt ergebende Bitten um Übergabe werden abgeschlagen werden, da das Problem des Verbleibens und der Ernährung der Bevölkerung von uns nicht gelöst werden kann und soll. Ein Interesse an der Erhaltung auch nur eines Teils dieser großstädtischen Bevölkerung besteht in diesem Existenzkrieg unsererseits nicht. Notfalls soll gewaltsame Abschiebung in den östlichen russischen Raum erfolgen. My translation: Subject: Future of the City of Petersburg II. The Führer is determined to remove the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban area. Finland has likewise manifested no interest in the maintenance of the city immediately at its new border. III. It is intended to encircle the city and level it to the ground by means of artillery bombardment using every caliber of weapon, and continual air bombardment. IV. Requests for surrender resulting from the city’s encirclement will be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, there can be no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of this large urban population. If necessary forcible removal to the eastern Russian area is to be carried out. 7. Diary entries of General Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb on the treatment of Leningrad (Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, Tagebuchaufzeichnungen und Lagebeurteilungen aus zwei Weltkriegen, aus dem Nachlaß hrsg. von Georg Meyer, Stuttgart 1976, pages 349 and 373 ff.) Entry of 5.9.1941: [...] Bezüglich der Behandlung der Stadt Leningrad ist vorgesehen, daß Leningrad nicht weggenommen, sondern nur eingeschlossen werden soll. Ich habe die Ansicht geäußert, daß, wenn Leningrad sich vielleicht etwa vom Hunger getrieben, übergeben sollte, es sich wenigstens nicht erneut wehren kann, d.h. es müssen alle Soldaten und Wehrpflichtigen in die Kriegsgefangenschaft abgeführt und alle Waffen abgeliefert werden. Dann braucht man nur wenige Kräfte vor Leningrad stehen zu lassen; die übrigen werden frei. [...] My translation: [...] Regarding the treatment of the city of Leningrad it is foreseen that Leningrad will not be taken away, but only encircled. I have voiced the opinion that if Leningrad, driven by hunger, should surrender, it at least should not be in conditions to defend itself anew, i.e. all soldiers and persons liable for military service must be taken into captivity and all weapons must be delivered. Then at least we will only have to keep few forces in front of Leningrad, the remainder becoming free. [...] Entry of 12.10.1941: [...] Es ist heute die Entscheidung des OKW bezüglich der Stadt Leningrad gekommen; danach darf eine Kapitulation nicht angenommen werden. In einem Schreiben der H.Gr. an das OKH wurde daraufhin angefragt, ob denn nicht in diesem Falle die russischen Truppen in die Kriegsgefangenschaft abgeführt werden können. Soll das nicht geschehen, so führt der Russe einen Verzweiflungskampf weiter, der unsererseits Opfer und wahrscheinlich schwere fordern wird.[...] My translation: [...] Today the decision of the Wehrmacht High Command arrived, according to which a capitulation may not be accepted. In a letter by the Army Group to the Army High Command it was thereupon asked if in such case the Russian troops cannot be led into captivity. Should this not happen, the Russians will keep on fighting in desperation and this will lead to sacrifices on our side, probably heavy ones.[...] 8. Activity report of the communications officer (Ic) at the General Command of the XXVIII Army Corps, 03.11.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RH 24-28/109) 19.9.1941: [...]Vom A.O.K. 18 ging nunmehr der Befehl ein, ein Herausdrängen der Zivilbevölkerung aus Leningrad, wenn nötig unter Anwendung von Gewalt, zu verhindern. Auch Bewegungen von Zivilisten außerhalb ihres Heimatdorfes seien unter allen Umständen zu unterbinden.[...] My translation: [...]From Army High Command 18 the order has now arrived to prevent a push by the civilian population out of Leningrad, if necessary by use of force. Movements of civilians outside their home village are also to be prevented under any circumstances.[...] 20.9.1941: [...] Der zweite Befehl [des Generalkommandos XXVIII Armeekorps] befiehlt nachdrücklich die Unterbindung des Zivilverkehrs durch die eigene vordere Linie [...] My translation: [...] The second order [of the General Command of XXVIII Army Corps] emphatically demands the prevention of civilian transit through our own front line [...] 9. Order of the Wehrmacht Supreme Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) to the Army Supreme Commander (Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres) about the rejection of capitulation offers from Leningrad or Moscow, 7.10.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RM; 7/1014, Bl. 51 f.) Der Führer hat erneut entschieden, dass eine Kapitulation von Leningrad oder später von Moskau nicht anzunehmen ist, auch wenn sie von der Gegenseite angeboten würde. Die moralische Berechtigung zu dieser Maßnahme liegt vor aller Welt klar. Ebenso wie in Kiew durch Sprengungen mit Zeitzündern die schwersten Gefahren für die Truppe entstanden sind, muß damit in Moskau und Leningrad in noch stärkerem Maße gerechnet werden. Dass Leningrad unterminiert sei und bis zum letzten Mann verteidigt würde, hat der sowjetrussische Rundfunk selbst bekannt gegeben. Schwere Seuchengefahren sind zu erwarten. Kein deutscher Soldat hat daher diese Städte zu betreten. Wer die Stadt gegen unsere Linien verlassen will, ist durch Feuer zurückzuweisen. Kleinere, nicht gesperrte Lücken, die ein Herausströmen der Bevölkerung nach Innerrußland ermöglichen, sind daher nur zu begrüßen. Auch für die übrigen Städte gilt, dass sie vor der Einnahme durch Artilleriefeuer und Luftangriffe zu zermürben sind und die Bevölkerung zur Flucht zu veranlassen ist. Das Leben deutscher Soldaten für die Errettung russischer Städte vor einer Feuergefahr einzusetzen oder deren Bevölkerung auf Kosten der deutschen Heimat zu ernähren, ist nicht zu verantworten. Das Chaos in Rußland wird umso größer, unsere Verwaltung und Ausnützung der besetzten Ostgebiete umso leichter werden, je mehr die Bevölkerung der sowjetrussischen Städte nach dem Innern Rußlands flüchtet. Dieser Wille des Führers muß sämtlichen Kommandeuren zur Kenntnis gebracht werden. Der Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht I.A. gez. Jodl My translation: The Führer has decided anew that a capitulation of Leningrad or later of Moscow is not to be accepted even if it were to be offered by the enemy. The moral justification for this measure lies clear before all the world. Just like in Kiev explosions with time fuses caused the greatest dangers for the troops, the same must be counted on in Moscow and Leningrad to an even greater extent. The Soviet radio itself has informed that Leningrad is sewn with mines and will be defended to the last man. A sever risk of epidemics is to be expected. No German soldier may this set foot in these cities. Whoever wants to leave the city in the direction of our lines is to be rejected by fire. Smaller gaps not sealed which allow for a streaming out of the population to inner Russia are thus only to be welcomed. Also for the other cities the principle applies that prior to being taken they must be worn down by artillery fire and air attacks and the population is to be induced into fleeing them. It is not supportable to risk the lives of German soldiers for the salvation of Russian cities from the danger of fire or to feed their population at the expense of the German homeland. The chaos in Russia will be all the greater, our administration and exploitation of the occupied Eastern territories will be all the easier, the more the population of the Soviet Russian cities flees to inner Russia. This will of the Führer all commanders must be notified of. The Head of the Wehrmacht High Command By order signed. Jodl 10. Report of the Head of the General Staff of Army Group North about a front line trip to the 18th Army, war diary of Army Group North, 24.10.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RH 19III/168) Ia fährt in den Bereich der 18. Armee. Aktennotiz über die Fahrt des 1. Genst.Offz. am 24.10. in den Bereich der 18. Armee. 1.) Es wurden aufgesucht: a) Gen.Kdo. L. A.K. (Krasnogwardeisk), b) Artl.-B-Stelle auf Höhe 112 hart ostw. Krasnoje Sjelo. c) Sicherungen an der Kronstädter Bucht Strjelna, Uritzk (A.A. 212), d) Stab 58. I.D., e) OAK 18 2.) Bei allen aufgesuchten Stellen wurde die Frage aufgeworfen,. wie man sich zu verhalten hat, wenn die Stadt Leningrad ihre Übergabe anbietet und wie man sich gegenüber der aus der Stadt herausströmenden Bevölkerung verhalten soll. Es entstand der Eindruck, daß die Truppe vor diesem Augenblick große Sorgen hat. Der Kdr. der 58. I.D. betonte, daß er in seiner Div. den Befehl gegeben hat, den er auch von höherer Stelle erhielt und der den gegebenen Anweisungen entspricht, daß auf derartige Ansprüche zu schießen ist, um sie gleich im Keime zu ersticken. Er war der Ansicht, daß die Truppe diesen Befehl auch ausführen wird. Ob sie aber die Nerven behält, bei wiederholten Ausbrüchen immer wieder auf Frauen und Kinder und wehrlose alte Männer zu schießen, bezweifelte er. Bemerkenswert ist seine Äußerung, daß er vor der militärischen Gesamtlage, die gerade bei seinem Flügel bei Uritzk immer gespannt sei, keine Angst habe, daß aber die Lage gegenüber der Zivilbevölkerung immer Angst verursache. Dies sei nicht nur bei ihm, sondern bis zur Truppe herunter der Fall. In der Truppe bestehe volles Verständnis dafür, daß die Millionen Menschen, die in Leningrad eingeschlossen seien, von uns nicht ernährt werden können, ohne daß sich dies auf die Ernährung im eigenen Land nachteilig auswirkt. Aus diesem Grunde würde der deutsche Soldat auch mit Anwendung der Waffe derartige Ansprüche verhindern. Nur zu leicht könne das aber dazu führen, daß der deutsche Soldat dadurch seine innere Haltung verliert, d.h. daß er auch nach dem Kriege vor derartigen Gewalttätigkeiten nicht mehr zurückschrecke. Führung und Truppe bemühen sich eifrig, eine andere Lösung dieser Frage zu finden, haben aber bisher noch keinen brauchbaren Weg gefunden. 3.) Das Kampfgebiet, sowohl am Einschließungsring von Leningrad, wie auch im Küstengebiet südl. Kronstadt wird z.Zt. von der dort noch wohnenden Zivilbevölkerung evakuiert. Dies ist notwendig, da diese Zivilbevölkerung dort nicht mehr ernährt werden kann. Der Abschub erfolgt korpsweise so, daß die Zivilbevölkerung in das rückw. Heeresgebiet gebracht und dort auf die Bauerndörfer verteilt wird. Unbeschadet dessen hat sich ein großer Teil der Zivilbevölkerung selbständig auf den Weg nach Süden gemacht, um sich neue Unterkunft und Lebensmöglichkeiten zu suchen. Entlang der großen Straße Krasgnowardeisk, Pleskau läuft z.Zt. eine Flüchtlingsbewegung von mehreren Tausend Menschen, in der Hauptsache nur Frauen, Kinder und alte Männer. Wo diese hinziehen, wie sie sich ernähren, ist nicht festzustellen. Es besteht der Eindruck, daß diese Menschen über kurz oder lang dem Hungertode verfallen müssen. Auch dieses Bild wirkt sich auf den deutschen Soldaten, der an dieser Straße zu Bauarbeiten eingesetzt ist, nachteilig aus. A.O.K. 18 hat darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß z.Zt. nach Leningrad immer noch Flugblätter hereingeworfen werden, die zum überlaufen auffordern. Das steht nicht im Einklang mit der Weisung, daß Überläufer nicht angenommen werden. Zunächst werden Überläufer, die Soldaten sind (das sind täglich rund 100 - 120 Mann), noch angenommen. Eine Änderung der Flugblattpropaganda soll aber eintreten. My translation: Ia travels to the area of the 18th Army. File note on the trip of the 1st General Staff Offices on 24.10. into the area of the 18th Army. 1.) The following were visited: a) General Command L Army Corps (Krasnogwardeisk), b) Artillery observation post on height 112 hard to the east of Krasnoje Sjelo. c) Security posts on the Kronstadt Bay Strjelna, Uritzk (A.A. 212), d) Staff of the 58th Infantry Division e) Army High Command 18 2.) At all visited entities the question was addressed how to behave if the city of Leningrad should offer its surrender and how to behave in regard to the population streaming out of the city. The impression arose that the troops have the highest concerns in regard to this moment. The commander of the 58th Infantry Division pointed out that in his division he had given the order received from higher above, which corresponds to the instructions issued that such pretensions are to be fired on so as to strangle them at birth. He was of the opinion that the troops would also carry out this order. He doubted, however, whether they would keep the nerve to shoot again and again on women and children and defenseless elder men in case of repeated breakouts. It is worth noticing his utterance that he was not afraid of the military situation on the whole, which especially at his wing near Uritzk is always tense, but that the situation in regard to the civilian population always caused fear. This, he said, was not the case only with him, but also down to troop level. The troops fully understood that the millions of people encircled in Leningrad could not be fed by us without this having a negative impact on the food situation in our own country. For this reason the German soldier would also prevent such pretensions by force of arms. This, however, could only too easily lead to the German soldier losing his inner posture, i.e. not shying from such acts of violence even after the war. The commanders and troops are eagerly trying to find another solution but have not yet found a plausible one so far. 3.) The combat area, both at the encirclement ring of Leningrad and in the coastal area to the south of Kronstadt, is currently being evacuated of the civilian population still living there. This is necessary because the civilian population can no longer be fed there. The removal is carried out by each army corps in such a way that the civilian population is taken to the army rear area and there spread throughout the peasant villages. Nevertheless a great part of the civilian population has departed for the south on its own in order to find new shelter and means of subsistence. Along the great street of Krasgnowardeisk, Pleskau there is at the time a refugee movement of several thousand people, mainly consisting only of women, children and old men. Where these are going and how they feed themselves cannot be established. There is the impression that these people must in the short or long run die of starvation. This image also has a negative influence on the German soldiers used at this road for construction work. Army High Command 18 has pointed out that at this time leaflets calling for defection are still being thrown into Leningrad. This is not in accordance with the instruction that defectors will not be accepted. For the time being defectors who are soldiers (those amount to around 100 120 men a day) are still accepted. However, a change of the leaflet propaganda is to occur. 11. From the war diary of Army Group North, 27.10.1941 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RH 19III/168) [...] 2.) Die Frage Leningrad und besonders der dortigen Zivilbevölkerung beschäftigt O.B. [FM von Leeb] in starken Maße. Ob.d.H.[von Brauchitsch] hat vorgeschlagen, vorwärts der eigenen Linien Minenfelder anzulegen, um der Truppe den unmittelbaren Kampf gegen die Zivilbevölkerung zu ersparen. Wenn sich die roten Truppen im Raum um Leningrad und Kronstadt ergeben, die Waffen abgeliefert und in Gefangenschaft abgeführt sind, sieht O.B. keinen Grund mehr, die Einschließung der Stadt aufrecht zu erhalten. Die Truppe wird in die Unterkunftsräume verlegt werden. Auch dann wird ein großer Teil der Bevölkerung zu Grunde gehen, aber doch wenigstens nicht unmittelbar vor unseren Augen. Auch die Möglichkeit, Teile der Bevölkerung auf der Straße nach Wolchowstroj abzuschieben, muß überlegt werden.[...] My translation: [...] 2.) The question of Leningrad and especially of its civilian population strongly preoccupies the Supreme Commander [FM von Leeb]. The Army Supreme Commander [von Brauchitsch] has suggested to lay minefields in front of our own lines to spare the troops the immediate fight against the civilian population. When the Red troops in the area around Leningrad and Kronstadt have surrendered, delivered their weapons and been led into captivity, the Supreme Commander see no more reason for keeping up the encirclement of the city. The troops will then be transferred to their quarters. Even then a huge part of the civilian population will perish, but at least this will not happen immediately in front of our eyes. The possibility of pushing away the population on the street to Wolchowstroj must also be considered.[...] 12. From the War Diary of the General Command of L. Army Corps, 18.9.1941 - 6.5.1942 (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RH 24/5015) 24.10.1941: Der Kdr. General besuchte eine Reihe Feuerstellungen schwerer und leichter Batterien des A.R. 269. Der Kdr. General besichtigte die Einrichtungen für den Winter und den Stellungsbau und besprach dann mit den Kommandeuren und Batteriechefs den Einsatz der Artillerie für den Fall, dass die russ. Zivilbevölkerung Ausbruchsversuche aus Leningrad machen sollte. Ein solches Herausdrängen ist laut Armeebefehl vom 18.9.1941 Nr. 2737/41 geh. notfalls mit Waffengewalt zu verhindern. Es ist Aufgabe der Artillerie, durch frühzeitige Feuereröffnung jedes derartige Unternehmen möglichst weit vor der eigenen Linie abzuweisen, damit es der Infanterie möglichst erspart bleibt, auf Zivilisten zu schießen. In gleicher Weise waren bei den Truppenbesuchen in den letzten Tagen die Art.-Regimenter der SS-Pol.Div. und 58. I.D. angewiesen worden.[...] 15.11.1941: [...]Einige Zivilisten, die sich der eigenen Linie nähern wollten, wurden erschossen. [...] My translation: 24.10.1941: The commanding general visited a number of firing positions of heavy and light batteries of artillery regiment 269. The commanding general viewed the installations for the winter and the construction of emplacements and then discussed with the commanders and battery leaders the use of the artillery in case of the Russian civilian population trying to break out of Leningrad. According to army order of 18.9.1941 Nr. 2737/41 secret, such attempts are to be prevented, if necessary by force of arms. It is the task of the artillery to fend of any such undertaking as far away as possible from our own lines by opening fire at an early stage, so that the infantry is as far as possible spared having to shoot on civilians. The same instructions were given during troop visits in the last days to the artillery regiments of the SS Police Division and the 58th Infantry Division.[...] 15.11.1941: [...] Some civilians who were trying to get close to our own lines were shot. [...] 13. Study from the Army High Command 18/1a, War Diary No. 4a, entry of 4.11.1941 (State Archive Nuremberg, NOKW-1548) Möglichkeiten für die Behandlung der Zivilbevölkerung von Petersburg 1.) Die Stadt bleibt abgeschlossen und alles verhungert. 2.) Die Zivilbevölkerung wird durch unsere Linien herausgelassen und in unser Hintergelände abgeschoben. 3.) Die Zivilbevölkerung wird durch einen Korridor hinter die russische Front abgeschoben Die Voraussetzung für diese 3 Punkte ist, daß die russische Wehrmacht, d.h. die Kräfte in Petersburg und die 8. Armee, möglichst auch die Besatzung von Kronstadt ausgeschaltet ist und zwar entweder durch Kapitulation oder durch Zusammenbruch und Auflösung. Zu 1.): Vorteile: a.) Ein großer Teil der kommunistischen Bevölkerung Rußlands, die gerade unter der Bevölkerung von Petersburg zu suchen ist, wird damit ausgerottet. b.) Wir brauchen 4 Millionen Menschen nicht zu ernähren. Nachteile: a.) Seuchengefahr. b.) Die seelische Einwirkung durch die vor unserer Front verhungernden Massen auf unsere Truppen ist groß. c.) Der feindlichen Presse wird ein wirksames Propagandamittel in die Hand gegeben. d.) Nachteilige Auswirkungen auf die innenpolitische Entwicklung hinter der russischen Front. e.) Alle deutschen, finnischen und noch vorhandenen wertvollen russischen Elemente werden als erstes umkommen. f.) Wir können keinerlei Material aus der Stadt herausholen, da wir nicht hineinkönnen. Vorbedingung: a.) Eine starke Absperrung vor unserer Linie ist erforderlich. b.) Der Ladogasee muß abgesperrt werden, sonst verhungert die Bevölkerung, vor allem aber die Truppe in Petersburg nicht. Zu 2.): Vorteile: a.) Wir entlasten uns sowohl vor der Welt als auch vor unserem eigenen Volk dadurch, daß wir für die Bevölkerung Petersburgs das einzige in unsere Macht liegende tun. b.) Der Weltpresse wird die Unterlage für die Propaganda zu einem großen Teil entzogen. c.) Deutsche, finnische und noch vorhandene wertvolle russische Elemente können gerettet werden. Nachteile: a.) Die Petersburger Bevölkerung fällt der Bevölkerung in unserem rückwärtigen Gebiet zur Last und beeinträchtigt damit auch unsere Ernährungslage. b.) Seuchen können übertragen werden. c.) Ein großer Teil der aus Petersburg herauskommenden wird auch so verhungern und es ergibt sich auch damit eine starke seelische Belastung für unsere Truppe. d.) Ein großer Haufe kommunistischer Elemente ergießt sich in unser Hinterland. Damit Vermehrung der Partisanen und Aufhetzung der z.Zt. gutwilligen Landbevölkerung. e.) Die wehrfähigen Männer werden wahrscheinlich auch in Kriegsgefangenschaft überführt werden müssen. Damit Vermehrung der zu Ernährenden. Vorbedingung: a) Beim Herauslassen der Bevölkerung Untersuchung auf Waffen. b) Geregelter Abschub nach hinten. Zu 3.): Vorteile: a.) Vermehrte Entlastung wie unter 2.)a.). b.) Die Unterlage für die Weltpresse wird abgeschwächt wie unter 2.)b.). c.) Unsere Truppe wird seelisch nicht so start beeindruckt wie bei Möglichkeit 2.). d.) Wir werden die kommunistischen Elemente los. e.) Die Ernährungslage im Hinterland wird dadurch nicht berührt. f.) Man kann deutsche, finnische und vielleicht auch wertvolle russische Elemente herausziehen. g.) Nehmen die Russen die Bevölkerung aus Petersburg nicht auf, so haben wir ein gutes Propagandamittel gegen die Sowjetregime in der Hand. Nachteile: a.) Auf dem Marsch werden sehr viele Leute umkommen und die Feindpresse wird den 'Hungermarsch' propagandistisch ausschlachten. b.) Für die 'spalierbildende' Truppe wird dieser Hungermarsch eine starke seelische Belastung. Vorbedingung: a.) Die Russen müssen sich bereit erklären, die Bevölkerung aufzunehmen. b.) Der Abmarsch muß erfolgen: nördl. der Newa nach Schlüsselburg, dort über eine Pontonbrücke, dann längs des Ladogasees, sodaß möglichst wenig Kräfte für das 'Spalier' benötigt werden. My translation: Possibilities for the treatment of the civilian population of Petersburg 1.) The city remains encircled and all starve to death. 2.) The civilian population is let out through our lines and pushed away into our rear area. 3.) The civilian population is pushed off through a corridor behind the Russian front The pre-condition for these 3 points is that the Russian armed forces, i.e. the forces in Petersburg and the 8th Army, if possible also the garrison of Kronstadt, are eliminated either through capitulation or through collapse and dissolution. Regarding 1.): Advantage: a.) A great part of the Communist population of Russia, which is to be found especially among the population of Petersburg, will thus be exterminated. b.) We don’t have to feed 4 million people. Disadvantages: a.) Danger of epidemics. b.) The psychological effect of the masses starving to death before our front line on the troops is great. c.) The enemy press is given an effective propaganda tool. d.) Disadvantageous effects on the development of domestic policies behind the Russian front. e.) All German, Finnish, German and still existing valuable Russian elements will be the first to perish. f.) We can take no material out of the city because we cannot enter it. Pre-condition: a.) A strong shut-off position in front of our line is necessary. b.) Lake Ladoga must be sealed off, otherwise the population, but especially the troops in Petersburg will not starve. Regarding 2.): Advantages: a.) We relieve ourselves both in front of the world and in front of our own people by doing for the population of Petersburg the only thing we are able to. b.) World press is to a great extent deprived of the basis for propaganda. c.) German, Finnish and still existing valuable Russian elements can be saved. Disadvantages: a.) The population of Petersburg is a burden for the population in our rear area and thus also affects our own food situation. b.) Epidemics can be transmitted. c.) A great part of those coming out of Petersburg will starve to death anyway and this will also lead to a strong psychological burden for our troops. d.) A huge bunch of Communist elements will spread across our rear area. Thus increase of partisans and incitement of the currently good-willed population. e.) The men able to fight will probably have to be led into captivity. This will increase the number of those to be fed. Pre-condition: a) Search for weapons when letting out the population. b) Orderly removal to the rear area. Regarding 3.): Advantages: a.) Increased relief as under 2.)a.). b.) The basis for world press is weakened as under 2.)b.). c.) Our troops are not so strongly affected psychologically as in possibility 2.). d.) We get rid of the Communist elements. e.) The food situation in the rear area is not affected hereby. f.) German, Finnish and maybe also valuable Russian elements can be pulled out. g.) If the Russians don’t take the people of Petersburg, we will have a good propaganda tool against the Soviet regime in our hands. Disadvantages: a.) On the march a great many people will perish and the enemy press will take advantage of the hunger march for propaganda purposes. b.) For the escorting troops this hunger march will be a strong psychological burden. Pre-condition: a.) The Russians must declare themselves prepared to take the population. b.) The marching off must be carried out: North of the Neva towards Schlüsselburg, there across a pontoon bridge, then along Lake Ladoga, so that as few forces as possible are required for the escort. 14. Notes of the Head of the General Staff of the 18th Army, Colonel Hasse, from the high level meeting at Orsha on 13.11.1941 (State Archive Nuremberg, NOKW-1535) Bericht über Ausführungen Wagners (Auszug): [...]Unlösbar dagegen ist die Frage der Ernährung der Großstädte. Es kann keinem Zweifel unterliegen, daß insbesondere Leningrad verhungern muß, denn es ist unmöglich, diese Stadt zu ernähren. Aufgabe der Führung kann es nur sein, die Truppe hiervon und von den damit verbundenen Erscheinungen fern zu halten.[...] My translation: Report on Wagners statements (excerpt): [...]The feeding of the great cities can however not be solved. There can be no doubt that especially Leningrad must starve to death, because it is impossible to feed this city. The task of the leadership can thus only be to keep the troops away from this and from the phenomena related hereto.[...] 15. Operational Situation Report (Ereignismeldung) UdSSR No. 154 of 12.1.1942 (Bundesarchiv, R 58/220) [...]Erkundung Petersburg, Bevölkerung: Die Bevölkerung Leningrads hat sich mittlerweile an den ständigen Artilleriebeschuß derart gewöhnt, daß kaum jemand die Schutzräume aufsucht. [...] Die Verluste unter der Zivilbevölkerung sind demgemäß stark angestiegen. Trotzdem dürften die Verluste durch Artillerie und Bombeneinwirkung nach übereinstimmenden Schätzungen aufs Ganze gesehen gering sein und nur einige Tausend Personen betragen. Demgegenüber sollen in der letzten Zeit sich die Fälle von Hungertod beträchtlich vermehrt haben und in den letzten Wochen etwa das Vierfache der Verluste durch Artilleriebeschuß ausmachen. So wurde beispielsweise am 17. Dezember von einer Person auf der Statschekstrasse, zwischen Narwa-Tor und Stadtrand, also auf einer Strecke von 5 Kilometer beobachtet, daß allein 6 Personen entkräftet zusammenbrachen und liegenblieben. Diese Fälle häufen sich bereits derart, daß sich niemand mehr um die liegengebliebenen Personen kümmert, zumal bei der allgemeinen Entkräftung auch die Wenigsten in der Lage sind, tatkräftige Hilfe zu leisten. [...] My translation: [...]Reconnaissance Petersburg, Population: The people of Leningrad has in the meantime become so used to the constant artillery bombardment that hardly anybody goes to the shelters. [...] The losses among the civilian population have thus greatly increased. Nevertheless the losses from the effect of artillery and bombs should, according to coincident estimates, by reduced on the whole and amount to only several thousand persons. On the other hand the cases of death by starvation are said to have increased considerably in the last time and to have made up about four times the losses from artillery fire in the past weeks. So for instance on 17 December a person in the Statshek Street, between the Narva Gate and the city limits, saw 6 persons collapsing from exhaustion and lying where they fell over a distance of 5 kilometers. These cases are already increasing to such an extent that no one any longer takes care of the persons lying on the street, especially as due to the general exhaustion only very few are in conditions to provide effective help. [...] 16. Operational Situation Report (Ereignismeldung) UdSSR No. 170 of 18.2.1942 (Bundesarchiv, R 58/220) [...]Schon im Dezember wiesen große Teile der Zivilbevölkerung Leningrads Hungerschwellungen auf. Es passierte immer wieder, daß Personen auf den Strassen zusammenbrachen und tot liegen blieben. Im Laufe des Januar begann nun unter der Zivilbevölkerung ein regelrechtes Massensterben. Namentlich in den Abendstunden werden die Leichen auf Handschlitten aus den Häusern nach den Kirchhöfen gefahren, wo sie, wegen der Unmöglichkeit, den hartgefrorenen Boden aufzugraben, einfach in den Schnee geworfen werden. In der letzten Zeit sparen sich die Angehörigen meist die Mühe des Weges bis zum Friedhof und laden die Leichen schon unterwegs am Straßenrand ab. Ein Überläufer machte sich Ende Januar die Mühe, an einer verkehrsreichen Strasse in Leningrad am Nachmittag die vorübergeführten Handschlitten mit Leichen zu zählen und kam im Verlauf einer Stunde auf eine Zahl von 100. Vielfach werden Leichen auch schon in den Höfen und auf umfriedeten freien Plätzen gestapelt. Ein im Hof eines zerstörten Wohnblocks angelegter Leichenstapel war etwa 2 m hoch und 20 m lang. Vielfach werden die Leichen aber gar nicht erst aus den Wohnungen abtransportiert, sondern bloß in ungeheizte Räume gestellt. In den Luftschutzräumen findet man häufig Tote, für deren Abtransport nichts geschieht. Auch beispielsweise im Alexanderowskaja-Krankenhaus sind in den ungeheizten Räumen, Gängen und im Hofe 1 200 Leichen abgestellt. Schon Anfang Januar wurde die Zahl der täglichen Todesopfer des Hungers und der Kälte mit 2 - 3 000 angegeben. Ende Januar ging in Leningrad das Gerücht, daß täglich bereits an die 15 000 Menschen sterben und im Laufe der letzten 3 Monate bereits 200 000 Menschen Hungers gestorben seien. Auch diese Zahl ist im Verhältnis zur Gesamtbevölkerung nicht allzu hoch. Es ist aber zu berücksichtigen, daß sich die Todesopfer mit jeder Woche ungeheuer steigern werden, wenn die jetzigen Verhältnisse - Hunger und Kälte - bestehen bleiben. Die eingesparten Lebensmittelrationen auf die einzelnen verteilt sind jedoch ohne Bedeutung. In besonderem Maße sollen Kinder Opfer des Hungers werden, namentlich Kleinkinder, für die es keine Nahrung gibt. In der letzten Zeit soll zudem noch eine Pockenepidemie ausgebrochen sein, die außerdem noch unter den Kindern zahlreich Opfer fordert.[...] My translation: [...]Already in December a great part of the population showed hunger swellings. It happened again and again that persons broke down on the streets and lay there dead. In the course of January now there commenced a veritable mass dying among the population. Namely in the evening hours the corpses were drawn on hand sleds from the houses to the cemeteries, where due to impossibility of digging up the frozen ground they were simply thrown into the snow. Lately the relatives save themselves the effort of going to the cemetery and already unload the corpses on the way at the edge of the road. A defector undertook at the end of January to count the passing hand sleds with corpses on a traffic-rich street of Leningrad in the afternoon and counted 100 within an hour. In many cases the corpses were piled up in yards and on fenced-in free squares. A pile of corpses in the yard of a destroyed apartment block was about 2 meters high and 20 meters long. In many cases, however, the bodies are not even taken out of the apartments but only placed in unheated rooms. In the air raid shelters one often finds dead for whose removal nothing is done. Also for example in the Alexanderowskaja hospital there are about 1,200 corpses placed in the unheated rooms, aisles and in the yard. Already at the beginning of January the number of daily victims of starvation and cold was given at 2 3,000. At the end of January the rumor ran in Leningrad that already 15,000 people were dying every day and in the last 3 months 200,000 people had died of hunger. This number is neither all too high in relation to the total population. It must be taken into account, however, that the number of dead will increase greatly with every week if the present conditions – hunger and cold – are maintained. The food rations saved and distributed to individuals have no influence. Especially children are said to become victims of the hunger, namely small children for whom there is no food. Lately also a smallpox epidemic is said to have broken out, which additionally claimed many victims among the children.[...] 17. Operational Situation Report (Ereignismeldung) UdSSR No. 191 of 10.4.1942 (Bundesarchiv, R 58/221) [...] In gesteigertem Masse wurde die Verbindungsstrasse über das Eis des Ladoga-Sees von den Leningrader Behörden auch weiterhin nicht nur zur Heranschaffung von Kriegsmaterial und Lebensmitteln, sondern in gesteigerten Masse auch zur Evakuierung eines Teils der Bevölkerung nach dem Innern der Sowjetunion benutzt.[...] Umfangmässig weit bedeutender als der Abzug über den Ladogasee ist die Verminderung der Leningrader Bevölkerung durch das unverändert anhaltende Massensterben. Die angegebenen Zahlen der täglichen Todesfälle schwanken, liegen aber durchweg über 8 000. Die Todesursachen sind Hunger, Erschöpfung, Herzschwäche und Darmkrankheiten.[...] My translation: [...] The road across the ice of Lake Ladoga continues to be used by the Leningrad authorities not only to bring in war material and food, but increasingly also to evacuate a part of the population to the inner Soviet Union.[...] Much more important in terms of numbers than the evacuation across Lake Ladoga is the reduction of the population of Leningrad due to the mass dying that continues without a change. The indicated numbers of daily deaths vary, but always lie above 8,000. The causes of death are hunger, exhaustion, heart failure and intestine diseases.[...] Custom Signature *Quote:* Denial of generally known historical facts should not be punishable. For those who maintain, for instance, that Germany did not take part in World War I or that Adenauer fought at Issus in 333, their own stupidity is punishment enough. The same should apply to the denial of the horrors and crimes of the recent German past. ~ A German jurist by the name of Baumann in the German juridical magazine NJW, quoted in: Bailer-Galanda/Benz/Neugebauer (ed.), Die Auschwitzleugner, Berlin 1996, page 261 (my translation).
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Posts: 264 Mar 29 12 2:46 PM	The following quotes are from: *Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days. The Siege of Leningrad. Avon Books, New York, 1970* Page 383 Quote: […]Hitler insisted that von Leeb draw the tightest kind of circle around Leningrad. Secretly, the Führer instructed von Leeb that the city’s capitulation was not to be accepted. The population was to die with the doomed city. Random shelling of civilian objectives was authorized. If the populace tried to escape the iron ring, they were to be shot down. No hint of this brutal decision was made public.[…] Pages 468 and following Quote: On December 8 [1941] Meretskovs Fourth Army fought into Tikhvin. By December 9 the city was firmly in Soviet hands again. It had been held by the Germans precisely one month. Its recapture on the seventieth day of the siege was the first real sign that the lines around Leningrad could be held, that the second ring could not be fastened about the northern capital, that the Nazi dream of striking to the east of Vologda and cutting off Moscow from the rear, from Siberia, from America, would be thwarted. It coincided with a directive signed by Hitler December 8, No. 59, in which he ordered Army Group North to strengthen its control of the railroad and highway from Tikhvin and Volkhov to Kolchanovo in order to secure the possibility of joining hands with the Finns in Karelia. Tikhvin was a real victory. Whether it would save Leningrad and its millions of people, now entering the skeletal world of starvation, of life without heat, without light, without transport, no one knew for certain. […] The Germans did not think so. Colonel General Halder, the diarist of the Wehrmacht, jotted down under the date of December 13: The Commander of the army group is inclined to the view after the failure of all attempts by the enemy to liquidate our foothold on the Neva that we may expect the complete starvation of Leningrad. Pages 483 and following Quote: To give the starving, freezing people hope to help them to survive the New Year and the recapture of Mga, hundreds of meetings were held throughout the city in the ice-festooned factories (hardly a plant was operating now on December 19, 184 plants had been put on a one-, two- or three-day week); in the windowless government offices; in the apartment houses where burned small burzhuiki makeshift stoves. The word was passed on to all: by January 1 Leningrad will be liberated; the circle will be broken; Mga will be retaken. But Mga was not retaken. Even before New Years Day it was suddenly plain to Zhdanov that his Christmas optimism had been ill-founded. The terrible truth was that the Soviet troops had neither the physical strength nor the munitions to dislodge the Nazis. The Red Army men were weak and sick. A report as of January 10 showed 45 percent of the units of the Leningrad front and 63 percent of the Fifty-fifth Army units understrength. There were 32 divisions on the front. Of these, 14 were only up to 30 percent of strength. Some infantry regiments were only at 17 to 21 percent of authorized manpower. Now was there any way to bolster their ranks. […] These replacements hardly matched the Red Army’s losses. From October, 1941 to April, 1942, 353,424 troops reported sick or wounded, an average of 50,000 a month or 1,700 a day. Half of these were ill, largely of dystrophy and other starvation ailments. More than 62,000 troops came down with dystrophy from November, 1941, to the end of spring. The number ill with scurvy reached 20,000 in April, 1942. Deaths due to starvation diseases were 12,416, nearly 20 percent of troops on sick call, in the winter of 1942. Pages 555 and following Quote: […]On Nakhimson Prospekt Luknitsky found his sled colliding with those of others passing him with corpses. One was a sled on which there were two corpses, the body of a woman with long hair trailing in the snow and that of a small girl, probably ten years old. He passed carefully in order to avoid tangling the whitish-yellow hair of the corpse with the runner of his sled. On the Volodarsky near the Liteiny Bridge he encountered a five-ton truck with a mountain of bodies. Farther on he met two old women who were conveying their corpses to the cemetery in style. They had hitched their sleds to an army sledge which was slowly pulled through the streets by a pair of starving horses. There he met the shadow of a man who carried nestled to his breast and incredibly thin dog one of the rarest of city sights. The eyes of both the man and the dog were filled with hunger and terror, the dog’s terror, no doubt, because he sensed his fate and the man’s, perhaps, because he feared someone might rob him of the dog and he would not have the strength to defend his possession. So Luknitsky walked through the city, passing hundreds of people, struggling to survive, pulling the corpses of their relatives towards hospitals and cemeteries, pulling their little sleds bearing pails of water. Among the hundreds he met another kind as well a man with a fat, self-satisfied face, well-fed, with greedy eyes. Who was this man? Possibly, a store worker, a speculator, an apartment house manager who stole the ration cards of the tenants as they died and with the aid of his mistress exchanged the miserable bread rations in the Haymarket for gold watches, for rich silks, for diamonds or old silver and golden rubles. The conversation of this man and his mistress would not be of survival, of how to live through their terrible times. On such things this man would merely spit. Was he a speculator? A murderer? A cannibal? There was little difference; each was trading on the lives of starving, dying people, each was living on the flesh of his fellows. For such persons there was only one recourse. They must be shot. Luknitsky met Red Army men, too. They were as thin and weak as the civilians. He passed two soldiers, half-carrying a third. Most of them, despite their weakness, tried to walk with a bold step.[…] Pages 590 and following Quote: On April 15 [1942] Leningrad marked the 248th day of siege. The city had survived. But the cost had no equal in modern times. In March the Leningrad Funeral Trust buried 89,968 persons. In April the total rose to 102,497. Some of these burials were due to clean-up, but the death rate was probably higher in April than in any other month of the blockade. There now remained in Leningrad, with evacuation at an end, 1,100,000 persons. The total of ration cards was 800,000 less than in January. When Leningrad’s supply resources - the 58 days of flour, the 140 days of meat and fish - were calculated, it was on the basis of a population on April 15 only one-third of what it had been when the blockade began August 30 with the loss of Mga. More people had died in the Leningrad blockade than had ever died in a modern city - anywhere - anytime: more than ten times the number who died in Hiroshima. (Footnote: Deaths at Hiroshima August 6, 1945, were 78,150, with 13,983 missing and 37,426 wounded. In another tragedy of World War II, the Warsaw uprising, between 56,000 and 60,000 died.) By comparison with the great sieges of the past Leningrad was unique. The siege of Paris had lasted only 121 days, from September 19, 1870 to January 27, 1871. The total population, military and civilian, was on the order of one million. Noncombatant deaths from all causes in Paris during November, December and three weeks of January were only 30,236, about 16,000 higher than in the comparable period of the preceding year. The Parisians ate horses, mules, cats, dogs and possibly rats. There was a raid on the Paris zoo and a rhinoceros was killed and butchered. There were no authenticated instances of cannibalism. Food was scarce, but wine was plentiful. In the great American siege, that of Vicksburg between May 18 and July 4, 1863, only 4,000 civilians were involved, although the Confederate military force was upwards of 30,000. About 2,500 persons were killed in the siege, including 119 women and children. No known deaths from starvation occurred. Horses, mules, dogs and kittens were eaten and possibly rats. Leningrad exceeded the total Paris civil casualties on any two or three winter days. The Vicksburg casualties, military and civil, were exceeded in Leningrad by starvation deaths on any January, February, March or April day. How many people died in the Leningrad blockade? Even with careful calculation the total may be inexact by several hundred thousand. The most honest declaration was an official Soviet response to a Swedish official inquiry published in Red Star, the Soviet Army newspaper, June 28, 1964, which said: No one knows exactly how many people died in Leningrad and the Leningrad area. The official figure announced by the Soviet government of deaths by starvation - civilian deaths by hunger in the city of Leningrad alone - was 632,253. An additional 16,747 persons were listed as killed by bombs and shells, providing a total of Leningrad civilian deaths of 649,000. To this were added deaths in nearby Pushkin and Peterhof, bringing the total of starvation deaths to 641,803 and of deaths from all war causes to 671,635. These figures were attested to by the Leningrad City Commission to Investigate Nazi Atrocities and were submitted at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. The Commission figures are incomplete in many respects. They do not cover many Leningrad areas, including Oranienburg, Sestroretsk and the suburban parts of the blockade zone. Soviet sources no longer regard the Commission totals, which apparently were drawn up in May, 1944, as authoritative, although they were prepared by an elaborate apparatus of City and Regional Party officials, headed by Party Secretary Kuznetsov. A total of 6,445 local commissions carried out the task, and more than 31,000 persons took part. Individual lists of deaths were made up for each region. The regional lists carried 440,826 names, and a general city-wide list added 191,427 names, providing the basic Commission-reported total of 632,253. Impressive evidence has been compiled by Soviet scholars to demonstrate the incompleteness of the Commission’s total. All official Leningrad statistics are necessarily inaccurate because of the terrible conditions of the winter of 1941-42. The official report of deaths for December, 53,000, may be fairly complete, but for January and February the figures are admittedly poor. Estimates of daily deaths in these months run from 3,500 to 4,000 a day to 8,000. The only total available gives deaths for the period as 199,187. This is offered by Dimitri Pavlov. It represents deaths officially reported to authorities (probably in connection with the turning in of ration cards of the deceased). The number of unregistered deaths is known to be much higher. The Funeral Trust buried 89,968 bodies in March (it has no records for January and February), 102,497 in April and 53,562 in May. It continued to bury 4,000 to 5,000 bodies a month through the autumn of 1942, although by this time Leningrads population had been cut by more than 75 percent. Thus mortality as a result of the blockade and starvation continued at a high rate through the whole year. The Funeral Trust buried 460,000 bodies from November, 1941, to the end of 1942. In addition, it is estimated that private individuals, work teams of soldiers and others transported 228,263 bodies from morgues to cemeteries from December, 1941 through December, 1942. No exact accounting of bodies delivered to cemeteries was possible in Leningrad during the winter months, when thousands of corpses lay in the streets and were picked up like cordwood, transported to Piskarevsky, Volkov, Tatar, Bolshaya Okhta, Serafimov, and Bogoslovsky cemeteries and to the larger squares at Vesely Poselok (Jolly Village) and the Glinozemsky Zavod for burial in mass graves, dynamited in the frozen earth by military miners. Leningrad had a civilian population of about 2,280,000 in January, 1942. By the close of evacuation via the ice road in April, 1942, the population was estimated at 1,100,000 - a reduction of 1,180,000, of whom 440,000 had been evacuated via the ice road. Another 120,000 went to the front or were evacuated in May and June. This would indicate a minimum of deaths within the city of about 620,000 in the first half of 1942. Official statistics show that about 1,093,695 persons were buried and about 110,000 cremated from July, 1941, through July, 1942. To take another approach, Leningrad had about 2,500,000 residents at the start of the blockade, including about 100,000 refugees. At the end of 1943 as the 900 days were drawing to a close, Leningrad had a population of about 600,000 - less than a quarter the number of residents at the time Mga fell August 30, 1941. The most careful calculation suggests that about 1,000,000 Leningraders were evacuated during the blockade: 33,479 by water across Ladoga in the fall of 1941; 35,114 by plane in November-December, 1941; 36,118 by the Ladoga ice road in December, 1941, and up to January 22, 1942; 440,000 by Ladoga from January 22 to April 15; 448,694 by Ladoga water transport from May to November, 1942; 15,000 during 1943. In addition, perhaps 100,000 Lenigraders went to the front with the armed forces. This suggests that not less than 800,000 persons died of starvation within Leningrad during the blockade. But the 800,000 total does not include the thousands who died in the suburban regions and during evacuation. These totals were very large. For instance, at the tiny little station of Borisova Griva on Ladoga 2,200 persons died from January to April 15, 1942. The Leningrad Encyclopedia estimates deaths during evacuation at tens of thousands. What is the actual death total for Leningrad? Mikhail Dudin, a Leningrad poet who fought at Hangö and spent the whole of the siege within the lines of Leningrad, suggests that it was a minimum of 1,100,000. He offers this simple figure on the basis of 800,000 bodies estimated buried in mass graves at Piskarevsky Cementery and 300,000 at Serafimov cemetery. There is more than a little truth in the observation of the Leningrad poet, Sergei Davydov, regarding Piskarevsky: Here lies half the city. No official calculation includes a total for military deaths, and no official figures on these have been published. It is known, however, that 12,416 military deaths attributed to hunger diseases occurred in the winter of 1941-42. Overall military deaths are likely to have ranged between 100,000 and 200,000 - possibly more. One of the most careful Soviet specialists estimates the Leningrad starvation toll at not less than a million, a conclusion shared by the Leningrad Party leaders. Pravda on the twentieth anniversary of the lifting of the blockade declared that the world has never known a similar mass extermination of a civilian population, such depths of human suffering and deprivation as fell to the lots of Leningraders. Estimates of the Leningrad death toll as high as 2,000,000 have been made by some foreign students. These estimates are too high. A total for Leningrad and vicinity of something over 1,000,000 deaths attributable to hunger, and an overall total of deaths, civilian and military, on the order of 1,300,000 to 1,500,000 seems reasonable. It is germane, perhaps, to note that the Leningrad survivors of the blockade thought in January, 1944, that the starvation toll might be 2,000,000. The Soviet censors in 1944 refused to pass estimates stating the Leningrad death toll as 1,000,000 or 2,000,000. For nearly twenty years after the blockade they insisted the total was 632,253 - not more, not less. Even today Dimitri V. Pavlov insists that new estimates, made by Soviet and foreign students, are incorrect. In a third edition of his magnificent Leningrad v Blokade, the best single source for many details of the siege, he incorporate an attack on the new totals. It is possible, he asserts, to remain silent in the face in the face of the assertion that a million or more people died in Leningrad. Believe it or not, he insists, there is no foundation for such serious conclusions. He insists that calculations based on the movement of Leningraders in and out of the city are unsound. He contends that the new estimates understate the number of Leningraders who entered military units (he puts the figure at not less than 200,000 rather than the 100,000 which Soviet authorities now use). He insists that the 632,253 calculation was accurate (he says it was completed in May, 1943, although the document is dated May, 1944, and other Soviet authorities contend it was not submitted until May, 1945). Pavlov concludes that the life of the Leningraders was so grim that there is no need for historians or writers dealing with these events to strengthen the colors or deepen the shadows. In this Pavlov is right. But the truth is that the Soviet Government from the beginning made a deliberate effort to lighten the shadows of the Leningrad blockade. The death toll was minimized for political and security reasons. The Soviet Government for years deliberately understated the military and civilian death toll of World War II. The real totals were of such magnitude that Stalin, obviously, felt they would produce political repercussions inside the country. To the outside world a realistic statement of Soviet losses (total population losses are now estimated at well above 25 million lives) would have revealed the true weakness of Russia at the end of the war. The Leningrad death toll had implications both for Stalin and for the Leningrad leadership, headed by Zhdanov. It raised the question of whether the key decisions were the right ones, whether all had been done that could have been done to spare the city this incredible trial. In these decisions the personal and political fortunes of all the Soviet leaders were intermingled. Zhdanov declared in June, 1942, that there had been no line between the front and the rear in Leningrad, that everyone lived with a single spirit - to do everything possible to defeat the enemy. Each Leningrader, man or woman, found his place in the struggle and with honor fulfilled his duty as a Soviet patriot. This was not quite true, and it begged the question of whether the siege had to be endured, whether it could have been lifted, whether it could have been avoided. These were the questions for which the leadership might have to answer. Whether Zhdanov was certain of the correctness of these decisions is not clear. Not long before he died on August 31, 1948, he is said to have questioned himself and his acts, acknowledging that people died like flies as a result of his decisions, but insisting that history would not have forgiven me had I given up Leningrad. Pavlov asked himself the same questions: Why did Leningrad remain in blockade for so long, and was everything done that could have been done to break the blockade? His conclusion was that the Soviet Command simply did not have the strength to do more than was done. Meanwhile, history was corrected the Soviet way. The sacrifice of Leningrad was understated, the death toll was minimized; the chance of political repercussions was reduced at least for the time being. Not until many years later was the inscription carved on the wall of the memorial at Piskarevsky Cemetery: Let no one forget; let nothing be forgotten! For some years, at any rate, a determined effort was made to forget a very great deal that had happened during the siege of Leningrad. The following quote is from: Harrison E. Salisbury, The Unknown War. Bantam Books, 1978 Page 99/100 Quote: […]More and more often Orbeli got requests for coffins. The Hermitage had a stock of packing cases and was almost the only source in the city for coffins. Finally Orbeli had to refuse the requests. The Hermitage carpenter had died of starvation. The heaps of bodies grew so large that engineering teams were brought in to dynamite long trenches in the frozen earth. One of these great trenches eventually became Piskarevsky Cemetery. Steam shovels were put into action. Vsevolod Kochetov saw them working one night. He thought new fortifications were being built. His chauffeur corrected him: They are digging graves - dont you see the corpses? There are thousands. I go past here every day and every day they dig a new trench. Never in the history of the world, comments Leningrad’s official history, has there been an example of tragedy equal to that of starving Leningrad. Often people just laid down in their beds. They stopped eating. Towards the end they begin to cry in a high-pitched note that never halted, their skeletal faces contorted. Hunger psychosis, the doctors called it. Nikolai Markevich, a correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda, wrote in his diary January 24, 1942: The city is dead. There is no electricity. Warm rooms are most rare. No streetcars. No water. Almost the only kind of transports is sleds ... carrying corpses in plain coffins, covered with rags or half clothed. Daily six to eight thousand die. It was then that the worst horror appeared - murderers, criminals of all kinds, even cannibals ranged the city. Gangs preyed on the young, on lonely pedestrians, women on the street at night. They entered unguarded apartments. Some haunted the stacks of corpses piled up around the hospitals and carved off arms and legs. Euphemistically the starving Leningrad police called this a new kind of crime. In the old Haymarket people appeared to sell and buy - to sell any valuable they had to buy bread or other food. In this market of the starving and the dying ventured a new kind of salesman or saleswoman, well fed, tough, hard, calculating. They had meat for sale. Or sometimes stew or sausages. But they gave no answer as to where it had come from. Others sold Badayev earth, glasses filled with earth from the burned Badayev warehouse, impregnated with burned or melted sugar. There were no longer rats or mice in the city. They, too had starved or been caught and eaten. In the worst period of the siege, a survivor recalled, Leningrad was in the power of the cannibals. God alone knows what terrible scenes went on behind the walls of the apartments. In Leningrads City Museum there is preserved the torn pages of a childs notebook. On them are scrawled these notations: Z - Zhenya died 28 December, 12:30 in the morning, 1941. B - Babushka died 25 January, 3 oclock, 1942. L - Leka died 17 March, 5 oclock in the morning, 1942. D - Dedya Vasya died 13 April, 2 oclock at night, 1942. D - Dedya Lesha, 10 May, 4 oclock in the afternoon, 1942. M - Mama, 13 May, 7:30 a.m., 1942. S - Savichevs died. All died. Only Tanya remains. Tanya Savicheva was an 11-year-old school girl. The notebook records the fate of her family, which lived at No. 13, Second Line, Vasilevsky Island. Tanya was evacuated in the spring of 1942 to a children’s home near Gorky on the Volga. She suffered from chronic dysentery and she, too, died, in the summer of 1942.[…] Custom Signature *Quote:* Denial of generally known historical facts should not be punishable. For those who maintain, for instance, that Germany did not take part in World War I or that Adenauer fought at Issus in 333, their own stupidity is punishment enough. The same should apply to the denial of the horrors and crimes of the recent German past. ~ A German jurist by the name of Baumann in the German juridical magazine NJW, quoted in: Bailer-Galanda/Benz/Neugebauer (ed.), Die Auschwitzleugner, Berlin 1996, page 261 (my translation).
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Posts: 264 Mar 29 12 3:17 PM	What follows is my translation of an article by German historian Jörg Ganzenmüller that appeared in the German weekly magazine Die Zeit. The original article can be read under http://www.zeit.de/2004/04/A-Belagerung_L?page=all Quote: A Quiet Genocide 60 years ago, after almost 900 days, there ended the German blockade of St. Petersburg, then Leningrad. The Wehrmachts goal, however, had not been to conquer the city but to destroy its inhabitants. A million people fell victim to this genocide The fall of the city seemed to be a question of days. On 8 September 1941 the 18th Army of the Wehrmacht had conquered the suburb Schlüsselburg and thus closed the ring of siege. In the north there stood the troops of Germanys ally Finland (which however had only advanced up to the former Finnish-Russian border), and in the West and East the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, which with more than 18000 square kilometers resembles an inland sea, represented a natural obstacle seemingly impossible to overcome. German tanks entered the southern suburbs and already had the citys golden cupolas in their sights. At this moment Adolf Hitler from Germany gave the order to stop. The troops couldn’t understand the decision. General Hans Reinhardt reported unrest among his men: «the city was in front of them, and no one kept them from entering». And propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary the open radio message of a Wehrmacht unit that had to stop in the suburb Krasnogwardejsk: «The troops shout all together: We want to move on!» Yet Hitler and the Wehrmacht command did not give in. What followed is one of the cruelest chapters of the Second World War: the almost 900 day-long siege of St. Petersburg, then Leningrad, which came to an end 60 years ago, on 27 January 1944. About one million inhabitants of the city fell victim to this blockade. Most of them died of hunger and cold. The food supplies were soon used up. Fire material was spent, and in 1941/42 there raged a grim winter, one of the coldest of the 20th century, with temperatures sinking to minus 40 degrees. Traffic stood still, water froze in the mains, heating and electricity failed. The grisly photographs from that time show streets through which emaciated people are dragging themselves. Everywhere there are the corpses of those who dropped dead along the way. The people even lack the strength to give their closest relatives a decent burial. On simple sleds they pull the deceased to the collection points, the dead are buried in giant mass graves. The only link to the hinterland led over Lake Ladoga. At first food was brought with ships into the siege ring. When in winter the lake froze, a street across the ice was hurriedly built. Day and night the trucks rolled to supply the population with what was most necessary. But all efforts were not enough. Food rations had to be reduced ever further, until they reached the bottom in November 1941: a worker received only 250 grams of bread per day, his family members half of that. But even this hunger ration existed only on paper. In many cases the people could no longer turn in their food ration cards, the shops being empty. And the little bread they eventually managed to grab hardly deserved the name: it consisted mostly of cellulose or saw dust. In their despair Leningraders soon ate everything: they cooked leather straps, made aspic from carpenter’s glue or scratched the paste from the tapestries. Such experiments occasionally had a deadly outcome. Pancakes made of mustard seeds were so hot that they ate away the intestines of emaciated people. Dogs and cats landed in the pots, sparrows and rats. On the black markets that soon showed up the people sold their entire belongings for a loaf of bread. There were individual cases of cannibalism. Three million people were to disappear In is no longer possible to reconstruct if the Wehrmacht could indeed have conquered Leningrad as easily in the autumn of 1941 as the political and military leadership of the Third Reich thought. After Hitler had withdrawn the armored forces from Leningrad and thrown them into the battle for Moscow, Army Group North was lacking offensive punch. General Georgij Shukov, who had been sent to Leningrad by Stalin, managed to stabilize the front so far that the German troops at least could not pull the siege ring tighter around the city. There is no doubt, however, that in the autumn of 1941 Hitler was dead sure that he could take Leningrad at any time. But why didnt he do it? Why did he renounce to this great military and symbolic triumph, to the triumph of conquering the city of the October Revolution? Hitler and the Wehrmacht command didn’t want to conquer Leningrad, but to destroy it. Already at the beginning of the Russian campaign, the army’s general chief of staff, Franz Halder, had entered the following in his war diary: «It is the Führer’s firm decision to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground in order to avoid that people stay in there who we will then have to feed in the winter.» What exactly was to happen with the Leningraders nobody was seriously thinking about for the time being. Genocide was not yet planned at this time, but first extermination fantasies got their start here. Thus Goebbels put the following oracle in his diary on 12 July 1941: «One can neither say what will become of this gigantic mass of millions in the near future. I see a catastrophe come up the dimensions of which are yet completely unforeseeable.» Several weeks later the failure of the German blitzkrieg strategy was beginning to show. It had not been possible to defeat a large part of the Red Army immediately behind the Soviet border and then take possession of wide parts of the country in a «railway advance» without fighting. Instead the delay in the foreseen schedule put the entire Operation Barbarossa in question. The German leadership started making reductions from its original goals. First of all it renounced to the complete conquest of northern Russia, because these areas were not of decisive importance for the war. Yet there was still indecision about the treatment of Leningrad. Already at the end of April 1941, two months before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Reich Food Ministry had stated that «the problem of supplying Leningrad cannot be solved at all in terms of food if it should fall into our hands». Now, in the late summer and autumn of 1941, when Operation Barbarossa got stuck and also the exploitation of the conquered areas did not yield the expected results, the civilian population became a «food problem» in the Wehrmacht’s eyes. This gave Reich Marshall Hermann Göring, who was coordinating the economic exploitation of the occupied areas, the idea not to take Soviet major cities at all «due to economic considerations». Instead he considered their encirclement to be «more advantageous». Thus the siege of Leningrad became the attempt to downright choke the city. Temporary considerations of the local commanders to «deport» the inhabitants behind the Soviet front quickly lost their meaning, as the German soldiers were not to be saddled with the «heavy psychological burden» resulting from the sight of such «hunger march». The responsible in the army rear area were neither prepared, however, to take in and feed the people. Thus for the High Command of the 18th Army there remained only as last possibility the following: «All must starve.» This decision for genocide apparently motivated by «need» or by «food policy», however, was in complete consonance with the National Socialist Germanization policy. For Leningrad belonged to an area of the Soviet Union that in the future was to be settled by Germans under the name «Ingermanland». The General Plan East, a gigantic resettlement program worked out under the supervision of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, still in 1942 foresaw that the urban population of that region would have sunk from 3.2 million in 1939 to 200,000 in postwar times. The difference of three million people who thus «disappeared» on paper corresponded to the number of Leningrad’s inhabitants at that time. In the course of the autumn of 1941 the destruction of Leningrad’s population received priority before all military objectives. On 29 September 1941 Hitler made clear the following: «Requests for surrender resulting from the situation of the city will be rejected, as the problem of housing and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for existence, there is no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of this large urban population.» And on 7 October 1941 Hitler again emphasized «that a capitulation of Leningrad or later of Moscow is not to be accepted, even if it were offered by the other side. […] No German soldier must therefore set foot in these cities.» Despite such clear words the German state justified the siege strategy before world opinion by pointing out that the defenders of the city would fight to the last man, that the whole of Leningrad was undermined with explosives and that furthermore there was an acute danger of epidemics for German soldiers when occupying the city. Now, the Soviet Supreme Commander of the Leningrad Front, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, had indeed called for a popular rebellion in case the Germans put one boot in the city. But this was not the essential motivation for the blockade, as Wehrmacht apologists try to make believe to this day. Goebbels in his diaries openly addressed the merely tactical use of Vorosholiov’s appeal as an instrument. «We have», he entered on 23.August 1941, «an interest in spreading Voroshilov’s appeal as far as possible, as we thereby get an alibi for the terrible fate threatening this city.» And several days later, on 5 September, it reads as follows: «It is of some concern to us how this city drama is to be justified before world opinion. But the Bolsheviks have largely condescended. They themselves trumpeted out into the world that they had the intention of defending this city to the last man. Thus they must blame themselves for the consequences. We shall yet issue a leaflet that will be dropped by our fliers over Leningrad, in which the city is shown its gruesome fate. This leaflet we will also publish in the foreign press and in our radio language services and thus obtain an effective alibi for all that will come.» General Eduard Wagner orders preparation of a gas attack The use of the siege strategy as an instrument for extermination policy had the elementary advantage for the German side of being able to carry out genocide by merely doing nothing. On the other hand all plans that suggested an active murder of Leningrad’s inhabitants did not make it – including the considerations of attacking the metropolis on the Neva with poison gas. For this the army’s General Quarter Master Eduard Wagner had in December 1941 already calculated the required amount of combat gas. The attack was to hit not only the front of the defenders, but the whole inner city: umpteen thousands would have been gassed. The plans remained just that because fortunately neither enough ammunition nor artillery was available for such an attack. Furthermore there were basic objections to gas warfare on the German side: not the least Adolf Hitler himself, who as a soldier in the First World War had been temporarily blinded by a poison gas attack, feared retaliation by the enemy, especially the British, who were doubtlessly superior in chemical and biological weapons. The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had meanwhile already written off Leningrad in silence and authorized the blowing up of the Baltic Fleet lying in the Gulf of Finland. After the Soviet front had stabilized, however, he again gained hope. The Red Army even counterattacked from both sides of the siege ring and undertook two liberation attempts. After the horrible winter 41/42 the situation of the city started to improve somewhat. Could it be that Leningrad would yet escape the fate intended for it? The Wehrmacht command became impatient. Under the cover name «North Light» a new operation against the city was planned in the spring of 1942. Field Marshall Erich von Manstein, charged with carrying out the operation, wanted to pull the circle closer around the city in order to interrupt supplies across Lake Ladoga. Leningrad was to starve faster. But while the operation was still being prepared, the Red Army surprised the Germans on 27 August 1942 with a large scale attack south of the lake. The troops brought in especially for «North Light» were involved in a heavy defensive fight, and a subsequent advance against Leningrad was out of the question. The Germans got more and more into the defensive. In the second war winter 42/43 the city could be noticeably better supplied over the now proficient ice road, even though the Wehrmacht tried to disturb its operation through air attacks. In January 1943 the Red Army finally succeeded in fighting free a small corridor near Schlüsselburg. Now the blockade ring had a gap through which food and armament could be brought into the city. Food rations soon rose to the level of other major Soviet cities, and the Leningraders’ everyday life normalized. Hitlers troops now limited themselves to terrorizing the population through regular artillery fire. Furthermore they razed several historical buildings and cultural monuments around the city, like the old Czar’s residence Peterhof, the Russian Versailles. This status quo lasted a whole year, as none of both sides wished to spare forces for this secondary theater. When the Red Army finally started its sixth relief attempt, the German positions collapsed within a few days. On 27 January 1944 the whole city celebrated the end of its time of suffering. In Germany not much was said about the fate of Leningrad after the war. Until the present date Stalingrad, Dresden or Hiroshima as considered the largest city disasters of the Second World War. However, the blockade claimed at least one million victims among the Leningraders – that is about twice as many civilians as died in Germany from Allied air attacks during the whole war. This far-reaching ignorance in our country is matched in Russia by a kind of collective memory that has made the blockade into a myth. Every year the Petersburg philharmonic orchestra plays Dimitri Shostakovich’s Sevent Symphony on the day of liberation. The native of Petersburg had composed the first two sets in the besieged city and dedicated the work to it. But while hunger and death were burned into the survivors memory, the Soviet regime staged the blockade as a heroic epic. In the Breshnjev era this became a well-nigh cult, and monumental memorial sites were built in patriotic pathos architecture. The new Russia remained true to the old USSR: Russian historiography still maintains the claim that the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht at the citys gates in a heroic defense. This view insistently ignores the fact that the Wehrmacht soon intended no longer to conquer Leningrad but to let its inhabitants die. Thus the victims’ legends cover the persistent lies of the perpetrators. Ganzenmüller has written a book about this subject, an online review of which can be found under www.sptimes.ru/story/15365. Custom Signature *Quote:* Denial of generally known historical facts should not be punishable. For those who maintain, for instance, that Germany did not take part in World War I or that Adenauer fought at Issus in 333, their own stupidity is punishment enough. The same should apply to the denial of the horrors and crimes of the recent German past. ~ A German jurist by the name of Baumann in the German juridical magazine NJW, quoted in: Bailer-Galanda/Benz/Neugebauer (ed.), Die Auschwitzleugner, Berlin 1996, page 261 (my translation).
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Posts: 264 Mar 29 12 3:32 PM	Images of the Siege of Leningrad 1. David M. Glantz, *The Siege of Leningrad 1941-1944. 900 Days of Terror* Page 57: «One of the most famous images of the siege of Leningrad: a Red Army soldier stares at the victims of a German artillery barrage. Once Hitler had decided against a direct assault on the city, the main German weapons used against the defenders were bombs and artillery shells - and starvation.» Page 66: «The hideous reality of life in a besieged city. The removal of dead from the streets of Leningrad was to become such an everyday event that it excited little or no curiosity. These corpses are being removed from the Vosstanya Square near the Moscow Station.» Page 71: «Right: These three victims of the German bombing are starkly recorded by the Soviet caption as "S. A. Gorshkov, nine years old, a pupil at the Leninsky District School No 122; Zoya Khulikova, factory worker, and construction worker Alexandra Illyina." All died in their hospital beds.» 2. Harrison E. Salisbury, *The 900 Days* Clockwise from left: «Air raid victims, Liteiny Prospelt, Leningrad (Sovfoto); «German shell hit on Leningrad apartment building»; «The Badayev warehouses, Leningrad's chief food storehouse, destroyed by Nazi incendiary bombs». Counterclockwise from left: «Drawing water from a hole in an ice-clad street. In the background, frozen streetcars are immobilized for the winter»; «The famous "bronze horseman" equestrian statue of Peter the Great, sandbagged for protection»; «A woman drives a starvation-weakened man on a child's sled»; «Winter Street. A woman pulls a sheet-wrapped corpse on a child's sled». Clockwise from left: «Leningrad in blockade. A woman listens to the radio, teapot on the brick stove, with only a candle for light. (Sovfoto)»; «Coffins pile up outside Okhta Cemetery. Some dead are simply wrapped in rags or clothing»; «Corpses - one in sitting position, one half-covered with snow - beside the Summer Gardens fence.» «Survivors of the starvation winter, above and right (Sovfoto)» 3. From the catalogue «Erinnerung an einen Krieg», edited by the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Berlin Page 122: «8.8 Transport eines Toten zum Friedhof, Leningrad, März/April 1942. Im Winter wurde die Bestattung der grossen Zahl von Toten in der gefrorenen Erde weitgehend eingestellt. Die Verhungerten wurden auf den Friedhöfen, in Krankenhäusern oder in ungeheizten Wohnungen gelagert. Mit Beginn des Tauwetters mussten die Toten zur Beerdigung gebracht werden.» «8.8 Transportation of a dead to the cemetery, Leningrad, March/April 1942. In the winter the burial of the large number of dead in the frozen earth was largely suspended. Those who had starved to death were stored in the cemeteries, in hospitals or in unheated appartments. With the beginning of thaw the dead had to be taken for burial.» Page 123: «8.9 Massengrab auf einem Leningrader Friedhof, April/Mai 1942»; «8.10 Drei Passphotos von Nina Petrowa aus Leningrad: Mai 1941, Mai 1942, Oktober 1942» «8.9 Mass grave in a Leningrad cemetery, April/May 1942»; «8.10 Three passport photos of Nina Petrowa from Leningrad: May 1941, May 1942, October 1942» *4. From the book Blockade Leningrads. Dossiers 1941-1944, edited by the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Berlin* Page 53: «Bergung von Opfern eines Artillerieangriffs am Newski-Prospekt, Ecke Sadowaja, Leningrad, 8. August 1943» «Removal of victims of an artillery attack on Nevsky Prospekt, corner Sadovaya, Leningrad, 8 August 1943» Page 54: «Opfer eines Artillerieangriffs. Newski-Prospekt, Ecke Sadowaja, Leningrad, 8. August 1943» «Victim of an artillery attack. Nevsky Prospekt, corner Sadovaya, Leningrad, 8 August 1943» Page 62: «29 Dystrophiker, Leningrad, Dezember 1942»; «30 Unterernährtes Mädchen, Leningrad, vermutlich 1941/42» «29 Man with dystrophy, Leningrad, December 1942»; «Undernourished girl, Leningrad, presumably 1941/42» Page 63: «Einwohner ziehen einen Sarg über den Newski-Prospekt, Leningrad o.D.» «Inhabitants pull a coffin across the Nevsky Prospekt, Leningrad, undated» Page 72: «Medizinische Aufnahme eines dystrophischen Kindes, Pädiatrisches Institut, Leningrad, 1942» «Medical photograph of a dystrophic child, Pediatric Institute, Leningrad 1942» Page 76: «Auszüge aus dem Buch "Hungerdystrophie im Blockade-Leningrad", Leningrad 1947» «Excerpts from the book "Hunger Dystrophy in Blockaded Leningrad", Leningrad 1947» Page 77: «Auszüge aus dem Buck "Hungerdystrophie im Blockade-Leningrad", Leningrad 1947» «Excerpts from the book "Hunger Dystrophy in Blockaded Leningrad", Leningrad 1947» Page 80: «59 Foto: Wassili Fedossejew»; «60 Foto: David Trachtenberg» Page 81: «61 Foto: Wassili Fedossejew»; «62 Foto: Georgi Konowalow» Page 82: «63 Foto: David Trachtenberg»; «64: Photo: Nikolaj Chandogin» Page 84: «66 Foto: Wassili Fedossejew»; «67 Foto: Wsewolod Tarassewitsch» Page 147: «132 Auf dem Friedhof Bolscheochtinski, Leningrad 1942»; «133 Medizinische Aufnahme eines dystrophischen Kindes, Pädiatrisches Institut, Leningrad 1942» «134 Unterernährtes Mädchen, Leningrad 1941/42» «132 At the Bolsheochtinski Cemetery, Leningrad 1942»; «133 Medical photograph of a dystrophic child, Pediatric Institute, Leningrad 1942»; «Undernourisched girl, Leningrad 1941/42» 5. Film: Блокада Ленинграда Leningrad blockade Saint-Petersburg 6/7 Custom Signature *Quote:* Denial of generally known historical facts should not be punishable. For those who maintain, for instance, that Germany did not take part in World War I or that Adenauer fought at Issus in 333, their own stupidity is punishment enough. The same should apply to the denial of the horrors and crimes of the recent German past. ~ A German jurist by the name of Baumann in the German juridical magazine NJW, quoted in: Bailer-Galanda/Benz/Neugebauer (ed.), Die Auschwitzleugner, Berlin 1996, page 261 (my translation). Edited 2 times by Roberto Mar 29 12 3:45 PM.
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Posts: 264 Mar 29 12 3:45 PM	The following was translated from an article about the siege of Leningrad that appeared in SPIEGEL magazine, issue 52/1991, pages 104 ff. The article contains memoirs of literary scientist Dimitri Likhachov, who at the time was an assistant in the Pushkin House, the institute for Russian literature of the Academy of Sciences. Likhachov wrote this account in 1957 for his two daughters, who at the time of the siege had been little children. Likhachov's account was included in "Blockade Leningrad 1941-1944", a German publication containing documents and essays by Russians and Germans that was edited by Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag in 1992. "The brain was the last thing to die" How Russian literary scientist Dimitri Likhachov experienced the Leningrad blockade The Germans advanced quickly. Above the city floated air-raid balloons. On the tower of the Pushkin House we stood watch they and night. Soon there were food ration cards in Leningrad. The stores emptied. The food bought on cards gradually disappeared, first the conserves and expensive products. Bread one could buy in the first time, if one had cards. Sina, your mother, didn't even want to buy our full bread ration, but I insisted. It was clear to me that a time of hunger awaited us. We dried the bread we didn't eat in the sun on the window sill. In the autumn we thus had a huge pillow cover full of dried black bread. We hung the sack on the wall so that the mice wouldn't reach it. Later, in the winter, all mice starved to death. In the quiet of morning, when we were all still lying in our beds, we heard a dying mouse run desperately up and down and then perish: she didn't find a single crumb in our room. I remember one of the first night attacks. The bombs flew whistling over our house. We were lying in bed. After the howling of the bombs our house started shaking, something squeaked above us in the attic, and we heard an explosion. The following day it turned out that the bomb had hit the crossing Gesslerovskaia and Rybazkaia - not even close to us. A policeman had been killed. A corner was torn off the building in which there was a restaurant where Alexander Blok (a Russian writer - editor's note) had always been. The bomb had buried the air raid shelter and destroyed the water main. The people sitting in the cellar had all drowned. After this occurrence we decided once and for all to never again go to our air raid shelter. First of all that made no sense, and second climbing the walls from the first floor below and up again cost much energy. My father was the first who couldn't walk anymore. During bombing attacks he simply remained lying in his bed. We tried to make our life as normal as possible. We even went for walks with you in the Botanic Garden. The photos we still have. Due to my bright grey coat I was almost taken for a spy, for bright clothes were not yet in use among us at that time, bright clothes were only worn by foreigners. The story happened at the Vitebsk Staton, when I wanted to go to the dacha in Vyriza. Some boys watched me and reported the danger, and fortunately my train departed, otherwise my family would have had to wait for me very long. Spy stories were being told all the time. One was that the German planes received signals from the roofs. The luminous signals were supposed to be hidden inside chimneys, so that they could be seen only from above. Maybe there was something to these rumors, for the Germans indeed knew everything that was going on in the city. Once we were walking along the Kamenno-Ostrovski Prospect. It was in the evening, and a beautiful cloud was hovering above the city. It was all white and looked like whipping cream. It grew and grew, and the evening sun gave it a pink color. In the end it took on threatening proportions. Later we learned that the Germans had in one of their first air attacks destroyed the Badaiev food storage halls. Thus the cloud had been made by smoke. The Germans primarily destroyed food stores. Obviously they were preparing the blockade at that time already. Meanwhile more and more food supplies were being taken out of Leningrad. Nothing was done to decentralize the food stores, like the English had done in London. The removal of food supplies only stopped when the Germans had cut off all railway links. That was at the end of August 1941. Leningrad was prepared for surrender also in another respect: the archives were burned. Ash flew through the streets. When I once went home from the Pushkin House on a particularly clear autumn day, I was surprised by a real ash rain on the Bolshoi Prospect. This time books were burning, for the Germans had burned the book magazine of the "print yard". The ash blotted out the sun, and it got dark in the city. This ash and the white smoke that rose above the city as a threatening cloud were the premonitions of the coming misery. The city filled with refugees from the suburbs and peasants from the surrounding land. With their cattle and their crying children, who shivered in the cold nights, the peasants lived like gypsies in a camp. In the first time the Leningraders bought milk and meat from them, the cattle was slaughtered. At the end of 1941 this whole peasant trek was dead. The refugees accommodated in schools and other public buildings also died. Finally there died those who had had to leave their quarters at the edge of the city, the inhabitants of Leningrad's southern districts. They also had not managed to take along any supplies when they were evacuated to other parts of the city. When one looked at them one realized the whole monstrosity of the evacuation. In the apartments that had become free in our house the families of the Putilov workers were accommodated. When I once returned from the Pushkin House, I saw several busses in our street. Women were getting out, also some men, and many children. It turned out that the Germans had surprisingly advanced up to the Putilov works. They fired on the district with mortars. The population was immediately taken away. Later all families who remained there in the southern districts died. I still remember how I once was in the policlinic at the Bolshoi Prospekt. In the waiting hall people who had been collected on the street lay on the floor. They got warm water bottles on their arms and legs. They should simply have been given food, but there was no food. I asked: "What will happen to them now?" And got the answer: "They will die." - "But can't you take them to a hospital?" - "With what? Besides they will have nothing to eat there either. They need a lot, for they are in a severe state of exhaustion." The nurses carried the corpses to the cellar. One of the dead was still very young. His face was black. The faces of starving people always became dark. The nurses explained to me that one had to bring the corpses down as long as they were still warm. When they got cold the lice came out. The city was full of lice - the starving didn't feel like "hygiene". What I saw in the policlinic were the first severe consequences of hunger. Those who did not get cards went hungry: the refugees from the suburbs and those from other places. They were the first to die. They slept on the floor in stations and schools. There were people who had twice the number of cards. Housekeepers had especially many cards. They took away the cards from the dying, received those of the evacuees, took things out of the empty apartments and traded them for oil cake. Oil cake was saving the Leningraders for the second time already. The first time the Petrograders ate it from 1918 to 1920. But that famine could not be compared with the one reigning now! The trams were still running. In August or early September I saw how soldiers were transported by tram - from southern to northern Leningrad. The Finns had broken through the front and were quickly advancing towards Leningrad without encountering resistance. But at their old frontier they stopped. In the following time not a shot was fired on Leningrad from the Finnish side. They also didn't sent planes. In the Pushkin House there was a canteen in August and September, the refectory was also opened. These places were centers for encounters and conversations. Here one learned the latest news, here one met again … or not. Already in July the registration of volunteers had started. All men were registered in lists. Everyone was individually called to the office of the director, who together with the party secretary put pressure on us. We who were holders of a white pass (that meant "exempt from war duty" - editor's note) were put into the self-defense detachments. We got hunting rifles and had to march in step in front of the Historical Faculty. The women went to the fields to collect cabbage stalks. The potato fields were dug up a second time, and also in the forest all sorts of edibles were found. The worst thing was the step by step dismissal of employees. At the order of the Academy Presidium and our institute's director Pavel Lebedev Poljanski, who lived in Moscow and had no idea of what was going on in Leningrad, they "cut jobs". Every week dismissal notes were handed out. All secretaries were dismissed, instead of them I was employed in the secretariat. The dismissals were horrible, for they meant a death sentence because the dismissed got no more [ration] cards and found no employment anywhere else. One colleague managed to save herself by becoming a nurse. Many scientific employees perished senselessly in the Kirov Volunteers Division, without training and without weapons. And even more people lost their lives through the senseless dismissals. All ethnographers died. Also of the librarians almost none remained, many mathematicians died - young, talented ones. But the zoologists survived, they knew how to hunt. At the university clinic I got by card for white bread. That helped us a lot. The windows of the policlinic had already been nailed down, and the doctors held their consultations with electric light. Then the consultations ended, for there was no more power. The windows of the refectory near the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology were also nailed down. Here food was issued on special cards. Many employees got no cards and went here to lick the plates. A colleague tried to obtain cards for the academy, but already in October they were denied to him. At that time he was already swelled up from hunger. I still remember how he came to me after the rejection - I was eating at a table on which a petroleum lamp was burning - and in great excitement yelled at me: "Dimitri Sergejewich, give me your bread - otherwise I won't make it home!" I gave him my ration. His weakened fingers did not obey him anymore, and he could not even button up his coat. The muscles that were not or much used died off at first. The legs were the last to deny their service. But if a man remained lying for a longer time, he no longer got up. I remember how two black marketers came to us. I lay in bed, you children also. The room was dark. We usually made light with electrical batteries and flashlights. Two young men came in and recited their speech: "Do you have crystal, compass cases, photo cameras?" Other objects were also in demand. Finally they bought something from us. That was already in February 1942 or March. They were as horrible as corpse worms. We were still moving in our grave, but they already wanted to devour us. Before that, in autumn, Dimitrij Pavlovich Kalistov came by and asked in jest if we sold "little doggies" or had acquaintances who wanted to give their doggies into "caring hands". At this time the Kalistovs already ate dogs and salted dog meat on storage. Dimitrij Pavlovich didn't slaughter the dogs himself, that was done for him in the Psychological Institute. When he came to us there was no single dog left in the city, no single cat, no doves and no sparrows. The Pavlov dogs in the Physiological Institute had also been all eaten already. Dimitrij Pavlovich had got something of their meat. Dog meat, they said, was rich in protein. For some time I received cards for the diet refectory. There it was dark, except for some oil lamps. At those tables the "meal participants" cut off the required cards. Once the oil lamps went out, and thieves grabbed the cut-off cards. I also had my cards stolen once. Horrible scenes happened. Some starving people literally crawled to the canteen, while others were carried to the first floor, where the refectory was located, because they no longer could climb the stairs on their own. Yet others could no longer close their mouths, and saliva dripped onto their clothes. The people were tormented less by the hunger than by the cold that came from inside, an indefinable, probably painful cold. That's why they wrapped themselves into anything they could lay their hands on. The women wore the trousers of their dead husbands, sons and brothers (the men were the first to die) an additionally wrapped cloths around themselves. The food the women took home, they didn't eat it in the eating room. They brought it to their children or to those who could no longer walk. A can was hanging on a rope over the shoulder, and into this can they filled everything, the water soup and the main course: two spoonfuls of porridge. The cadets at the military school starved and died like the others. Finally the school was dissolved. Whoever was still able to do so walked away. Some were supported by their mothers and sisters, they stumbled, got caught up in their long military coats, which hang on them like on coat-hangers, and fell down. Snow was lying already, which of course no one removed, and it was freezing cold. Below the military school there was a food store. Here bread was issued. The buyers always asked for a little additional bread, and these crumbs were eaten at once. Jealously they watched the scales in the light of the oil lamps (the stores were especially dark, and the shop windows were protected by wooden planks and soil). Here the typical Leningrad theft took place. The boys, who suffered most from hunger (they were growing and needed more than others) literally threw themselves upon the bread. They didn't even run away with their booty, but only wanted to gulp down as much as possible before it was taken away from them. Expecting beatings they pulled up the collars of their coats, laid themselves upon the bread and ate as fast as they could. At home by the stairs there were already waiting the next thieves, who took food, ration cards and passes away from the weak. Things were especially difficult for the old. Once the cards had been stolen, now new ones could be ordered. If these weak people didn't eat anything for only a day or two, they could no longer walk, and that was the end. Usually not all family members died at the same time. As long as one could still walk and buy bread, the others lying in their beds remained alive. But when also this last one could no longer walk or broke down somewhere in the street or on the stairs, then that was the end for the whole family. Corpses were lying in the streets. Nobody removed them. Who were these dead? Maybe the child of this woman was still alive and waiting for her in the cold and dark apartment? There were many women who fed their children with the ration cards they would have needed for themselves. Those mothers died first, the children were left behind alone. Thus a colleague of mine died. She gave everything to her child. They found her dead in her room. She was lying in her bed, and the child was lying next to her below the sheets and plucking her nose to "wake her up". Some days later her "rich" relatives came and took … no, not the child, but her rings and brooches. The child died later in the kindergarten. Cannibalism began. From the corpses lying in the street they first cut off the soft parts. First the corpses were undressed, and then they cut off everything up to the bones. The corpses had hardly any flesh left. These mutilated, naked corpses were horrifying. One should not condemn cannibalism from high up. In most cases it did not occur consciously. Those who cut off the flesh rarely ate it themselves. Either they sold the flesh by cheating the buyer, or they gave it to relatives to keep them alive. The most important thing about the food was the protein, after all. If your child is dying and you know that only meat can save it, you will also cut off some from a corpse. However, there were also criminals who killed people to sell their flesh. In the gigantic red house of the former Philanthropic Society the following crime occurred: someone was allegedly selling potatoes there. The buyer was asked to look below the sofa, where the potatoes were supposed to be lying, and when he bent down he was hit on the neck with a hatchet. The crime was revealed by a buyer who saw traces of blood on the floor. They found the bones of many people. In this manner an employee of the Academy of Sciences' printing house, Mrs. Vavilova, was eaten. She went to buy meat (she had been given an address where one supposedly could trade things against meat) and didn't come back. She died close to the Sytni market. Even during the day we were afraid to let the children on the street. There was neither light nor water, nor telephone, nor radio, and also no newspapers. But nevertheless a certain communication was maintained among people. I still remember the death of J.I.Jassinski. He was a tall, slim and very handsome man, who looked like Don Quixote. He lived in the Pushkin House's library. Behind the book shelves was his small field mattress. He had no one at home and could no longer walk on his own. Thus he lay behind his books and very rarely appeared in the vestibule. The skin was merely hanging on his bones, and his head looked like a skull. Once he dragged himself with a blanket over his shoulder from behind his book shelves and asked: "What time is it?" They told him. He asked again (the voices of the starving are muffled because their vocal cords shrink): "Day or night?" For the windows were all nailed down. One or two days later the deputy economic director of our institute, Kanaillov, chased him out of the Pushkin House. Kanaillov (a fitting name!) chased out all who were about to die in the Pushkin House, so that he wouldn't have to carry out the corpses. Nevertheless several workers, housekeepers and cleaning women lay there in agony. They had been quartered here and torn away from their families. And now, when many no longer managed to go home, they were thrown unto the street to freeze to death in temperatures of minus 30 degrees [centigrade]. Kanaillov zealously watched everyone who was growing weaker. Not a single person died inside the Pushkin House. I watched the following scene: some of the cleaning women still had some strength left, and they look the ration cards from the dying for themselves and for Kanaillov. I was in Kanaillov's office when a dying worker came in (Kanaillov and the cleaning women had thought that he could no longer get up from bed). He looked terrible: saliva was dripping from his mouth, eyes and teeth protruded. He stood in the door like ghost, like a half-decomposed corpse, and in a muffled voice said: "Cards, cards!" Kanaillov didn't immediately understand what he meant, but when he realized that the man wanted his cards back, he became angry, yelled at him and knocked him over. What happened then I don't know anymore. They probably put him on the street. In December 1941 there sometimes was the possibility of being evacuated by truck across Lake Ladoga. The road across the ice was called the "road of death" (and not "road of life", the embellishing name later given to it by our writers). The Germans fired on the street, it was full of snow drifts, and the tracks frequently broke in (they drove at night). It was told how a mother lost her mind. She was sitting in the truck behind, her children in the one in front. Before her eyes the first truck sank under the ice. Her driver made a big detour around the ice hole in which her children were drowning, and quickly drove on without stopping. God alone knows how many people died on this road from exhaustion or in bombing attacks or sank in the water, froze or got lost on the way. The husband of folklore researcher A.N. Losanova lost his life on this road. She pulled him on a child sled, for he could no longer walk. On the other side of Lake Ladoga she left him sitting with the suitcases and the sled and went to fetch her bread ration. When she came back with the bread, neither sled nor husband nor suitcases were there. People stole, they took the suitcases away from the exhausted and then pushed them under the ice. They stole a lot. Side by side every step of the way - meanness and humanity, self-sacrifice and the worst egoism. In the winter the fires gave us much trouble. The houses burned for weeks. There was nothing to put out the fires with. The weakened people were not in conditions to take care of their "burshuika", their little round iron stoves. In every apartment there were the weak, who could no longer move, and they burned alive. A horrible thing happened in the large house on the Suvorovski Prospect. A combined incendiary and explosive bomb fell on this house, which was used as a hospital. It went through all floors and destroyed the stairs. The fire spread from below, no one could get out of the building. The wounded jumped out of the window: better be killed by the fall than burn to death. In the Botanic Garden the ancient fern froze to death and also the famous palms (do you remember Vsevolod Garshin's tale of the palm that broke through the glass roof of the green house and, finally free, froze to death?) In our house the families of the Putilov workers died. Our housekeeper got their cards and thus remained healthy. On our floor the following happened: a woman took the children of the deceased Putilov workers into her room and got their cards … but she didn't feed them. She locked the children up. They were so weak that they couldn't get up, and they lay without moving in their beds, where they quietly died. The corpses remained there for about four weeks, and thus the woman got the cards for another month. This was also a form of cannibalism, one of the worst. The corpses of the dead didn't decompose for a long time, they were so dried out that they could remain lying around for quite a while. The families didn't bury their relatives, because they got their cards. No one was afraid of the dead. Nobody cried for lost relatives, for no one had tears. The doors of the apartments didn't close, for there was ice on the doorsteps, like there was ice all over the stairs. The water was carried up in buckets, it spilled over - the people were too weak - and froze immediately. The cold crawled through the apartments. Thus died the ethnologist Kalezki. When someone got to him his apartment door was open. One saw that the last inhabitants had tried to hack away the ice in order to close the door, but they had not managed. In the cold rooms dried up, non-decomposed corpses lay under blankets, carpets and furs. When had these people died? When standing in line the people gave hope to each other: besides a certain Kulik they waited for a hero who allegedly was already on his way to Leningrad. We didn't know what was happening outside the city. We only knew that the Germans were not everywhere. There was Russia. The "road of death" led to Russia, planes flew there, but hardly any food came from there, at least not for us. My brother Jura went by truck across the "road of death". Before leaving he promised to send us something to eat. My father waited for this package with great impatience. The only thing he thought about was Jura's smoked sausage. He talked of food all the time, remembered lunch on the Volga steamer, and when he ate his soup (or what we called soup) he wheezed. I was already very irritated by hunger, and this wheezing (I didn't know it came from the heart) and this smoked sausage made me raving mad. I shall now tell you how we lived in our apartment in Lakhtinskaia Street (house number 9, apartment 12). We tried to stay in bed as long as possible. We put on all warm things we had. Fortunately our window panes were intact. We went to bed at six o'clock. There we lay a little in the light of the battery lamps and oil lamps. But it was hard to sleep. The cold was inside us, it went through our bones. The body generated hardly any heat. The cold made the people edgy. It was as if someone was tickling you from the inside. This tickling got hold of the whole body and forced one to turn from one side to the other. Thoughts were all about eating. Sina and I calculated how long we would hold out with our supplies. If we used up one slice of solid glue per day, it would last for so-and-so-many days, if we only used up one every three days - then for so-and-so-many days. In the morning we heated up the "burshuika". With books. We took all the thick session protocol volumes of the state duma. I burned them all, except for the errata of the last sessions: those were extremely rare documents. This book one could not simply put in the oven, it would not have burned. I had to check every page and threw sheet after sheet into the oven. One had to wad up the sheets and take out the ash from time to time, for there was much chalk inside the paper. In the morning we prayed, you children also. We learned poems by heart with you. For instance "Tatiana's Sleep" and "Ball at the Larins" (from "Eugen Onegin" by Pushkin - editor's note), poems by Alexej Pleshtshejev: "Children come back from school, their cheeks are red from frost …", poems by Anna Akhmatova: "My grandmother the Tatar …" and others. You were four years old and already understood a lot. You didn't ask for food, but when we sat at the table you watched if the food was justly shared. You were already sitting at the table one hour or one and a half hours before the meal - as soon as Mama stood by the stove. I crushed bones in the mortar. These bones we then cooked several times. The porridge was thin, thinner than a normal soup. We added potato flour so it became thicker. You kids laid the table and sat silently at your places. You watched how the food was cooked. Not a single time did you cry, not a single time did you plead for more, for you knew that everything was justly shared. When we heated the oven it immediately got warm in the room. Sometimes we heated so much that the oven glowed. That was wonderful. No, hunger cannot be compared to anything else, to no other reality. Hunger cannot exist besides another life: one of the two is a fata morgana, either hunger or life in plenty. I think that hunger is the true life, everything else is a vision. During the famine people showed their true face, they dropped the external gewgaw. Some turned out to be wonderful heroes beyond compare, while others were bad, criminals, murderers, cannibals. There was no in between. The clouds broke apart, and God became visible. The good could see him. The human brain was the last thing to die. When arms and legs had long denied their service, when the fingers could no longer button up the coat, when a man no longer had the strength to close his mouth, when the skin became dark, when the face looked like a skull with grinning teeth - then the brain still continued to work. People wrote diaries and showed an unheard of endurance. The painter Chupiatov and his wife starved to death. While he was dying he painted. When he no longer had a canvas, he painted on plywood or carton. He was a "leftist" painter, from an old aristocratic family, the Anichkovs knew him well. They gave us two sketches he had painted before his death: an apocalyptic angel with a red face, who seems to have grown angry about the meanness of the bad, and the Savior, who looked like a starving Leningrader with a big head. His best picture, however, the Anichkovs kept for themselves: a somber Leningrad inner yard, dark windows, not a single light, death has defeated life. Possibly there is still life somewhere, but it doesn't have the strength to light the oil lamps. Above the yard in the background, the night sky and the robes of the Holy Mother. She has her head bent and looks down terrified, as if she saw what is happening in the dark Leningrad apartments. Custom Signature *Quote:* Denial of generally known historical facts should not be punishable. For those who maintain, for instance, that Germany did not take part in World War I or that Adenauer fought at Issus in 333, their own stupidity is punishment enough. The same should apply to the denial of the horrors and crimes of the recent German past. ~ A German jurist by the name of Baumann in the German juridical magazine NJW, quoted in: Bailer-Galanda/Benz/Neugebauer (ed.), Die Auschwitzleugner, Berlin 1996, page 261 (my translation). Edited 2 times by Roberto Mar 29 12 3:54 PM.
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