Human tragedy at the expense of triumph
OF all the great dramas of the Second World War, none is more moving than the siege of Leningrad. In September 1941 the Germans began a siege that lasted for nearly three years. Three-quarters of a million civilians starved to death in blockaded Leningrad.
An important military and industrial target, Leningrad was also the cradle of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Hitler, an anti-communist as well as an anti-semite, was intent on the complete destruction of the city when his armies invaded Russia in June 1941. Acutely aware of the symbolic as well as the practical importance of Leningrad, Stalin was equally determined to hold it. In September 1941 the Soviet dictator sent his best general — Georgy Zhukov — to save Leningrad. Zhukov stabilised the city’s defences but was unable to prevent its encirclement by the Germans and their Finnish allies. Soviet supplies to Leningrad had to go by air or via Lake Ladoga, which froze in winter and provided a series of ice-roads to the city. But these lifelines were under constant attack.
