Siege of Leningrad
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The Siege of Leningrad was a military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 to 1944. Germany and Finland besieged the city for 872 days but never captured it. The siege caused an estimated 1.5 million deaths from a prewar population of 3.2 million, and some historians have since classified it as genocide due to the intentional destruction of the city and systematic starvation of civilians. In August 1941, Germany's Army Group North reached Leningrad's suburbs while Finnish forces moved to encircle the city from the north. Land routes to the rest of the Soviet Union were cut on 8 September 1941, beginning the siege. The Germans decided to bomb the city and starve its inhabitants rather than attempt to capture it, and many residents starved during the winter of 1941–1942. Supplies were delivered by air, by ship over Lake Ladoga, or over the Road of Life, a highway built on the frozen lake. A Red Army offensive opened a narrow land corridor on 18 January 1943, but the siege was not fully broken until 27 January 1944. The capture of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals of Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North under Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb. Its political, symbolic, military, and industrial importance motivated the strategy; in 1939 it produced 11% of Soviet industrial output. Hitler intended to destroy the city and its population, and a 29 September 1941 directive said surrender negotiations would be denied. Civilians were mobilized to build fortifications, and the last rail connection was cut on 30 August 1941. On 8 September, the road was severed when German forces reached Lake Ladoga at Shlisselburg.