Figure 1.--Army Group North after a rapid drive through the Baltics, were stopped by the fixed defenses on the outskirts of Lenningrad. OKW decided to avoid a costlky drive into the city and costly house-to-house fighting. Rather they decided to starve the city while shelling and bombing it. As the end goal was to destroy the city, this made perfect sense. And it allowed OKW to focus on the main objective--Moscow. This photograph shows a street scene during the dadky winter of 1941-42. Notice the poster. The script read -- "Warrior of the Red Army, save (us)".

Army Group North after progressing at breakneck speed across the Baltiucs was stunned to be stopped by the Red army at Tikhvin. The startled Germans were unsure how to proceed. OKW assessed how to proceed. OKW considered the various options as to how to seize and destroy Leningrad (September 21). The Whermnach's great advantage was mobility. Fighting a srreet battle with the Soviets in a huge city Seizing and occupying the city was rejected 'because it would make us responsible for food supply'. [Reid, p. 132.] It would also have been costly as the Germansould find out aear later in Stalkngrad. OKW decided to lay the city under siege and batter it with both artillery and aerial bombardment. The German drive brought Army Group North within artillery range of the City. The Germans subjected the city to both incessent artillety fire and Luftwaffe bombing. While devestating to the civilians in Lenningrad. It meant that the Germans were expending substantial resources to leveling a huge city whose buldings were of virtually no military importance. This was the same mistake they made in the Blitz on London--wasting valuable military resources on destroying civilian buildings of no mikitary significabce. The esame resources could have been deployed to support the all important drive on Moscow. The Lenningrad's population was to be left to starve. The Germans had not accounted for the Ice Road. OKW saw the end result as "Early next year we enter the city (if the Finns do it first we do not object), lead those still alive into inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions, and hand the area north of the Neva to the Finns." [Reid, p. 133.] We suspect tht OKW was here asceeding to Hitler's genocidal vision. Hitler issued another directive signed by General Alfred Jodl. He instructed Army Group North not to accept surrender (October 7). ["Nuremberg Trial Proceedings] This is the same Jodl who saw himself as an honorable military commander and was surprised that he was arrested as war criminal after the War. Hitler in a Munich speech, publically stated "Leningrad must die of starvation." [Baryshnikov] At this stage of Barbarossa, Hitler thought he had won the War. Statements with horendous connotations like this were being made publically. They were fully in keeping with Generalplan Ost. Hitler's Führer Directive with instructions about the North dis not even mention Leingrad, so sure the Germansere that the conquest of Leningrad was a foreseen cinclusion.

Sources

Hannah, Kristin. Winter Garden: A Novel. While this is a novel, Hannah has has effectively captured the tragic suffering of the civilians trapped in Leningrad during the seige in a way that historians can not fully reveal.

Reid, Anna. Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941–1944 (Walker and Co.: New York, 2011).

"Nuremberg Trial Proceedings" Vol. 8, Avalon Project at Yale Law School.

Created: 11:16 PM 1/31/2015
Last updated: 11:16 PM 1/31/2015