All language subtitles for 153 - WWII (Soviet Storm_ World War II — In The East. ep. 5. The Siege Of Leningrad.) Load

Summer 1941.
Hitler has launched Operation Barbarossa,

his long-awaited invasion
of the Soviet Union.

The city of Leningrad is a key objective.

The struggle for Leningrad will lead

to One of the longest
and bloodiest sieges in history,

With appalling consequences
for its civilian population.

6 weeks into the war,
near the town of Staraya Russia,

German soldiers pondered a strange
contraption captured in recent fighting.

It was an artillery system,
but not like anything of their own.

Each truck carried a crude looking frame,
onto which rockets were loaded.

The Soviet counter-attack here

had been supported
by dozens of these rocket launchers.

It had helped to stall the advance
of the entire German Army Group North,

striking towards Leningrad.

They had bought time –
time that would prove crucial.

The BM-13 multiple rocket launch system,

given the girl"s name
“Katyusha” by the troops,

was a rail-launch rack on a truck chassis.

Gears elevated and rotated the launcher
rack into the correct firing position,

as determined by an artillery sight.

The rockets were very inaccurate
and would rain down over a wide area.

But the Katyusha made up for this
with a fearsome rate of fire.

One Katyusha could launch 16 rockets
in less than 10 seconds.

Firing en masse, they could devastate
a massive area in the blink of an eye.

Leningrad, Russia"s Baltic Sea port,
was a key objective of the German invasion.

From here Soviet submarines
and the Baltic Fleet

threatened Germany"s supply of iron ore,
which came by sea from neutral Sweden.

The plans for the German invasion
stated that the assault on Moscow

could proceed only after Leningrad and its
naval base at Kronstadt had been captured.

Hitler, with growing confidence in
his own military genius,

was increasingly involved
in strategic planning.

He was now determined that if necessary,

the armoured forces assaulting Moscow
should be diverted to Leningrad.

Army Group North, advancing on Leningrad,

had been stopped
at the so-called Luga Line in July.

This 175 kilometre line of fortifications

had been hastily built by soldiers
of the reserve and citizens of Leningrad.

In August, Army Group North was reinforced
with tanks and dive bombers

from Army Group Centre.

They crashed through the Luga Line,
and encircled the troops defending it.

The Red Army fed its new
KV heavy tanks into the battle.

They were produced in Leningrad itself,
at the Kirov Factory.

The front armour of a KV-1
was 75 millimetres thick.

The German 37 millimetre antitank gun
barely made a scratch.

But early in the war, fuel shortages —

and poorly trained crews who didn"t know
how to repair their vehicle,

meant many KV-1s and other Soviet vehicles
ended up abandoned at the roadside.

On 19th August, a company of KV"s commanded
by Senior Lieutenant Kolobanov

took up an ambush position
near the town of Krasnogvardeysk.

Kolobanov picked the position himself,

overlooking the highway
as it wove through the marshes.

When a column of German tanks appeared,

his tanks took out the lead
and rear vehicles,

and proceeded to destroy
all 22 enemy machines.

After the battle, Kolobanov"s crews
counted 156 marks

where German shells had hit their tank,
but failed to penetrate.

After hearing reports about the KV tanks,

Hitler once more demanded
the capture of Leningrad,

and its factory that was
churning out these monsters.

But there weren"t enough KV-1s
to stop the Germans everywhere.

While one German corps
was held at Krasnogvardeysk,

others broke though near Lyuban, and Tosno.

On 30th August, the Germans cut
the railway and the highway

connecting Leningrad
with the rest of the country.

Finnish troops, allies of the Germans,
approached from the north.

The city"s electricity supply began to fail,
but still no civilians were evacuated,

an act which might appear "defeatist".

On 8th September the Germans
captured Shlisselburg

on the shore of Lake Ladoga –
the final act of encirclement.

It was the beginning of a siege
that was to last 882 days.

When the siege began, the city"s
population was more than 2.5 million,

including approximately 400,000 children.

The city contained 300,000 refugees from
the Baltic Republics and surrounding area.

The city"s supplies of food
and fuel were sufficient for just 30 days.

Soviet counterattacks aimed at lifting
the siege were all unsuccessful.

The German encirclement near Shlisselburg
was only about 12 km wide.

This sector was the focus of Soviet
attempts to lift the blockade.

That summer, Soviet counterattacks had
robbed Army Group North of valuable weeks.

It was time that could not be got back.

Now the attack on Moscow would rob
Army Group North of its best units.

In his diary the commander of Army Group
North, Field Marshal von Leeb, wrote:

“11th September.
Desperate shortage of time.

The Army High Command
demands seven mobile divisions

be handed over to its control
on 15th September.”

His tanks were on their way towards Moscow.

It was a desperately needed
respite for Leningrad.

The same day General Zhukov was appointed
Commander of the Leningrad Front.

His deputy, Major General Fedyuninsky,
came with him.

Ivan Ivanovich Fedyuninsky spent most of
his military career in the Russian Far East.

In 1939 he was made
a Hero of the Soviet Union

for his bravery fighting the Japanese
at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol.

In 1941 he commanded a Soviet Rifle Corps
in Belorussia, where he was badly wounded.

Zhukov"s appointment immediately
inspired the defenders of the city.

There was new confidence
that Leningrad would be saved.

With characteristic energy, Zhukov
began to organise the city"s defences.

Artillery was to be the key.
And his secret weapon,

would be the massive guns
of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Powerful naval gunnery
halted the first German offensive

just 7 kilometres from the city.

The 12 inch guns of the coastal
fort of Krasnaya Gorka

also served to hold the German army at bay.

The shock waves from their exploding shells

were powerful enough
to hurl German tanks into the air.

But where the German army had failed,
the Luftwaffe might still succeed.

Three months into the German
invasion of the Soviet Union,

Army Group North
was held up outside Leningrad

by the heavy guns
of the Soviet Baltic Fleet.

So Field Marshal von Leeb turned to his
dive-bombers to sink the enemy warships.

Their first victim was
the old battleship Marat.

Two 1000-kilogram bombs struck her bow,

causing her forward turret
magazine to explode.

She quickly sank to the bottom of the bay.
Three warships were sunk in total,

depriving the city"s
defences of 35 powerful guns.

Around the city, 1,500 loudspeakers
broadcast Leningrad City Radio.

Now it was also used
to issue air raid warnings.

When there were no radio programmes,
a metronome was put on the air.

Slow ticking meant "all clear",
fast ticking meant "take cover".

It became known
as "the beating heart of Leningrad".

Above the city, German bombers were met
with heavy anti-aircraft fire.

But the Luftwaffe only made
a few large-scale raids.

Shelling by German heavy artillery
proved much more lethal.

Signs went up on street corners,
with the warning: “Citizens!

This side of the street is more
dangerous during shelling.”

The Germans didn"t target Leningrad"s
tallest buildings or church spires.

They were needed as reference points
by the artillery spotters,

who instead guided shells onto
the city"s bridges, houses and shops.

Leningrad was truly
a city on the front line.

Monuments were protected
by sandbags and wooden screens.

But many would not survive
the German bombardment.

On the city"s outskirts,
the Germans captured the Catherine Palace

and the Grand Petergof Palace.
Both were looted and destroyed.

The world-famous Amber Room
was shipped to Germany.

Today, its whereabouts remain a mystery.

On 8th September German bombers
targeted the wooden Badayev Warehouses,

where the city"s food reserves were stored.

The glow of the fires
could be seen across the city.

Soon everyone knew that the flour
and sugar supplies had been destroyed.

But the situation was even worse
than many feared.

The city needed 1,000 tons of food
every day to prevent starvation.

But less than 200 tons were
getting through the blockade.

The little that could be brought in
by air was nowhere near enough

to feed the city"s population.

The main supply route into Leningrad
now lay across Lake Ladoga —

50 kilometres of open water.

But the lake was notorious for
its strong winds and sudden storms.

It was why, in 1718, Peter the Great

had ordered the construction of the Ladoga
canal along the lake"s southern shore,

to provide a safe waterway to the city.

But the Germans had reached
the southern shore of Lake Ladoga,

cutting the canal
and rail links into the city.

The people of Leningrad had to build
a new port from scratch

on the lake"s western shore.

In the first week of the siege, barges
were unloaded straight onto the beach.

It was the beginning of a supply route

that would come to be known
as the “Road of Life”.

Food rationing had been introduced
at the start of the war.

Leningrad workers received
800 grams of bread a day,

their dependants received 400 grams.

By the beginning of October,
it had been reduced to half that amount.

It wasn"t nearly enough to sustain
those required to do physical work.

At the end of November,
the city was on the brink of starvation.

Bread rations were cut further:

250 grams for a worker,
125 grams for everyone else.

The quality of the bread was falling too,

as the authorities turned to unlikely
ingredients to increase its bulk.

Bakers used burnt flour recovered
from the ruins of the Badayev Warehouses.

They used oats intended
for the horses, soya, barley,

and even cellulose
from the Goznak paper mill.

People often had to queue for hours

in the freezing cold to receive
these meagre rations.

In November, 11,000 died
from starvation – 350 each day.

The medical staff could
only look on helplessly.

The early winter led to hopes that
Lake Ladoga would quickly freeze solid,

allowing trucks to bring in supplies
across its frozen surface.

But the ice took time to harden.

The Soviets had hoped to establish
a road bridge across the ice

using the shortest route.

But this would put convoys within range
of the German artillery batteries

on the southern shore.

Slowly the ice thickened. On 20th November,
across 180 millimetres of ice,

the first horse-drawn sleighs
crossed the lake.

Two days later, the first trucks crossed.

It was a perilous crossing.

The 2-ton vehicles carried
much less than their full load.

But several still crashed through the ice,
disappearing into the frozen depths.

Drivers stood on their running boards, ready
to leap clear if the ice began to crack.

On their return journey,
the same trucks were used to evacuate

as many civilians as possible.

The Road of Life was 30 kilometres long.

It included garages, rest stops,
and field hospitals.

There were several alternative routes,
depending on the ice and driving conditions.

To defend the road, two defensive lines
were constructed on top of the ice,

8 kilometres from the German-held shore.

They included machinegun nests
and ice trenches.

The road was also protected
by anti-aircraft guns and air cover.

But German bombs
and shells still claimed many victims.

In the first week alone,
52 trucks were lost.

Despite these extraordinary
efforts to keep the city supplied,

and to get the civilians out,

53,000 Leningraders died in December —
most from starvation.

There were reports of people dropping dead
in the street without warning.

Each day, burial detachments had to remove
100 corpses from Leningrad"s pavements.

The diary of one Leningrader recorded
how despair gave way to apathy.

“People now die in a very simple manner:
first, they lose interest in everything.

Then, they lie in bed, and never
rise again. They die as if falling asleep.

And the surrounding people, half-dead
themselves, pay them no attention.”

Many drivers on the Road of Life made two
trips every day – one by day, one by night.

Dozens of trucks were wrecked
in traffic accidents,

more than were destroyed
by German aircraft.

So the order was given for vehicles
to start using their headlights.

Trucks that crashed
through the ice sank so fast,

that for several minutes
the ghostly glow of their headlights

could be seen at the bottom of the lake.

Almost 300 trucks were lost
in the first month of the Road.

But they had kept the city alive.

Hundreds of thousands perished
from starvation in that first winter.

The scale of the suffering
was almost beyond imagination.

More than a million would die before this,

the most devastating siege in history,
was finally over.

Leningrad, encircled
by German and Finnish forces,

witnessed hundreds of civilian
deaths every day.

But these were not collateral casualties.

Hitler had decided that Leningrad
should be wiped off the map.

Secret orders entitled
"The Future of Leningrad", stated:

“After Soviet Russia has been defeated,

the further existence of this population
centre is of no interest.

In this war for existence,

we have no interest in keeping
even part of this great city"s population.”

For the Soviet Union, it was vital
that Leningrad be held at all costs.

It was an important industrial city
with many factories,

and the home base of the Baltic Fleet.

Its loss would mean the loss
of the northern port of Murmansk,

where the Arctic convoys arrived carrying
military aid from Britain and America.

And for many, Leningrad remained the
cultural and spiritual capital of the USSR.

Its fate was watched by people
from across the Soviet Union.

They came to see their fate entwined
with that of the city.

The Soviet High Command decided to breach
the encirclement at its thinnest point,

the Shlisselburg-Sinyavino corridor.

Here, only 10km separated troops
of the Red Army"s Leningrad Front,

from the front line of the Volkhov Front.

But it was heavily defended,
with three lines of fortifications.

On the night of 19th September,

a small force led by Captain Vasiliy Dubik
crossed the Neva river in fishing boats.

His men quietly landed on the far bank,
and took the German trenches by surprise.

With this foothold across the river,

a Soviet Marine brigade moved
rapidly to reinforce Dubik"s position.

This strip of land, called
by the soldiers the “Nevsky Pyatachok”,

the "Neva Patch" would become legendary.

Two German parachute regiments,
redeployed from Crete,

were amongst the reinforcements
sent to crush the Soviet bridgehead.

They were plunged straight
into the ferocious fighting.

They failed to eliminate the bridgehead,

but had squeezed it until it was just
2 kilometres long, and 500 metres deep.

In October, this tiny strip of land

was the only hope
for lifting the siege of Leningrad.

All Red Army reserves were on
their way to Moscow,

were another desperate battle raged.

The struggle at the bridgehead was brutal,
attritional warfare.

German shells swept back
and forth across the whole area,

forcing the Soviet soldiers
to dig deep to find cover.

Another attempt to break through
was planned for November.

By now bread rations in the city
were down to 125 grams.

They weren"t much more
for front-line soldiers.

One commander conducted an exercise
to test the strength of his men.

Most were exhausted after walking
just 400 metres.

In a speech at Munich on 8th November,
Hitler declared:

“Leningrad has nothing to count upon.
It will fall, sooner or later.

There are no forces to raise the siege.

Leningrad is doomed to die
from starvation.”

At the beginning of November,
the Red Army got tanks across the Neva,

and captured more German trenches.

In turn the Germans fed
in their own reinforcements.

In November, the Red Army
lost 5,000 men killed in the Neva Patch.

The Germans too suffered heavy losses.

The tiny bridgehead
had become a slaughterhouse.

In Leningrad itself, 4,000 were dying
every day from starvation.

On some days this figure rose to 7,000.

January 1942 became the worst
month of the entire Siege.

Non-workers had their food
ration stopped entirely.

The electricity supply failed.

Water pipes froze solid in temperatures
of minus 30 degrees centigrade.

Furniture, wooden fences, anything
that would burn was used for firewood.

One Leningrader,
Yelena Skriabina wrote in her diary:

“Death has become a phenomenon
observed at every turn.

When you step outside in the morning,

you stumble over corpses
lying in the gateway, in the street.

The dead bodies lie there for a long time,
because there"s nobody to dispose of them.”

Even in the worst months of the siege,
the people of Leningrad still went to work.

The Kirov Factory,
just 4 kilometres from the frontline,

didn"t stop producing tanks
for a single day.

Half-assembled tanks were even used to fire
on the enemy from the factory floor.

The Leningrad Institute of Plant Industry

was dedicated
to the research of commercial crops.

It contained the world"s largest seedbank.

28 Institute workers died from starvation
during the Siege.

But the plant breeding collection
containing several tons of crops,

rice and potatoes, remained intact.

In February 1942, the food situation
gradually began to improve.

The ration was increased
to 500 grams for workers,

400 grams for office workers, 300 grams
for children and non-workers.

The revolting additives to the bread
were used less and less.

People now received their rations
on time, and, almost, in full.

On 16th February meat, in the form
of frozen beef and mutton,

was distributed amongst the population
for the first time in months.

Things were starting to look up.

So far in the war, the Red Army"s prospects
of lifting the Leningrad Siege

had been limited,
because the fighting around Moscow

had sucked up all available reserves.

But by January 1942, the German army
was retreating from Moscow.

Now a large-scale operation
was possible at Leningrad.

Soviet divisions on the Volkhov River

prepared to assault the flank
and rear of German Army Group North.

Swampy, broken ground meant
that tanks were of little use.

The success of this offensive would be down
to the infantry and the artillery.

Meanwhile General Fedyuninsky
was put in command of the 54th Army,

tasked with breaking
through to the besieged city.

The Germans turned
the high railway embankment

near the village of Pogostye
into a formidable earthwork.

Red Army losses were horrendous —
their progress, minimal.

The 2nd Shock Army under General Klykov
attacked German positions

near the town of Lyuban,
to the south of the fortified corridor.

But in their haste to raise the siege,

the Stavka High Command ordered attacks
that were not properly planned,

and lacked proper artillery support.

One divisional commander,
General Antyufeyev, reported:

“After crossing the river
and climbing the left bank,

our infantry came under intense
machinegun and mortar fire.

Our artillery couldn"t suppress
the enemy fire.

It couldn"t even make a proper ranging,
and didn"t have enough ammunition.”

The survivors had to return
to their starting positions.

Red Army units had advanced 30 kilometres
through the frozen forests and swamps.

It was the same distance
again to reach Leningrad.

The threat of encirclement hovered
over the German troops.

The logical decision seemed
to be to order a retreat.

But Hitler had forbidden any more retreats.

Field Marshal Von Leeb,
Commander of Army Group North,

asked to be relieved of command.
General Von Kuchler was now in charge.

Von Kuchler concentrated on
holding key roads and railways.

This approach was the Germans" salvation.

Army Group North was able to keep
its units resupplied,

and reserves could be moved
quickly to threatened areas.

Meanwhile, the lead units
of the 2nd Shock Army

had to be supplied by the only road
that ran along a corridor,

just 5 kilometres wide, between the
villages of Zamoshye and Spasskaya Polist.

The forward units were short
of ammunition, food and fuel.

The Soviet offensive
was called off in February.

Now the men prepared to defend
the ground they"d captured.

But it wasn"t easy digging-in
in the middle of a swamp.

And the supply problems meant many
soldiers began to suffer from malnutrition.

In March, Hitler demanded that von Kuchler

encircle the Soviet troops
that had dented the German line.

The operation was codenamed “Wild Beast”.

A simultaneous assault
by five German divisions

effectively sealed off
the Soviet penetration.

The Soviet 2nd Shock Army was virtually
cut off from the rest of the army –

just a tiny corridor, 1.5 to 2
kilometres wide, was left open.

All that remained was for the Germans
to crush the encircled Soviet units.

But first, they launched a fresh assault
against the Neva Patch.

By April, 1,000 Soviet soldiers
were dug in there.

The Germans waited until
the River Neva was full of drifting ice,

making it impossible for the Soviets
to reinforce the bridgehead.

Then they unleashed
a torrential artillery barrage.

The last sign of life seen
from across the river

was a crude banner bearing
the single word, "Help".

Meanwhile, the encircled 2nd Shock Army
received a new commander,

Lieutenant General Andrey Vlasov.

By the beginning of May, the Stavka
had decided to try to extricate

the remnants of this battered force.

But the day before the planned withdrawal,
the Germans attacked.

The Soviets fought desperately
to hold the perimeter,

as units began to withdraw through
the tiny corridor back to the front line.

But it was slow progress.
And four days later,

the Germans finally cut off
the 2nd Shock Army.

A Soviet artillery officer recorded
conditions inside the pocket:

“The entire area was swept by German fire.
The dead and wounded lay all around.

Some were delirious,
others cried out for water to drink,

some even asked us to shoot them,
because they couldn"t do it themselves.

The Germans didn"t attack.
They kept us trapped,

like an animal in its lair, and bombed
and shelled without mercy.”

The last soldiers to escape slipped out
under cover of darkness.

By the end of June, 10,000 had got away.
But the Germans had 30,000 prisoners.

Amongst them was the Commander of the
2nd Shock Army, General Andrey Vlasov.

Vlasov agreed to cooperate
with his German captors,

and became a willing tool of Nazi
propaganda. He wrote pamphlets entitled,

“The Appeal of The Russian
Liberation Committee

to Soldiers and Commanders
of the Red Army”,

and, “Why have I taken up the struggle
against Bolshevism?”.

In them, he appealed
to Red Army soldiers to join a new,

anti-Bolshevik Russian Liberation Army.

Vlasov helped to recruit Russian
prisoners of war to fight against Stalin..

General Vlasov became so notorious,

that Russians referred to all Soviets
who sided with the Germans as "Vlasovtsy".

But most had no allegiance
to General Vlasov.

The so-called "Hiwis"
were Soviet prisoners-of-war

who helped the Germans in non-combat roles.

And many anti-Bolsheviks
and nationalists from the USSR

fought in their own Wehrmacht units,
known as the Eastern Legions.

Most of Vlasov"s Russian Liberation Army
was captured near Prague in 1945.

Its men were sent to the Gulag — Vlasov
and other officers were hanged as traitors.

The Red Army had failed to break
the Leningrad Siege in the spring of 1942.

Now the Road of Life
across Lake Ladoga began to melt.

On just one day, 20th April, about 80
trucks were lost through the thinning ice.

The Road of Life was closed
to heavy vehicles.

The Russians waited anxiously
for the lake to open to shipping.

They knew that when it did,

ships and ports would come
under heavy air and artillery attack.

The severe winter meant it
wasn"t until the 22nd May

that the lake was clear of drifting ice.
The first ships made their crossings,

evacuating civilians
and bringing in supplies.

Soviet air defences proved
highly effective.

Only one per cent of incoming supplies
were lost to German air attack.

The Germans sent
for Italian MAS torpedo boats,

which had proved effective in the
Mediterranean, and Siebel armed ferries,

which had been designed
for the invasion of England.

But despite grand expectations,
Axis naval forces failed to make an impact.

Russian tugs and barges
had an extremely shallow draft,

so torpedoes passed
harmlessly underneath them.

Their naval bases and ships were hit
hard by the Red Army air force.

Axis naval operations were abandoned.

It remained critical to break
the siege of Leningrad.

The Road of Life, by water or ice, brought
in the bare minimum to keep the city fed,

and the troops supplied
with fuel and ammunition.

Six months later, in November 1942,
the Front Commanders

and General Zhukov and Marshal Voroshilov
began to plan Operation Iskra.

It was decided to attack once more
at the "bottleneck",

where the German encirclement was thinnest.

Units of the Volkhov Front
would attack from without,

as troops of the Leningrad front
attacked from within.

The artillery barrage began
at dawn on 12th January 1943.

As the last shells whistled overhead,
the assault began.

But everywhere, the Red Army
ran into fierce resistance

from well-entrenched German troops.

T-34s could only crawl across what was
effectively a heavily cratered peat bog.

They were easy pickings
for the German antitank guns.

But the simultaneous attack on
both fronts began to bear fruit.

After two days, just 2 kilometres
separated the Soviet troops.

These final metres proved the hardest.

Soviet tanks were knocked out
or got stuck in the bog.

It was up to the infantry to storm
the German positions.

General Fedyuninsky,
now Deputy Front Commander,

repeatedly visited the front line
to urge his men on.

He ordered attacks around the clock.

There was to be no let up
for the German defenders.

The German tactic, as before, was to hold
key positions along the transport network.

Work Settlements Number 1 and Number 5,

on the only road between the Lake and the
rail terminus, were turned into fortresses.

If the Red Army could just cut the road,
the German defence was doomed.

Von Kuchler had to decide whether to hold
on, or withdraw from the “bottleneck”.

He opted to hold on.

Under unrelenting assault from both sides,
the German defences began to crumble.

The Red Army, sustaining
massive losses all the way,

fought through the intricate German
defences. At the last moment,

German units at Shlisselburg made a dash
for safety, but not many made it.

At midnight on 18th January 1943,
Yuri Levitan,

the voice of Soviet wartime radio,
was able to announce:

“After seven days of fighting,
troops of the Volkhov and Leningrad Fronts

met on the 18th January
and raised the Siege of Leningrad!”

In just 3 weeks a railway was built across
the cratered landscape of the bottleneck.

It was just 5 kilometres from the German
lines, and under constant shellfire.

Leningrad was still on the front line.

But at last it was getting
enough food and fuel.

The Red Army lacked the strength
to push the Germans back any further.

The reserves of German
Army Group North had arrived,

and were dug in on the high ground.

German defences were traditionally built
around the MG-34 or the MG-42 machinegun.

The rest of the infantry were effectively
there to support the machinegun team.

By autumn 1943, the Red Army had developed
tactics for attacking German infantry.

Soviet rifle platoons, supported
by artillery and mortars,

aimed to wipe out enemy machinegun positions
in the first few minutes of the assault.

The remaining rifle-armed Germans would be
seriously outgunned by Soviet troops,

armed with submachine-guns.

But from late 1943, the Germans began
to change the balance once more,

with the introduction of the MP-43.

Now if the infantry squad"s machine
gun team was knocked out,

a squad armed with the new MP-43s
could still provide heavy,

accurate fire against enemy attackers.

Hitler himself gave
the new weapon its name —

Sturmgewehr — the assault rifle.

It wasn"t until the beginning of 1944

that the Stavka launched the operation that
would finally end the siege of Leningrad.

By then, German Army Group North
had had nearly two years

to dig in on the outskirts of the city.

The Stavka planned to begin the operation
at the Oranienbaum bridgehead,

which had stubbornly held out
against the Germans

thanks to the heavy guns of
its coastal fort.

From here, the Red Army would launch itself

against the flank
of German Army Group North.

Leading the attack
would be General Fedyuninsky

at the head of the 2nd Shock Army,

which had been secretly redeployed to the
bridgehead under cover of darkness.

By attacking from the coast,
the massive firepower of the Baltic Fleet

could be used to support the assault –
more than a 100 heavy naval guns

were available for the operation.

They included the guns of
the battleship Marat,

refloated after being sunk
by Stukas in 1941.

And the enormous coastal guns
of the Krasnaya Gorka fort.

The assault began on 14th January 1944.

Soviet newspapers and radio carried
no reports about the operation.

But the people of Leningrad could hear
the distant thunder of the bombardment.

They knew what it meant –
that the final offensive was underway,

the one that would end the siege
once and for all.

No one doubted its success.

The attack from Oranienbaum caught
Army Group North by surprise.

In the face of an overwhelming Soviet
assault, German defences collapsed.

A week later, Soviet troops,
laden with captured trophies,

met at the town of Ropsha.

German Army Group North"s
retreat became a rout.

The frontline raced away from Leningrad.

The rumble of guns receded
into the distance.

At long last, silence descended
over the city of Leningrad.

According to official reports,

642.000 civilians died during
the Siege of Leningrad.

But many deaths never made it
into an official report.

The real total was probably
nearer one million.

3% were caused by bombs
and shells. 97% by starvation.

About 1.8 million people were evacuated
from Leningrad during the war.

By 1945, the city"s population
was just one-fifth

of what it had been
at the start of the war.

This was the longest siege
of a large city in World War Two,

and the costliest siege in history.

Army Group North was bogged down
in the forests and swamps around Leningrad

for more than 2 years.

It comprised one fifth of German
strength on the Eastern Front.

But pinned outside Leningrad, it was unable
to influence the war"s decisive battles,

all of which were fought on other fronts.

Far to the south, in the vast open expanse
between Kharkov and the Volga River,

the Red Army would have to learn
to fight another kind of war –

highly mobile armoured warfare.

And it was here in the south, in 1942, the
that world would learn the name of another