Siege of Leningrad

Siege of Leningrad
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet anti-aircraft battery in Leningrad near Saint Isaac's Cathedral, 1941
Date 8 September 1941 – 27 January 1944 (2 years, 4 months and 19 days) Location Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (present-day Saint Petersburg, Russia) 59°55′49″N 30°19′09″E / 59.93028°N 30.31917°E / 59.93028; 30.31917 Result Soviet victory Territorial changes Axis forces are repelled 60–100 km (37–62 mi) away from Leningrad.
Belligerents
Germany  Finland[1][2] Naval support:  Italy[3]	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb Georg von Küchler C.G.E. Mannerheim	Markian Popov Kliment Voroshilov Georgy Zhukov Kirill Meretskov
Strength
Initial: 725,000	Initial: 930,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	3,473,066 casualties[4] 1,017,881 killed, captured or missing 2,418,185 wounded and sick
Soviet civilians: 1,042,000[4] 642,000 during the siege 400,000 at evacuations Total dead: 1,300,000[5] to 2,000,000[6]

The siege of Leningrad was a military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 to 1944. Leningrad, the country's second largest city, was besieged by Germany and Finland for 872 days, but never captured. The siege was the most destructive in history and possibly the most deadly, causing an estimated 1.5 million deaths. It was not classified as a war crime at the time,^[7] but some historians have since classified it as a genocide due to the intentional destruction of the city and the systematic starvation of its civilian population.^{[8][9][10][11][12]}

In August 1941, Germany's Army Group North reached the suburbs of Leningrad as Finnish forces moved to encircle the city from the north. Land routes from Leningrad 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; many residents starved during the winter of 1941–1942. Supplies were delivered to city by air, by ship over Lake Ladoga, or over the Road of Life, a highway built on the lake when it was frozen. A Red Army offensive opened a narrow land corridor to Leningrad on 18 January 1943, but the siege was not fully broken until 27 January 1944.