War & conflict
The siege of Leningrad: how a city survived 872 days of encirclement
11 min
Cut off and starved through multiple winters, the people of Leningrad endured one of the longest and deadliest sieges in history — a story of unimaginable suffering and stubborn survival.
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Show notes
German commanders received direct orders to refuse any surrender and liquidate the entire city population.
Daily bread rations dropped to one hundred and twenty-five grams containing fifty percent sawdust and cellulose.
Drivers on the Lake Ladoga ice road kept doors open to escape sinking if the ice cracked.
Engineers installed underwater fuel pipelines and electricity cables beneath a frozen lake to bypass the blockade.
Only fifteen original orchestra members remained to perform the Seventh Symphony during the height of the siege.
The eight hundred and seventy-two day encirclement resulted in the deaths of one point five million people.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Noose Tightens2 min
- 3The Winter of One Hundred and Twenty-Five Grams3 min
- 4The Road of Life2 min
- 5Defiance Through Culture and Steel2 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Siege of Leningrad | Nazi Germany, World War II, Blockade | Britannica
- Siege of Leningrad
- ‘An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe’: The siege of Leningrad, 80 years on - France 24
- Siege of Leningrad begins | September 8, 1941 - History.com
- The Siege of Leningrad and the Road of Life — Fexingo History
- 406: The Siege of Leningrad I | The History of the Twentieth Century
- 900 Days Under Siege...How Leningrad Endured
- Surviving the Siege of Leningr…–History Unplugged Podcast – Apple Podcasts
- Shostakovich's symphony played by a starving orchestra - BBC News
- What if the Nazi siege saw Leningrad fall? Moscow next & a Soviet armistice | History Undone - History Undone | Acast
- Siege of Leningrad
- Siege of Leningrad
- УДК 94(47):355.441.1 A CITY STARVED BUT UNBROKEN… THE EPIC STRUGGLE OF LENINGRAD DURING WORLD WAR II: THE 872 DAYS OF SIEGE (SEPTEMBER 8, 1941 – JANUARY 24, 1944) Christensen C.S. The siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) stands as one of the longest and most devastating blockades in modern history. This siege created an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, claiming over a million civilian lives and reshaping the fabric of urban society under extreme conditions. The paper explores how ordinary citizens endured starvation, cold, and bombardment while maintaining social cohesion and cultural activity. The study examines the strategic objectives of the German Wehrmacht and their Finnish and Spanish allies, the defensive measures of the Soviet forces in the context of 872-day battle. The analysis highlights how logistical breakdowns, harsh environmental conditions and shifting frontlines influenced both the conduct of the siege and its ultimate failure. The paper argues that the siege was not merely a military operation, but a calculated attempt to annihilate the civilians, revealing the intersection of warfare, ideology and urban resilience. The findings underscore how the civilian population transformed survival into an act of collective resistance, illustrating the complex interplay between suffering, identity, and resilience during wartime. Keywords: Leningrad, World War II, Nazism, Ingermanland, Starvation, Generalplan “Ost”, Moscow, Neva, Saint Petersburg, Dmitri Shostakovitch, “Road of Life”.
- Food Supply in Besieged Leningrad: Regulation of the Rationing System and Bread Distribution Norms
- Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad, 1941-1944 | Springer Nature Link
- Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad, 1941-1944
- The Leningrad Blockade, 1941-1944...
- The creation and function of the ice route. The winter of 1941-1942
- The "Road of Life" to the besieged Leningrad
- Transport communication between besieged Leningrad and the “Big Land” along Lake Ladoga launched | Presidential Library
- Siege of Leningrad
- Overcoming the food and transport crisis: history of the engineering and construction of ice railway crossings across Lake Ladoga during 1941–1943
- Siege of Leningrad
- Siege of Leningrad
- To mark 85th anniversary of start of Great Patriotic War | Presidential Library
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