three million Axis troops attacked along a 900-mile front. What followed was the most destructive war in history; a war of annihilation.
For Hitler, the city of Leningrad held great symbolism, being the birthplace of Bolshevism; his objective was to raze it to the ground and render it uninhabitable. An hour before the attack in the early hours of 22 June, Hitler addressed his troops:
German soldiers, you are about to join battle – a hard and crucial battle. The destiny of Europe, the future of the German Reich, the existence of our nation, now lies in your hands alone.
Operation Barbarossa
Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-186-0184-02A / Otto / CC-BY-SA
Stalin’s first act was to send Vyacheslav Molotov, his foreign minister, to announce the war to his people. Molotov’s radio broadcast, relayed across cities by loudspeaker eight hours after the initial attack, condemned this ‘act of treachery unprecedented in the history of civilized nations.’
On 3 July, in his first public address since the invasion, Stalin spoke of ‘The Great Patriotic War’. His usual political rhetoric, while still apparent, was played down. Instead, he spoke in patriotic terms, pulling together his people to defeat the beast that was now in their midst: ‘Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, men of our Army and Navy! My words are addressed to you, dear friends!’ he began. He continued, ‘The issue is one of life and death for the Soviet State, of life and death for the peoples of the USSR; the issue is whether the peoples of the Soviet Union shall be free or fall into slavery.’
As soon as war was announced, Leningrad was placed under martial law. The writer Lidiya Ginzburg described the immediate change of atmosphere within the city:
Less than half an hour had passed and we were already being borne away inexorably from our pre-war emotional cast of mind. [We had] a feeling . . . that this life was coming to an end.
On 27 June, Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin’s man in Leningrad, issued orders for the mobilization of the city’s population to bolster its defences. Unless sick, pregnant, caring for infants, or otherwise engaged by the city authorities or the military, all men aged between sixteen and fifty, and women between sixteen and forty-five were called up. They were to work for seven days followed by four days’ rest when they would be expected to return to their normal jobs or studies. In August the age range was extended – up to fifty-five for men and fifty for women. Work shifts were increased too – seven days work, then one day of rest.
‘Everyone to the defence of Leningrad’, Kazan Cathedral, October 1941
RIA Novosti archive, image #637354 / Anatoliy Garanin / CC-BY-SA 3.0
But in practice, these guidelines were never adhered to. One woman of fifty-seven years of age, wrote of eighteen-day shifts, twelve hours a day hacking at ground ‘as hard as rock’. Few were accustomed to such strenuous, unrelenting work. Teenage girls with soft hands would turn up wearing summer dresses and sandals and were expected to dig and manoeuvre concrete blocks using just their hands and a crowbar. People always reported for work either out of patriotic duty or because the penalties for failing to do so were too harsh to contemplate. Occasionally the workers were subjected to enemy bombs or strafing (a machine-gun attack fired from low-flying German fighter planes).
Up to half a million civilians turned out to various points on the outskirts of the city to construct three fortified rings – the furthest, 70 miles west of the city, ran along the River Luga. Their efforts produced 650 miles of trenches, 430 miles of anti-tank ditches, over 5,000 concrete gun emplacements (or pillboxes), and 370 miles of barbed-wire entanglements.
It was a valiant effort but many resented the amount of labour, believing that when the Germans came they would simply overrun these defences. Their cynicism was well founded – the advance of the Germans continued unabated. Having stormed through the Baltic States, the German war machine seemed unstoppable. Stalin’s speech on 3 July had extolled ‘all citizens of the Soviet Union [to] defend every inch of Soviet soil, [and] fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages.’ Taking his cue, Zhdanov announced the formation of a ‘People’s Volunteers’ Militia’ within Leningrad. Again, either through patriotism or through coercion, thousands answered the call. Age and health was no barrier – one sickly man in his late fifties was told, ‘Your state of health is of no significance, what is important is the very act of volunteering and thereby displaying one’s political attitude.’ Another, hoping to avoid this voluntary conscription was told, ‘You are a Soviet man – you cannot refuse to volunteer. I advise you not to refuse.’ By the end of August 1941, 160,000 Leningraders, 32,000 of them women, had volunteered.
Red Army soldiers go into battle, 1943
RIA Novosti archive, image #93172 / Vsevolod Tarasevich / CC-BY-SA 3.0
The volunteers received precious little training and were, if lucky, equipped only with out-of-date weapons – old rifles, grenades and instructions on how to make petrol bombs, colloquially known as Molotov cocktails. The first division of this amateur army was formed on 10 July and after cursory training, sent to the front to join the regular soldiers of the Red Army on 14 July. Not many survived. Women and children were advised that if the Germans broke into the city, they should pelt them with stones or throw boiling water over them. The instruction caused resentment – if the Red Army was incapable of stopping the Germans, then what chance the civilian?
As soon as war was announced, sandbags started appearing. All the city’s famous monuments were soon covered, as were civic buildings and museums. Then houses and apartment blocks were sandbagged. People put sticky tape in their windows in a criss-cross pattern to prevent the glass from shattering when the bombs started falling. Privately owned radios were confiscated, lest civilians were adversely influenced by enemy propaganda. As owners of radios had had to register their purchase, it was not difficult for the authorities to keep tabs on those who failed to hand in their radios. They were allowed instead to have small loudspeakers within their homes, wired to the city’s public address system, which routinely broadcast patriotic messages and warned against defeatism or cowardice.
Posters, leaflets, noticeboards and newspapers sprung up, all reinforcing the correct message. Rumour-mongers faced harsh penalties for their loose tongues. But rumours of course circulated, especially once the fighting had started. The loud speakers, in Orwellian portent, blared continually of the successes at holding the Fascists at bay but kept hidden the huge loss of life as ill-prepared and ill-equipped troops went into battle.
The propaganda warned constantly of the enemy within and whipped up a frenzy of spy mania. People became convinced that German agents and fifth columnists were within their midst, sabotaging their efforts and relaying vital information back to the Germans. The paranoia was perhaps justified – the Germans had captured a warehouse full of Red Army uniforms. Anyone who looked different, with clothes considered too Western, or with an accent or name that sounded foreign, was eyed with suspicion. Almost 12 per cent of Leningrad’s 1941 population was of German, Finnish or Baltic descent, and many were interned for the duration of the war. Tram conductors were banned from calling out the names of stations so as to confuse any potential spies on their carriages; city maps and guidebooks were withdrawn
