For the command of the Wehrmacht, the capture of the city on the Neva was not only of great military and strategic importance. In addition to capturing the entire coast of the Gulf of Finland and destroying the B altic Fleet, far-reaching propaganda goals were also pursued. The fall of the cradle of the Revolution would have caused irreparable moral damage to the entire Soviet people and would have significantly undermined the fighting spirit of the armed forces. The command of the Red Army had an alternative: withdraw the troops and surrender the city without a fight. In this case, the fate of the inhabitants would be even more tragic. Hitler intended to wipe the city off the face of the earth in the literal sense of the word.
Leningrad was finally surrounded by German and Finnish troops on September 8, 1941. The blockade of Leningrad lasted 872 days. In addition to military formations of the army and navy, more than three million people were under siege - Leningraders and refugees from the B altic states and neighboring regions. Leningrad during the blockade lost more than 600 thousand civilians, of which only three percent died from bombing and shelling, the rest died from exhaustion and disease. More than evacuatedone and a half million people.
Attempts to break the blockade in 1942
Even in the most difficult days of the war, attempts were made to break the encirclement. In January 1942, the Soviet army launched an offensive to connect the besieged city with the “Great Land” near the village of Lyubtsy. The next attempt was made in August - October in the direction of the village of Sinyavino and Mga station. These operations to break the blockade of Leningrad were unsuccessful. Although the Sinyavino offensive failed, the next Wehrmacht plans to capture the city were thwarted by this maneuver.
Strategic background
The defeat of the Nazi group of troops on the Volga radically changed the alignment of strategic forces in favor of the Soviet army. Under the current conditions, the High Command decided to carry out an operation to unblock the northern capital. The operational event involving the forces of the Leningrad, Volkhov fronts, the B altic Fleet and the Ladoga flotilla received the code name ‘‘Iskra’’. Long-range aviation was supposed to support offensive operations on land. The liberation of Leningrad from the blockade, although partial, became possible thanks to serious miscalculations by the German command. Hitler's headquarters underestimated the importance of the accumulation of reserves. After fierce fighting in the Moscow direction and the south of the country, two tank divisions and a significant part of the infantry formations were withdrawn from the Army Group North to partially compensate for the losses of the central group. By the beginning of 1943, near Leningrad, the invaders had no majormechanized formations to counter the possible offensive of the Soviet army.
Bet Plans
Operation Iskra was conceived in the fall of 1942. At the end of November, the headquarters of the Leningrad Front suggested that the Stavka prepare a new offensive and break through the enemy ring in two directions: Shlisselburg and Uritsky. The Supreme High Command decided to focus on one, the shortest one, in the Sinyavino-Shlisselburg area.
On November 22, the command presented a plan for counter actions of the concentrated forces of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. The operation was approved, the preparation was given no more than a month. It was very important to carry out the planned offensive in the winter: in the spring the swampy places became impassable. Due to the beginning of the thaw at the end of December, the breakthrough of the blockade was postponed for ten days. The code name for the operation was proposed by IV Stalin. Half a century ago, V. I. Ulyanov, creating the press organ of the Bolshevik Party, called the newspaper "Iskra" with the intent that the spark would ignite the flame of revolution. Stalin thus drew an analogy, assuming that an operational offensive maneuver would develop into a significant strategic success. General leadership was entrusted to Marshal K. E. Voroshilov. Marshal G. K. Zhukov was sent to coordinate actions on the Volkhov Front.
Preparing offensive
During December, the troops were intensively preparing for the battle. All units were manned andequipment by one hundred percent, up to 5 sets of ammunition have been accumulated for each unit of heavy weapons. Leningrad during the blockade was able to provide the front with all the necessary military equipment and small arms. And for the tailoring of uniforms, not only specialized enterprises were involved, but also citizens who had sewing machines for personal use. In the rear, sappers reinforced existing bridge crossings and erected new ones. About 50 kilometers of roads were laid to ensure the approach to the Neva.
Special attention was paid to the training of fighters: they had to be taught how to fight in the winter in the forest and attack a fortified area equipped with strongholds and long-term firing points. In the rear of each formation, training grounds were arranged, simulating the conditions of the areas of the proposed offensive. To break through the engineering defensive structures, special assault groups were created. Passages were made in the minefields. All commanders, up to and including company commanders, were provided with updated maps and photographic diagrams. The regrouping was carried out exclusively at night or in non-flying weather. The activities of front-line reconnaissance were intensified. The location of enemy defensive objects was precisely established. Staff games were arranged for the commanding staff. The final phase was to conduct exercises with live firing. The camouflage measures, the dissemination of disinformation, as well as the strictest observance of secrecy, have borne fruit. The enemy learned about the planned offensive in justa few days. The Germans did not have time to further strengthen dangerous areas.
The alignment of forces
Formations of the Leningrad Front as part of the 42nd, 55th, 67th armies held the defense of the city from the inner south-eastern side of the ring on the Uritsk-Kolpino line, the right-bank territories of the Neva - to Ladoga. The 23rd Army conducted defensive operations from the northern side on the Karelian Isthmus. The military aviation forces consisted of the 13th Air Army. The breakthrough of the blockade was provided by 222 tanks and 37 armored vehicles. The front was commanded by Lieutenant General L. A. Govorov. The infantry units were supported from the air by the 14th Air Army. 217 tanks were concentrated in this direction. General of the Army K. A. Meretskov commanded the Volkhov Front. In the direction of the breakthrough, using reserves and applying a regrouping of forces, it was possible to achieve superiority in manpower by four and a half times, artillery - seven times, tanks - ten times, aviation - twice. The density of guns and mortars from the side of Leningrad was up to 146 units per 1 km of the front. The offensive was also supported by the artillery of the ships of the B altic Fleet and the Ladoga Flotilla (88 guns with a caliber from 100 to 406 mm) and naval aircraft.
On the Volkhov direction, the density of guns ranged from 101 to 356 units per kilometer. The total strength of the strike force on both sides reached 303,000 soldiers and officers. The enemy besieged the city with twenty-six divisions of the 18th army (army group "North") and the formation of four Finnish divisions onnorth. Breaking the blockade, our troops were to attack the heavily fortified Shlisselburg-Sinyavino region, which was defended by five divisions with seven hundred guns and mortars. The Wehrmacht group was commanded by General G. Lindemann.
Battle on the Shlisselburg ledge
On the night of January 11-12, aviation of the Volkhov Front and the 13th Air Army of the Leningrad Front carried out a massive bombing strike against predetermined targets in the planned breakthrough area. On January 12, at half past nine in the morning, artillery preparation began. The shelling of enemy positions lasted two hours and ten minutes. Half an hour before the start of the attack, attack aircraft raided the fortified defenses and artillery batteries of the Germans. At 1100, the 67th Army from the Neva side and units of the Second Shock and Eighth Armies of the Volkhov Front launched an offensive. The infantry attack was supported by artillery fire with the formation of a fire shaft one kilometer deep. Wehrmacht troops fiercely resisted, the Soviet infantry advanced slowly and unevenly.
For two days of fighting, the distance between the advancing groups was reduced to two kilometers. Only six days later, the advancing formations of the Soviet army managed to unite in the area of workers' settlements No. 1 and No. 5. On January 18, the city of Shlisselburg (Petrokrepost) was liberated and the entire territory adjacent to the Ladoga coast was cleared of the enemy. The width of the land corridor in different sections was from 8 to 10 kilometers. In a dayAfter the blockade of Leningrad was broken, the reliable land connection of the city with the mainland was restored. The combined grouping of the 2nd and 67th armies tried unsuccessfully to build on the success of the offensive and expand the bridgehead to the south. The Germans were pulling up reserves. From January 19, within ten days, five divisions and a large amount of artillery were transferred to dangerous areas by the German command. The offensive in the Sinyavino area bogged down. In order to hold the conquered lines, the troops went on the defensive. A positional war began. The official end date for the operation is January 30th.
Results of the offensive
As a result of the offensive carried out by the Soviet troops, units of the Wehrmacht army were thrown back from the shore of Ladoga, but the city itself remained in the frontline zone. The breaking of the blockade during Operation Iskra showed the maturity of the military thought of the highest command personnel. The defeat of an enemy grouping in a heavily fortified area by a coordinated joint strike from the outside and from the outside became a precedent in the domestic military art. The armed forces have gained serious experience in conducting offensive operations in wooded areas in winter conditions. Overcoming the enemy's layered defensive system showed the need for thorough planning of artillery fire, as well as the operational movement of units during the battle.
Losses of the parties
The casu alty figures testify to how bloody the battles were. The 67th and 13th armies of the Leningrad Front lost 41.2 thousand people killed and wounded, including irretrievable lossesamounted to 12.4 thousand people. The Volkhov Front lost 73.9 and 21.5 thousand people, respectively. Seven enemy divisions were destroyed. The losses of the Germans amounted to more than 30 thousand people, irretrievable - 13 thousand people. In addition, about four hundred guns and mortars, 178 machine guns, 5,000 rifles, a large amount of ammunition, and one and a half hundred vehicles were taken as trophies by the Soviet army. Two of the newest heavy tanks T-VI "Tiger" were captured.
Big win
Operation ''Spark'' to break the blockade achieved the desired results. Within seventeen days, a motor road and a thirty-three-kilometer railway line were laid along the shore of Lake Ladoga. On February 7, the first train arrived in Leningrad. A stable supply of the city and military units was restored, and the supply of electricity increased. The water supply has been restored. The situation of the civilian population, industrial enterprises, formations of the front and the B altic Fleet improved significantly. In the following months of the year, more than eight hundred thousand civilians were evacuated from Leningrad to the rear areas.
The liberation of Leningrad from the blockade in January 1943 was a key moment in the defense of the city. The Soviet troops in this direction finally seized the strategic initiative. The danger of the connection of German and Finnish troops was eliminated. On January 18, the day the blockade of Leningrad was broken, the critical period of the city's isolation ended. The successful completion of the operation had a great ideologicalimportance for the people of the country. Not the largest battle of the Second World War attracted the attention of the political elite overseas. US President T. Roosevelt congratulated the Soviet leadership on military success, and sent a letter to the residents of the city, in which he recognized the greatness of the feat, their unbending stamina and courage.
Museum of Breaking the Siege of Leningrad
Memorials were erected along the line of confrontation in memory of the tragic and heroic events of those years. In 1985, in the Kirovsky district of the region, near the village of Maryino, a diorama ''Breakthrough of the Siege of Leningrad'' was opened. It was in this place that on January 12, 1943, units of the 67th Army crossed the Neva on ice and broke through the enemy defenses. The diorama ''Breakthrough of the Siege of Leningrad'' is an artistic canvas measuring 40 by 8 meters. The canvas depicts the events of the attack on the German defenses. In front of the canvas, a plan of objects, 4 to 8 meters deep, recreates three-dimensional images of fortified positions, communication passages, and military equipment.
The unity of the composition of the painting canvas and volumetric design creates a stunning effect of presence. On the very bank of the Neva there is a monument ''Breakthrough of the blockade''. The monument is a T-34 tank mounted on a pedestal. The combat vehicle seems to be rushing to connect with the troops of the Volkhov Front. The open area in front of the museum also exhibits military equipment.
The final lifting of the blockade of Leningrad. 1944
Complete removal of the siege of the cityhappened only a year later as a result of a large-scale Leningrad-Novgorod operation. The troops of the Volkhov, B altic and Leningrad fronts defeated the main forces of the 18th army of the Wehrmacht. January 27 became the official day of lifting the almost 900-day blockade. And 1943 was recorded in the historiography of the Great Patriotic War as the year of breaking the blockade of Leningrad.
