Leonid Govorov, in charge of the city’s military, knew he had to mastermind a final push to remove those Germans still ensconced in their positions. He prepared accordingly, bringing in huge numbers of Red Army reinforcements. The city also was better prepared for another winter of siege – evacuating half a million civilians, and stockpiling fuel and foodstuffs. In June 1942, the Soviets managed to lay a pipeline beneath Lake Ladoga which brought a new supply of fuel through to the city.
Hitler ordered much of his Leningrad army south to reinforce his beleaguered forces suffering in Stalingrad, but, nonetheless, in January 1943, the Germans lost the bitterest battle of the war. Throughout the Soviet Union the Germans were being pushed back, everywhere they were on the defensive. It was time, Stalin decided, to force the issue around Leningrad.
The Red Army attacking, 1943
RIA Novosti archive, image #633054 / Vsevolod Tarasevich / CC-BY-SA 3.0
On 12 January 1943, after months of meticulous planning, Soviet forces, led by Govorov, launched Operation Spark. A two-hour bombardment pounded the German lines followed by a surge of infantry across the frozen Ladoga, covered by air support and followed by tanks crossing the river on specially made wooden rails. Three days later, a second attack crossed the frozen lake from the east, attacking the Germans in Shlisselburg, the town which, when it fell to the Germans in September 1941, had proved so catastrophic for the Soviets. The city held its breath – waiting for news. The following day, the Red Army recaptured Shlisselburg. On 18 January, 11 p.m. the announcement was made on the radio, ‘The blockade of Leningrad has been broken!’ That the night the city celebrated.
The blockade may have been broken but the siege was set to continue. Under continual fire, the Russians built a rail line, 20 miles long, to allow the supply of provisions by train. The first train, surviving German attempts to bomb it, arrived in the city on 6 February 1943. It brought in not just bread and flour but meat, cigarettes and vodka. A second line, completed in May, allowed even greater provisions to be brought in and civilians evacuated out. By September the rail link was proving so efficient the lake route had, by and large, fallen into disuse. Accordingly, with greater supplies and fewer mouths to feed, rations improved. ‘The cursed circle is broken,’ as Leningrad’s poet, Olga Berggolts, said, and the city now had a narrow but firm link to the rest of the country. The Germans still pounded the city with artillery shells and claimed many lives. But the city was coming back to life and foodstuffs and fuel, if not plentiful, were sufficient. Following another major defeat for Hitler, this time at the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, Leningraders knew it was only a matter of time. The city was still under siege but it was no longer a city in its death throes.
A year on from Govorov’s first triumph against the German lines, came his greatest moment – the final repulsion of the enemy. 15 January 1944 saw the start of the heaviest bombardment of the war – half a million shells in just ninety minutes decimated the German lines, followed by another determined Soviet attack. One by one, the towns around the city that the Germans had occupied for so long were retaken, as the Germans, outnumbered two to one, hastily retreated. It took twelve days but at 8 p.m. on 27 January 1944, Govorov was able to announce, ‘The city of Leningrad has been entirely liberated!’ That night rockets exploded in the night sky above the city – not German artillery, but a celebratory 324-gun salute!
It had lasted 872 days, or 29 months, but finally the moment had come – the siege of Leningrad was over. It took another five weeks to push the Germans out of the region, and many Red Army lives were lost in the process. The Finns too were forced to retreat back to the 1939 Finnish-Soviet border.
The city, still in ruins, was finally at peace, at least outwardly. It was also strangely quiet, with so many gone, either evacuated or dead. In the autumn of 1944, Leningraders watched silently as parades of German prisoners of war were brought in to start repairing the damage they had inflicted on the city. Watching them was a cathartic process that brought no joy, nor anger, nor desire for revenge, simply the need to see into the eyes of the men who had inflicted such pain on them for so long.