59.9°N 30.3°E Eastern Front Siege of Leningrad
Briefing
For 872 days German and Finnish armies sealed off Russia's second city, intending to starve it out of existence. Around a million civilians died, most of hunger in the catastrophic winter of 1941-42, supplied only by the Road of Life across frozen Lake Ladoga. The city never fell — the longest and deadliest siege in modern history.
Books Covering This Event (6)
Popular History
The BBC's Moscow correspondent, who spent the entire war in the USSR, writes the inside account of the Soviet war effort.
The classic account of the siege of Leningrad — a million dead in a city the Soviets barely admitted was starving.
Shostakovich writes his Seventh Symphony inside besieged Leningrad, and a starving orchestra performs it to the world.
Historical Fiction
A love story that begins on the day Germany invades and descends with Leningrad into the siege winter.
One Leningrad family endures the first siege winter — bread ration by bread ration.
Two young men in besieged Leningrad are given an absurd errand to save their lives: find a dozen eggs for a colonel's daughter's wedding cake.