The Siege of Leningrad is Lifted

27th January 1944: A Soviet offensive finally reaches Leningrad - St Petersburg - after 872 days under siege and the deaths of around 1.5 million civilians

A Soviet image of two Red Army fronts joining up during the relief of Leningrad.

The relief of Leningrad was a huge moment for the Russian people. The siege of the city had mirrored the suffering of the whole country since 1941. The enormous destruction and the deaths of so many people - mainly from starvation and cold - had also been accompanied by a tenacious defiance and a determination to overcome the Nazi menace.

Vera Inber, who had been keeping a diary since the start of the siege, was lost for words:

27th January, 1944

The greatest event in the life of Leningrad complete liberation from the Blockade. And here words fail me, a professional writer. I simply say Leningrad is free. And there isn't any more to be said.

The siege had been a vindictive gratuitous act of violence by Hitler. Knowing that a military assault on the city would be too costly, he had chosen to inflict immense suffering and misery on the civilian population. First the central food stores for the whole city had been bombed. Starvation had soon followed, worse during the first winter when the Soviet authorities struggled to get any supplies into the city, or to evacuate any significant number of people.

A malnourished boy in a Leningrad hospital. He was one of the lucky ones even if there was only the minimum needed to keep him alive. Whole families had died alone in their apartments - hundreds of thousands of victims.