Gaps in memory
In the summer of 1941, German forces defeated Soviet troops in the Baltic campaigns, swept into territories near Pskov, and pushed toward Leningrad. By September 8, the city of Shlisselburg on Lake Ladoga fell, sealing off Leningrad from land routes. The Wehrmacht controlled the southeast, south and southwest, while the Gulf of Finland stood to the west with German-backed Finnish forces, and east of the city lay only Lake Ladoga. That lake offered a narrow path to safety, but its capacity was limited, and German air power and artillery relentlessly targeted it.
The blockade of Leningrad began and would endure until January 27, 1944. For many years, Russian and post-Soviet consciousness has carried the weight of this event, and its memory remains vivid to those who lived through it. Estimates of losses during the siege range from about 600,000 to one million residents who perished, most due to starvation. Those who survived carried deep exhaustion and lasting psychological scars, a trauma that blossomed into a lifelong burden for many.
Countless films have portrayed the siege, and more than a hundred memoirs have been published. Curious readers often wonder how Germans perceived this tragedy, a line of inquiry that tends to surface in studies of other historic blockades like Borodino or the Crimean War. Yet when it comes to Leningrad, finding German memories of the blockade proves difficult even for those with solid language skills. This may seem surprising because German historical memory about World War II includes substantial material on notable events such as the defeat at Stalingrad, the Holocaust, the U-boat campaigns, and the broader narrative of Nazi rule. The question remains: why did German collective memory lag behind in acknowledging Leningrad?
Did you lose the victory?
For German researchers, the siege of Leningrad did not exist as a distinct event for a long period. It was treated as a single episode within the failed blitzkrieg strategy: German forces aimed to capture the city and push toward Arkhangelsk, but resource constraints forced a surrounding action rather than a traditional assault. The narrative reflected a common wartime attitude in Germany. An excerpt from a wartime German newspaper, quoted by historians, hints at this perspective and includes reflections from a prominent observer from the era, Marlis G. Steinert, in a study on German public opinion during the Second World War:
“If the city were surrendered, St. Petersburg would likely be spared, yet it has long been viewed as a Bolshevik stronghold and a major center of Russian communist life. There is no desire to risk lives in urban combat with determined adversaries. Therefore St. Petersburg will not be stormed. A Verdun-like bloodbath is what we seek to avoid.”
German generals, including after the war, echoed similar sentiments. The memoirs of Erich von Manstein often label the siege among his so-called “lost victories,” with Leningrad being listed as one entry among others. In this framing, the siege is seen as another episode in world history of sieges. When one looks at older military history, the practice of starving civilians and turning cities into ruins has not always been foreign to conquerors, a grim reminder found in the annals of ancient warfare like the fall of Carthage.
In postwar Europe, there was a shift toward limiting civilian suffering, and the idea that civilian lives should be protected gained prominence. Early in the 20th century, warnings to civilians and international norms, reinforced by the Geneva Conventions, emerged to curb state violence against civilians. Still, understanding the siege requires looking at both the German strategic mindset and the evolving norms around civilians in war. Contemporary German scholarship increasingly recognizes the siege as a deliberate military and political tactic aimed at inflicting suffering on the city’s civilian population, a conclusion aligned with wider historical investigations into Nazi policies.
Many German memoirs from the period offer a soldier-centered view, often casting the Wehrmacht as victims of higher orders rather than agents of destruction. This perspective appears in literary works and memoirs that emphasize the hardships faced by soldiers and the burdens carried home after the fighting. A well-known cultural reference links this sentiment to broader historical echoes, recalling inscriptions and scenes that resonate with ancient battles and heroic narratives. These works, however, give relatively little space to the civilians who endured the worst of the siege.
There is a prevalent narrative among German authors that tends to minimize the civilian dimensions of the blockade, a tendency that has shifted only in recent decades as historians reexamine wartime policies and the moral implications of starvation as a weapon. In the 1970s, scholars began to recognize the broader crimes of Nazism and the strategic choices behind the starvation of cities. A notable monograph published in the early 2000s argued that the Nazi leadership explicitly used hunger as a weapon in pursuit of genocidal aims, a conclusion that has helped redefine how this history is understood.
From a Soviet and later Russian perspective, there was limited international pressure regarding Germany’s responsibility for siege victims for many years. Only after the Cold War ended did Leningrad’s memory become a recognized component of German commemoration. A significant gesture followed in 2019, when Germany allocated funds to support St. Petersburg, including resources for medical facilities serving siege survivors, marking a reconciliation with the city’s wartime experience.