Russia at war 1941-1945

armoured attacks, they inevitably retreated.

[Karasev, op. cit., p. 99.]

The strong Russian stand along a large part of the Luga Line since the middle of July nevertheless forced the Germans to regroup their forces and it was not till August 8 that the "final" offensive against Leningrad began. The defenders of the Luga Line were outflanked both in the west and in the east, and by August 21, they found themselves at the tip of a salient, thirteen miles wide and nearly 130 miles deep, with the Germans crashing ahead towards the Gulf of Finland south-west of Leningrad and towards Lake

Ladoga south-east of the city. For fear of being encircled, they had to pull out—which they did in chaotic conditions. On August 21 the Germans captured Chudovo, thus

cutting the main Leningrad-Moscow railway, and, by the 30th, after heavy fighting, they captured Mga, and cut Leningrad's last railway link with the rest of the country. Having concentrated an enormous number of tanks and planes both south-west and south-east of Leningrad, the Germans now confidently expected to take the city by storm. Despite

desperate Russian resistance, the German forces broke through to the south bank of Lake Ladoga. They captured a large part of the left bank of the Neva, including Schlüsselburg, but failed to cross the river. Leningrad was now isolated from the rest of the country, except for highly precarious communications across Lake Ladoga. South and south-west of the city the position of the Russians was equally desperate, with the Germans having broken through to the Gulf of Finland only a few miles south-west of the city and

attacking heavily in the Kolpino and Pulkovo areas some fifteen miles south of

Leningrad. The Russians, however, maintained a large bridgehead at Oranienbaum,

opposite Kronstadt, and to the west of the point at which the Germans had reached the Gulf. In the north, on September 4, the Finns occupied the former frontier station of Beloostrov, twenty miles north of Leningrad, but were thrown out on the following day.

As early as August 20, at the meeting of the Leningrad Party aktiv, Voroshilov and Zhdanov admitted the extreme seriousness of the situation. Zhdanov said that the whole population, and particularly the young, must be given a rudimentary training in shooting, grenade-throwing and street-fighting.

Either the working-class of Leningrad will be turned into slaves, and the best among them exterminated, or we shall turn Leningrad into the Fascists' grave.. .

[ D. N. Pavlov, Leningrad v blokade (Leningrad During the Blockade) (Moscow, 1961), pp. 14-15.]

On the following day the famous Appeal to the people of Leningrad, signed by

Voroshilov, Zhdanov and Popkov, chairman of the Leningrad Soviet, was published:

Let us, like one man [it concluded] rise to the defence of our city, of our homes and families, our freedom and honour. Let us do our sacred duty as Soviet patriots in our relentless struggle against a hated and ruthless enemy, let us be vigilant and merciless in dealing with cowards, panic-mongers and deserters, let us establish thestrictest revolutionary discipline in our city. Armed with such iron discipline andBolshevik organisation, let us meet the enemy and throw him back.

During those days there was no certainty at all that the Germans would not break into Leningrad. As Pavlov later wrote:

Everything had been prepared for destroying the enemy forces inside the city.

Factories, bridges and public buildings were mined, and their wreckage would have fallen on the enemies' heads and stopped their tanks. The civilian population, not to mention the soldiers and sailors of the Baltic Fleet, were prepared for street