The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

  And here on this mild May morning carpenters were knocking into shape a great gallows with three gibbets that reached out, long and sinister, beyond the wooden platform. Behind a heavy iron grating in a stone-floored cell without light a young man waited for the dawn and the death which he knew it would bring. A half-hour before sunrise Aleksandr Ulyanov and four other young men were taken from their cells and marched to the courtyard. The sentence was read once again: death by hanging for their attempt on the life of Czar Alexander III. Each, as was carefully noted by State Counselor Dmitri Tolstoy, preserved his full calm. Each refused to see a priest.

  The executions began. First, Vasily Generalov, Pakhomii Andreyushkin and Vasily Osipanov mounted the platform. A moment later their bodies swung out, lifeless and dangling. Aleksandr Ulyanov and Pyotr Shevyrev watched their comrades die, then mounted the scaffold and were hanged.

  Since the October Revolution Oreshek had become a shrine. A marble plaque on the Royal Tower noted the names of the Revolutionary martyrs, first among them Aleksandr Ulyanov, elder brother of Vladimir Ilich Lenin.

  Now in these strange September days of 1941 the sound of guns resounded nearer and nearer the old fortress.

  The spearhead of the Nazi Sixteenth Army—the 122nd German Infantry, the 20th Motorized Division and units of the 12th Panzers—had been shouldering eastward since their breakthrough to the Neva banks on August 31. They had advanced north of Mga despite the fierce and repeated attacks of an NKVD rifle division, commanded by Colonel S. I. Donskov, and gradually pushed the NKVD troops back along the river road toward Shlisselburg. Three warships moved up the Neva, the gunboats Strogy and Stroiny and the cruiser Maxim Gorky, and laid down artillery support for the hard-pressed Soviet forces. It did no good.

  On September 7 the Germans brought in three hundred planes to strafe the badly beaten Soviet forces. They fell back, some of the NKVD troops making their way to the north bank of the Neva and two regiments retiring into Shlisselburg. Other elements, including portions of a mountain brigade, retreated south of Sinyavino.

  This movement left the river highway into Shlisselburg virtually clear. The Germans swept up the road and fought their way into the city.

  On the morning of September 7 Party Secretary Andrei A. Zhdanov called a meeting in his Smolny office in an effort to save Shlisselburg and protect Leningrad’s communications with “mainland” Russia. Urgent measures, he said, were being taken by the Leningrad Military Council to hold Shlisselburg. He ordered Admiral I. S. Isakov to take chargé of transport facilities across Lake Ladoga and Inspector A. T. Karavayev of the Naval Political Administration was sent to the scene.

  Karavayev arrived at Shlisselburg station—across the Neva River from the fortress—just after midnight September 8. Shlisselburg and the whole south bank of the Neva were in flames. Soot and sparks rained down on the Alekseyev factory and the 8th Power Station on the north bank.

  The sound of machine-gun fire was clearly audible as the harassed NKVD troops sought to hold off the Germans in the Shlisselburg streets.

  The wharf was filled with people, some refugees from Shlisselburg, others who had relatives there. An old woman ran up to Karavayev crying, “Help me! Help me! My son is on the other side and the Germans are already there.”

  Confusion was complete. No one was in chargé. Only two small tugs were moving across the Neva, bringing out a handful of wounded.

  Karavayev and other naval officers managed to restore partial order. The gunboat Selenga and the cutters BKA-99 and BKA-100 were supporting the NKVD troops. Under their cover Karavayev crossed the Neva and brought to the north bank several boatloads of women, children and wounded.

  The NKVD regiments fell back through the streets and finally crossed to the north bank of the Neva by any means that came to hand. With the occupation of Shlisselburg the encirclement of Leningrad was complete. The only connection Leningrad now possessed with the “mainland” was across Lake Ladoga. Or by air.

  Colonel B. V. Bychevsky was ordered to the north bank of the Neva to try to throw a pontoon bridge over the river by which a Russian counterattack to recapture Shlisselburg might be mounted. Bychevsky looked across to the south bank of the Neva. Fires burned all along the highway to Shlisselburg. Smoke rose over the gothic towers of the fortress city. And through the flames he could see heavy Nazi traffic. The Germans were moving in force. On the northern, Soviet-held bank of the river, it was deathly quiet. Artillery firing points were not yet manned. The mortars were still coming up to the front.

  He looked out the Neva estuary to the ancient fort of Oreshek. It lay near the entrance of the Neva 500 feet from the Shlisselburg wharves but somewhat closer to the Soviet-held shore. There it stood, the gloomy pile which had won the nickname the “Eternal Prison” because from its walls there had been no return. What was going on there Bychevsky had no idea. Probably, he thought, it was held by the Germans. But there was no sign of life, no sign of activity. Above the little islet he could see a circling German observation plane. Long since, Oreshek had lost its military significance. For years it had been an historic monument. The Lake Ladoga flotilla stored some small arms in the old casements where the Czar’s prisoners once languished. But there had been no guns mounted in the fortress fenestrations since the time of Peter.

  Unknown to Bychevsky—or to the Nazis—Oreshek was not deserted. A dozen sailors had been sent there to pack supplies belonging to the Ladoga fleet. When the Germans burst through to the Shlisselburg waterfront, the sailors were still in the subterranean ravelins. Now they had become silent and secret observers of the scene. They saw the German planes overhead. They could see the pontoon troops gathered by Bychevsky across the Neva near Sheremetyevka. From the solid watchtower of the old fort they looked over the harbor to where the Nazi troops were setting up posts on the waterfront, unloading Soviet supplies from the warehouses, and mustering Russian men and women to dig trenches and dugouts. Before their eyes the Germans erected a pillar in the center of Cathedral Square and, driving all citizens from the area, hanged four young workers from crossbeams.

  Unable to restrain themselves, the sailors began to hunt through the jumble of old arms in the Oreshek cellars to see if any were serviceable. They found two cannon, long since discarded, neither with sights. One they mounted in the tower overlooking the city and the other on the fortress wall. Nikolai Konushkin, a youngster with some battery experience, directed the operation. He sighted the guns on a German firing point just across the water and gave the order: ‘Tire!”

  It was never plain to the Russians why the Germans did not embark on cutters and seize the old fortress from the tiny group of defenders. Perhaps they thought it was heavily defended and not worth the price that would have to be paid. Perhaps they were too busy with other plans. Whatever it was, the Germans did not make the effort. Colonel Donskov sent in a reinforcement of NKVD troops, and a night or two later Captain Aleksei Morozov and a group of thirteen sailors of the Ladoga fleet were put ashore on Oreshek. Their task was to set up Battery No. 409—seven 45-mm cannon and six mounted machine guns—around the perimeter of the old fortress. They put in rifle-firing points and snipers’ posts. By this time the Germans had begun to direct artillery fire at the ancient ten-foot walls of the fortress. But the firing points were installed. In the weeks and months to follow, the Germans would rain down thousands of tons of high explosive on Peter’s “hard little nut.” On one September day 250 heavy shells and thousands of mortars hammered at the old walls. It was not clear for a long time whether Oreshek had the strength to hold out. Not until November 7 did the Soviet command feel confident enough of its strength to unfurl the red flag over the fortress. Once the flag was flown, it kept on flying. Sixty thousand shells rained down on the fort. Six times the flag was shot down. Five hundred days later when the Red Army began its first effort to lift the Leningrad blockade, the red flag still flew over Oreshek.

  Now the Germans stood at Shlisselburg. They stood along the Neva for fiftee
n miles. From the rapids at Porogi around the great bend, past Nev-skaya Dubrovka and on to Shlisselburg the south bank of the river was theirs. Only the river and thirty or forty miles of wooded country stood between them and the Finnish lines; between the Germans and Hitler’s prime objective, his basic order to von Leeb, to his commanders for Operation Barbarossa: junction with the Finns, the encirclement and extermination of Leningrad and then the massive sweep to the south to envelop Moscow.

  The Germans stood in strength along the Neva now. Why did they not cross?

  The answer is not apparent to Soviet scholars who have studied the battle with minute care.

  The river is, of course, a formidable barrier. Starting at the Lake Ladoga entrance, it has a width of 400 yards and gradually broadens to 600 yards, then narrows to 250 yards and then to 175 yards where the river Mga joins it. The breadth is considerable. The Germans reached the river without pontoons or river-crossing equipment. Thanks to the foresight of Colonel Bychevsky, the Neva bridges had been blown. The Nazis were not lucky enough to repeat their experiences of the early river crossings. Obviously, a crossing would not be easy.

  Yet the question of why the Germans did not try is not answered.

  Dmitri Shcheglov, the Leningrad writer who had joined a People’s Volunteer unit, was dispatched with his battalion of Volunteers to the north bank of the Neva on August 31. They marched, along the bank through a rainy night and on September 1 took up positions from the little village of Kuzminki (where Bychevsky had just destroyed the railroad bridge) through Peski to Nevskaya Dubrovka. They were spread over six or seven miles of river bank. Across the river they heard the constant sound of rifle and artillery fire in the days to come. On September 3 some villagers excitedly reported that they had seen a Nazi detachment cross the river in boats and land on a small island only about 100 feet from the Kuzminki shore. Shcheglov’s Volunteer unit had no artillery. In fact, they had hardly any ammunition and only fifteen machine guns. There was an antiaircraft unit nearby, and they got the AA gunners to lay some fire onto the islet. Soon a squad of Nazis was seen hastily pulling away in a small boat. Later four bodies of Nazi soldiers were found on the island.

  By September 5 the ill-armed Volunteers were reinforced by an under-strength regiment of the 115th Division which had been pulled out of encirclement near Vyborg. This was a badly beaten-up unit, tired, grim, even more poorly armed than the Volunteers. They had lost all their guns and all their cannon and ammunition escaping the trap into which they had fallen. Their uniforms were torn, dirty and muddy. The men were so exhausted they could hardly stand. Shcheglov went to the staff headquarters, set up in a peasant hut at Plintovka. The Chief of Staff, Colonel Simonov, propped his head on a hand. His eyes were closed as though he were asleep. But he was not. He was listening to the discussion. Suddenly he sat bolt upright and started to talk:

  “Why do you think we are here? Why did we have to give up Vyborg? Because the Finns concentrated against us 200,000 soldiers and officers, and on our side of the border there were only 50,000. They were able to do that and we still haven’t learned anything! What’s the result? They smashed three of our divisions. You have to know that. Don’t hide your heads under your wings like ostriches! The Finns are at Terijoki. And they are moving on Beloostrov and the Sestra River. Right here the Germans are going to try to cross the Neva in order to join up with the Finns on the Karelian isthmus. And we are going to stop that operation. We have got to outdo them. Take the initiative in your hands. Is that clear?”

  It was clear enough. What was not clear was what would halt the Nazis when they started to cross the river.

  On September 7 Shcheglov and his battalion saw for the first time, from their foxholes on the banks of the Neva, the Germans in force. They were moving up the highway toward Shlisselburg. They saw troop trucks, heavy equipment and tanks. They could almost make out the expressions on the German faces. Communications units passed by, motorcycle detachments, perfectly visible between the sandy river bank and a line of workers’ houses just beyond the Leningrad-Shlisselburg Chaussée.

  “Why don’t you open fire?” Shcheglov asked a young lieutenant at a machine-gun post.

  “That is categorically forbidden,” he replied.

  “But you can see the enemy with your own eyes!” Shcheglov exclaimed. “He is getting ready to cross, devil take him!”

  “I have less than a thousand cartridges for my machine gun,” the lieutenant explained patiently. “And we have no bullets for our rifles. When we will get ammunition I don’t know.”

  The Germans did not try to cross the river that day. Nor the next. Not until very late in the night of September 9 did the handful of Soviet troops on the Neva line get any artillery. That night twenty guns, straight from the gun works at the Kirov factory, arrived in a truck column. It was long after midnight. The night was deathly still. A full moon shone down. All that night Shcheglov went from post to post, distributing the guns. He found some commanders so tired he could hardly wake them. When they staggered up, hardly conscious, they could not understand what he was talking about when he warned that this very night the Germans might cross the river. It was dawn before the last gun was mounted. Would it be enough to halt the Germans?

  Two days later Shcheglov and his units were still waiting. They knew the Germans were on the river across from them, but they had no notion of what was going on. They had lost all connection with Colonel Donskov and the NKVD troops that were defending Shlisselburg. What had happened to them and what had happened at Shlisselburg no one knew. On the night of the eleventh Shcheglov and a small unit slipped across the Neva to try and discover whether the Germans were preparing to attack. They found that Nazi tank columns were now returning from Shlisselburg, moving back in the Leningrad direction. That meant one thing: the Germans were not preparing to cross the Neva at this point. They must be mustering strength for a smash across somewhere closer to Leningrad, to the right of Shcheglov’s position, possibly beyond Annenskoye village near the Mga River. The next morning they made contact with Donskov’s NKVD units, which they found moving into positions on their left flank, having gradually reassembled after the fall of Shlisselburg and the crossing of the Neva.

  The Germans, it appeared, had made a weak attempt to follow Donskov’s troops across the river. But a small artillery unit commanded by Colonel F. A. Budanov had taken up a position across from Shlisselburg on September 7. Budanov’s guns were able to cover the crossing by Donskov’s troops and discourage the Germans from following over.

  Among the Nazi forces on the south bank of the Neva was an SS division which had participated in the German parachute landing in Crete. It was ordered by von Leeb to carry out a crossing to the north bank of the Neva. Von Leeb is said to have ordered the crossing on September 9. If such an attack was tried, it apparently was weak and easily frustrated. No substantial accounts of any attempted river crossing have survived in the memoirs of officers and soldiers who were stationed along the Neva at that time, although many Soviet histories flatly assert that a Nazi attack was turned back. Why a determined German effort was not made is still a mystery.1

  The mystery of the Neva deepens when examined from the German side. On August 31 Haider noted in his diary that the question of the “assault of Leningrad"—that is, of a frontal attack upon the city—was still being held open although Keitel’s barbarous proposal that the Germans refuse to feed Leningrad’s population after capitulation and, instead, that the people simply be driven from the city had been rejected because “it cannot be carried out in practice and therefore is wholly pointless.”

  Five days later Hitler again conferred with his staff. He now felt that the German objectives had been achieved and that Leningrad would become a “subsidiary theater of operations.” The chief target was Shlisselburg—a decision which was obviously reflected in the drive of the Sixteenth Army up the south bank of the Neva to the old fortress city.

  As for Leningrad, it was to be invested along wha
t Hitler called “the outer siege line,” and as much infantry “as possible” was to be put across the Neva in order to close a tight circle around the city from the east.

  Once this was achieved, Reinhardt’s armored corps could be released for the coming battle for Moscow. The junction with the Finnish Army was to be achieved through Lodeinoye Pole on the southeastern shores of Lake Ladoga.

  The German opportunity to cross the Neva, join hands with the Finns and seal off Leningrad completely from the outside world was missed. Had it been launched at any time during the first ten or twelve days of September, it could hardly have failed. There were not enough Soviet forces on the north bank of the Neva to offer more than light opposition. The guns were not in place. There was no ammunition. There were no tanks. The troops manning the thin line of hastily dug field works were either People’s Volunteers or the remnants of divisions which had been so badly mauled they could have done little but offer token resistance.

  Later on the Germans would try again to cross the Neva, to close the ring and cut off the Lake Ladoga communications route. But they would never have as good an opportunity as that which they missed during these early September days.

  * * *

  1 One Soviet account asserts that the 115th Division and the Volunteer units to which Shcheglov was attachéd, together with students of a Border Guard academy, repulsed the Germans. (Shtein, Znamya, No. 6, June, 1964, pp. 145 et seq.; Sviridov, op. cit., p. 153 et seq.) Pavlov (op. cit., 2nd edition, p. 23) says the crossing was attempted on the night of September 9 between Porogi and Sheremetyevka but was frustrated with heavy losses by “workers battalions” on the right bank of the Neva. Presumably these are the battalions to which Shcheglov was attachéd. He mentions no such action. The Leningrad Naval Defense Staff reported that on September 9 the Germans attempted to cross the Neva between Porogi and Sheremetyevka but were beaten off by the 115th Infantry, the 4th Brigade of marines and workers battalions, supported by naval artillery on warships in the Neva. Hundreds of German bodies lined the Neva after the attack was repulsed (Panteleyev, pp. 156, 195). The official Leningrad history says the Germans attempted to cross but were hurled back by Soviet forces on the north bank aided by naval vessels in the Ivanovskoye rapids. (Leningrad v VOVy p. 147.) Kochetov says the Germans tried to break through at Porogi September 9. (Oktyabr, No. 6, June, 1965, p. 163.) What seems much more likely is the explanation of the authors of N.Z. (p. 152), who assert that the 39th Nazi Corps had no pontoons and that this forced the Germans temporarily to give up plans to cross the Neva. Small groups, these authorities say, tried to cross and were beaten back with heavy losses.