The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

  This was it. The offensive was over. The Germans were digging in for winter.

  The twenty-first was the day at the Führer’s headquarters that a special memorandum was submitted to Hitler by General Warlimont on the question of Leningrad. The frontal assault on the city, the Germans now knew, would not succeed. Indeed, it would not take place. What to do? Warli-mont’s thesis was headed: “On the Blockade of Leningrad.”

  As a beginning we will blockade Leningrad (hermetically) and destroy the city, if possible, by artillery and air power. . . .

  When terror and hunger have done their work in the city, we can open a single gate and permit unarmed people to exit. . . .

  The rest of the “fortress garrison” can remain there through the winter. In the spring we will enter the city (not objecting if the Finns do this before us), sending all who remain alive into the depths of Russia, or take them as prisoners, raze Leningrad to the ground and turn the region north of the Neva over to Finland.

  The next day a secret directive was issued, No. ia 1601/41. It was headed: “The Future of the City of Petersburg.”

  It said:

  1. The Führer has decided to raze the City of Petersburg from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia there will be not the slightest reason for the future existence of this large city. Finland has also advised us of its lack of interest in the further existence of this city immediately on her new frontiers.

  2. The previous requests of the Navy for the preservation of the wharves, harbor and naval installations are known to the OKB. However, their fulfillment will not be possible in view of the general line with regard to Petersburg.

  3. It is proposed to blockade the city clÖsely and by means of artillery fire of all caliber and ceaseless bombardment from the air to raze it to the ground.

  If this creates a situation in the city which produces calls for surrender, they will be refused. . . .6

  The evidence of the men at the front was true. The Germans had halted. They had suffered terribly. Some Nazi divisions had lost up to two-thirds of their personnel.7 But these were not to be compared to the ghost divisions which faced them—the Soviet outfits which had been wiped out, sometimes twice or three times over.

  Zhukov had won the military battle of Leningrad. Within a week troops from Leningrad would be on their way to help stem the German tide before Moscow. The first of these troops, the 6th Guards Division, began to report to General D. D. Lelyushenko, hard pressed to hold his lines on the Mtsensk approaches to the capital, on October 5.

  The next evening the telephone rang in Zhukov’s offices in Smolny. It was Stalin. What did things look like in Leningrad? Zhukov said that the Nazi attacks had eased off, the Germans had gone over to the defense, and intelligence reports showed heavy movements of Nazi tanks and artillery away from Leningrad to the south, presumably in the Moscow direction.

  Stalin received the report silently, then, after a pause, said that the Moscow situation was serious, particularly on the Western Front.

  “Turn your command over to your deputy and come to Moscow,” Stalin ordered.

  Zhukov bade a hasty farewell to Zhdanov and his other Leningrad associates and telephoned General Fedyuninsky: “Have you forgotten that you’re my deputy? Come immediately.”

  It was almost morning before Fedyuninsky got back to Smolny. “Take over command of the front,” Zhukov said. “You know the situation. I’ve been called to Stavka.”8

  In the early morning hours Zhukov flew off to take over command of the Battle of Moscow. Now the real struggle would begin in Leningrad—the struggle with the allies whom the Germans had called to their side: Generals Hunger, Cold and Terror.

  * * *

  1 Artillery Marshal N. N. Voronov credited mass artillery fire—field, coastal and naval —with halting the Germans. (Voronov, Na Shluzhbe Voennoi, Moscow, 1963, p. 189.)

  2 A curious controversy has arisen in Soviet historiography about the Eighth Army and its orders to counterattack. The distinguished naval historians V. Achkasov and B. Veiner describe the counterattack as having been carried out. The authoritative Bitva Za Leningrad (Barbashin) suggests that it was carried out and gives the Eighth Army great credit for engaging and weakening the Germans. (Barbashin, op. cit., pp. 70-71.) However, V. P. Sviridov, V. P. Yakutovich and V. Ye. Vasilenko cite chapter and verse of Shcherbakov’s refusal to carry out the attack. (Bitva Za Leningrad, pp. 126 et seq.) And the authoritative A. Karasev and V, Kovalchuk agree with Sviridov and Co. (Voyenno-lstoricheskii Zhurnal, No. 1, January, 1964, p. 84.) The ouster of Shcherbakov September 24 suggests that Sviridov and Co. are right.

  3 Mzhavanadze became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia after Stalin’s death and in 1957 was named a member of the Presidium (now Politburo) of the Soviet Communist Party.

  4 A favorite slogan of these days was: “Leningrad is not afraid of death—death is afraid of Leningrad.”

  5 A whole series of dates have been given by Soviet historians for the day the Leningrad front was stabilized. They range from September 18 (selected by only a few) to September 23, 25, 26, 29, and October 13. (Lieutenant General F. Lagunov, Voyenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, No. 12, December, 1964, p. 93.) Admiral Panteleyev heard from Leningrad on the evening of the nineteenth that the German attacks had been beaten off. (Panteleyev, op. cit., p. 218.) “The front was stabilized September 19,” says the authoritative Leningrad v VOV (p. 157).

  6 This order was reaffirmed in a secret decree of October 7, High Command Order No. 44 1675/41, in which the plans for the eradication of Leningrad were reaffirmed and it was again stated that the capitulation of neither Leningrad nor Moscow was to be accepted. (Barbashin, op. cit., p. 77.)

  7 The German 1st, 58th and 93rd divisions had lost two-thirds of their personnel and material. The 121st and 269th were at about 40 percent strength. (Barbashin, op. cit., p. 73.) The Russians estimated German casualties in the Leningrad campaign at 170,000 (Ibid., p. 145); Pavlov says 190,000 to September 25 (Pavlov, op. cit., 2nd edition, p. 28).

  8 Stalin’s telephone call to Zhukov was produced by an incredible development. The attention of Stalin and his High Command had been riveted on the rapid Nazi drive toward Tula, southwest of Moscow. The night of October 4 and 5 had been the most alarming of the war. Communications between the Western Front and the Kremlin had been broken and Stalin had no notion of what was happening. As early as 9 A.M. on October 5 word came of a Nazi breakthrough on the central front, a scant hundred miles west of Moscow, toward Mozhaisk. The report first was dismissed as the product of “panic.” At noon, however, a Soviet reconnaissance plane spotted a fifteen-mile-long Nazi armored column advancing rapidly on the Spas-Demensk highway toward Yukhnov. No one in Moscow could believe the Germans were so close, and there was no Soviet force to bar their sweep into the city. Two more reconnaissance planes were sent out. Only after each verified the sighting was the news reported to Stalin. His immediate order was to throw together a scratch force to hold up the Germans for five to seven days while reserves were brought up. Stalin then assembled his top echelon including Police Chief Beria. Beria called the reports a “provocation.” He said his agents at the front, the so-called “special department,” had reported nothing about a breakthrough. When others insisted that the air reports were correct, he responded with the words “Very well,” pronounced with special emphasis. A short time later he summoned the responsible air officer, Colonel N. A. Sbytov, and put him in the hands of his chief of military counterintelligence, V. S. Abakumov, who threatened to turn Sbytov and the reconnaissance fliers over to a field tribunal for execution. The intelligence, however, was correct. It was in this crisis, with the Moscow line being held by infantry and artillery cadets and scattered forces taken from headquarters companies, that Stalin called in Zhukov. (K. F. Telegin, Voprosy Istorii KPSS, No. 9, September, 1966, pp. 102 et seq.) Fedyuninsky mistakenly dates this talk as of October 10. (Fedyuninsky, Podnyatye Po Tvevoge, Moscow, 1964, p. 60.) Zhukov in thre
e versions says he turned over command to his Chief of Staff, General M. S. Khozin. In fact, the formal transfer of command from Zhukov to Fedyuninsky is dated October 10, but Zhukov had arrived in Moscow October 7. Khozin replaced Fedyuninsky as commander October 26, 1941. (Zhukov, Voyenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, No. 8, August, 1966, p. 56; A. M. Samsonov, Proval Gitlerovskogo Nastupleniya na Moskvu, Moscow, 1966, p. 18; A. A. Dobrodomov, Bitva Za Moskvu, Moscow, 1966, p. 56; Barbashin, op. cit., p. 582.) K. F. Telegin, Political Commissar for the Moscow Military District, reports that Zhukov was called to Moscow on the evening of October 6. Zhukov says he arrived in Moscow on the evening of October 7 and conferred immediately with Stalin, who was ill with the grippe but working alone in his office. On October 10 Zhukov was named to command the Western Front. (K. F. Telegin, Voprosy Istorii KPSS, No. 9, September, 1966, p. 104; Zhukov in Bitva Za Moskvu, 2nd edition, Moscow, 1968, p. 64.)

  34 The ♦ King’s Fortress

  THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 23 DAWNED CLEAR, BRIGHT and crisp on the little island of Kotlin. Kotlin, a mile and three-quarters long by a half-mile wide, was better known as Kronstadt—home of the Baltic Fleet, the naval bastion of Leningrad, the “King’s Fortress” or Kronstadt as Peter the Great christened it in 1710.

  Today as on every day for three months Kronstadt awoke to war, grim, menacing, close. There was war all about the little island—war five miles across the sound on the Oranienbaum shore where naval guns at Krasnaya Gorka and Seraya Loshad were holding the Germans back, war in the anchorage where the great warships of the fleet poured molten lead and steel into the Nazi lines, war in the skies overhead where the German planes were attacking in greater and greater strength, war in the old streets and buildings of the naval town where German siege shells smashed down like triphammers.

  That was the kind of morning it was. Admiral Panteleyev, a thoughtful man with a deep love of nature, noted in his diary that it was a “remarkably quiet, sunny morning in golden autumn.” Long after, he was puzzled why he had used those words. But everything had become relative by that time.

  He noticed that the German artillery fire seemed heavier than usual. The Germans were aiming for the naval factory and the ships in the anchorage. At the moment there was no air alert on, and a smoke screen had been laid to protect the ships and naval installations from the German fire.

  The Baltic Fleet had suffered in its terrible exodus from Tallinn, but it was still a powerful force. Standing that day in the road at Kronstadt and in the Leningrad Harbor and the Neva were 2 battleships, 2 cruisers, 13 destroyers, 12 gunboats, 42 submarines, 6 coastal defense ships, 9 armed cutters, 68 trawlers and mine layers, 38 torpedo boats and 134 miscellaneous naval craft. The fleet had at its disposal 286 planes. Its coastal and shore batteries counted 400 guns. Before the year was over it would provide 83,746 sailors for shore combat, most of them in Leningrad. It was not a force to be trifled with.

  Hitler had ordered the Baltic Fleet destroyed and Kronstadt razed. Within the week Nazi planes had showered the fortress and the fleet with leaflets saying: “Leningrad to the ground! Kronstadt to the sea!”

  Hitler had launched his naval war in the east with one aim only: the extinction of the Baltic Fleet. Now he was not going to let it slip through his fingers. Even before the war Hitler told his commanders in May, 1941, that if the Soviet warships sought to intern themselves in Sweden the Nazi Army must prevent it. If the warships reached Swedish waters, Germany would demand that the Swedes surrender them.

  Plan Barbarossa contained a special supplement called Warzburg. Under this, between June 10 and 20 the Germans had laid down a thick barrier of mines designed to keep the Baltic Fleet in Russian waters so it could be destroyed at leisure.

  The Baltic Fleet, except for its submarines, had not moved from the Gulf of Finland, and Plan Warzburg had not effected its destruction. A new plan called Valkyrie was set afoot to destroy the main strength of the Baltic Fleet when it was driven out of Tallinn. This, too, had failed, although the Soviet losses at Tallinn were heavy.

  Now with the Nazi ring being drawn close around Leningrad Hitler again feared that the Baltic Fleet might escape to Sweden. Two large naval forces had been concentrated by the Germans off the Aland Islands and at Libau. They were to destroy the Baltic Fleet if it tried to break out. The battleships Tirpitz and Admiral Scheer, the light cruisers Nümberg and Köln and some smaller craft stood near the Aland Islands. At Libau were the cruisers Emden and Leipzig.

  On September 6 Hitler issued Order No. 35, which said:

  “In cooperation with the Finns mine barriers and artillery fire must be employed to blockade Kronstadt and prevent the fleet from entering the Baltic Sea.”

  The net was tight. But the Baltic Fleet was hardly passive. It mustered 338 large guns, either on warships, in coastal batteries or mounted on railroad carriages. These were guns of calibers of 100 or more. Among them were 78 guns of calibers from 180 to 406. The biggest was a 406-mm railroad cannon with a range of 45.6 kilometers (28 miles). It fired a shell weighing 1,108 kilograms (approximately 2,440 pounds).1 The second largest was a 356-mm gun, also a railroad weapon. It fired 31.2 kilometers with a shell of 747.8 kilos. There was limited ammunition for these guns, and they were used rarely. The old battleship Marat had 305-mm guns in its main battery. They fired 29.4 kilometers and used 470.9-kilo shells. The work horses of the Baltic Fleet batteries were 108-mm, 132-mm and 130-mm guns with ranges of 37.8 to 25.5 kilometers.

  The naval batteries had been integrated into the Leningrad defense system September 4 by Vice Admiral 1.1. Gren under plans which had been worked out by the Naval Commissar, Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, and the Army Artillery Marshal N. N. Voronov in early September.

  Admiral Gren was one of the navy’s leading artillery specialists. Like most artillery men he had a tin ear. Once he was attending a meeting at which Stalin savagely criticized the naval artillery plans. He sat silent, apparently unmoved by Stalin’s words. Stalin was curious about this and asked who he was/Admiral Kuznetsov explained he had done much to develop Soviet naval gun power.

  “In that case Comrade Gren should be promoted,” said Stalin. “At your service,” responded Gren immediately.

  Admiral Gren had set up his command post ashore and divided the fleet into three groups. The first, the Neva group, consisted of smaller craft— gunboats, mine sweepers, smaller destroyers. They were stationed in the Neva from Smolny east to the Izhorsk region. The second detachment, the Leningrad group, included the cruiser October Revolution (the former Petropavlovsk), stationed at the coal wharves, the cruiser Maxim Gorky, near the grain elevator, and some smaller warships scattered about the commercial docks. The third group was at the Kronstadt-Oranienbaum anchorage. This included the battleship Marat posted across from Strelna, the cruiser Kirov at Kronstadt, and a strong collection of other cruisers.

  Since August 30 the naval guns had been defending Leningrad. That day the Neva squadron went into action against advancing Nazis in the Ivanov-skoye region of the river.

  The next day heavy fleet batteries opened up at 1:45 P.M. against the Germans, probably in the Gatchina area. The Neva flotilla and the heavy Rzhevka polygon answered 28 calls for artillery fire and launched 340 shells from their I3o-to-4o6-mm guns. The next day the 12-inch guns of the Krasnaya Gorka battery on the Oranienbaum plateau went into action against German armor.

  Many naval guns were demounted and put to use on land. Two old 130-mm nine- and ten-gun batteries from the forty-year-old crusier Aurora, whose guns fired blanks on the Winter Palace that evening in November, 1917, and frightened the remaining Kerensky ministers into surrendering to Lenin’s Bolsheviks, were placed in position on the Pulkovo Heights. Sixteen 130-mm two-gun railroad batteries went into action in late August. Another 55 batteries had been set up before the end of September, including 2 180-mm gun positions and 18 120-mm batteries equipped with guns demounted from warships.

  The harder the battle raged, the stronger the naval guns resounded. When the Nazis b
roke through Krasnoye Selo and into Ligovo, the heavy guns of the cruisers Gorky and Petropavlovsk poured in their shells. The concentration of naval railroad artillery was so heavy in the Gatchina area that five batteries—Nos. 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24—fell into encirclement. Firing at open range against German tanks, all five fought their way back to the Soviet lines.

  Battery No. u, equipped with a 356-mm gun, firing a 1,500-pound shell, got off 568 rounds between September 9 and 25, knocking out 35 tanks, 12 artillery installations, a battalion of Nazi infantry and a train loaded with German troops and equipment. The Kronstadt guns laid down 358 barrages in September, delivering 9,368 shells.

  By August 20 the navy had put into action 170 shore batteries, including 48 railroad guns. Six batteries were formed around 13 large guns taken out of the experimental naval artillery park. Leningrad factories worked twenty-four-hour shifts to complete heavy railroad carriages for new naval mountings. Battery No. 1109 was mounted on rails August 25 and at 11 A.M., August 26, went into action. Twenty-nine new railroad batteries with 70 guns were put into operation between August 1, 1941, and February 15, 1942, as well as 61 stationary batteries with 176 guns.

  Almost half of the navy’s fire power was concentrated along the Neva, backing up the sagging lines just south of the Leningrad city line.

  Under intense naval bombardment, the Nazis began to throw in air power in an effort to knock out the fleet guns. Fleet air protection was weak. The fleet air fighter arm and its AA guns had been put under the Leningrad Air Defense Command. Admiral Tributs complained repeatedly that the warships strung out from the upper Neva to Kronstadt were poorly protected. The complaints went unheeded. The Leningrad Command was too busy. The truth was that Kronstadt and the warships had virtually no protection. So long as the Luftwaffe left the warships alone everything was fine.