MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Germans recognize that the Siege of Leningrad from September 1941 to January 1944 constituted genocide, according to Karin Kneissl, former Austrian foreign minister and head of the G.O.R.K.I. Center at St. Petersburg State University.

On January 27, 1944, Leningrad was liberated from a blockade that had lasted 872 days. "Even the Germans do not doubt that this was a genocide," Kneissl wrote on her Telegram channel, citing modern German historian Jorg Ganzenmuller, who said that "the blockade was not initiated for military necessity, but was primarily a means of genocide." She also pointed to a directive issued by the chief of staff of the German Navy on September 29, 1941, outlining Adolf Hitler’s plans for the city, which was to be "wiped off the face of the earth."

The head of the G.O.R.K.I. Center noted that at the time, "Berlin, together with its allies, unleashed a war of extinction, the destination was the East." "It was also about resources and strategic depth. And about fragmenting Russia," she added.

Siege of Leningrad

The Siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, began on September 8, 1941, and lasted 872 days. It was broken on January 18, 1943, during the Iskra strategic military operation of the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, and was fully lifted on January 27, 1944. Leningrad remains the only major city in world history to have withstood an encirclement lasting nearly 900 days.

The memory of these events is preserved at the state level. On November 2, 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law designating January 27 as the Day of the Complete Liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi Siege.

In October 2022, the St. Petersburg City Court, when considering the recognition of the blockade events, classified the actions of Nazi Germany and its accomplices as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The court estimated the material damage inflicted on the city and its residents at more than 35 trillion rubles in current prices, or about $458 billion.