CRIMES OF THE GERMAN INVADERS AGAINST THE CIVILIAN POPULATION OF LENINGRAD REGION DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR (1941–1944)

DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2025-6-1-5-13

УДК 94(470)”1941/1944″

ББК 63.3(2)622-9

Vladislav N. BANNIKOV

Key words

the Great Patriotic War, occupation of Leningrad region, crimes against civilians, the Nazi terror, forced labor.

Abstract

The publication is dedicated to the celebration of the 80^th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and can be used in the field of preserving the historical memory about one of the most tragic and important events in the history of our country.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the forms and methods of the Nazi terror committed against the civilian population of Leningrad region.

Materials and methods. When writing the publication, documents of management and record keeping were used, for example, acts of district commissions to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders, as well as personal sources: memoirs and interviews of residents of the occupied territories of Leningrad region. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. When analyzing the problem, the historical-systematic method, the method of consistency and the descriptive-narrative method were used.

Results. The occupation of Leningrad Region became one of the most difficult periods in the history of the region. In addition to an enormous material damage, the occupied territories of Leningrad region suffered damage in the field of human resources. A large number of people became victims of the Nazi terror or were abducted for forced labour in Germany and other occupied territories of the USSR. At the final trial on German atrocities in Leningrad Region, the State Prosecutor F.L. Petrovsky stated that during the occupation of Leningrad Region by the Nazis, more than 60,000 civilians, including children, the elderly and women, were shot, hanged, burned and tortured, and more than 500,000 people were abducted by the Germans to Germany and other occupied territories for hard labor. During the occupation period, the Nazis’ racial and ideological beliefs about undesirable categories of the population were fully implemented in Leningrad Region, and mass exterminations of the Jews, the Gypsies, mentally ill people, communists and relatives of soldiers of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army took place. The Germans regarded the population that could not be exterminated as a source of free labor. The locals, who were herded into forced labor, did the hardest work: they dug trenches, laid roads and cables, etc.

Conclusions. A number of grave crimes were committed against civilians during occupation of Leningrad region by the Nazis: from robberies of the population and abduction of people for forced labor to genocide organization. During the reign of terror, the Nazis tried to intimidate people. No investigations were conducted, one denunciation was sufficient for suspicion, and the “accused” were often tortured before their execution. Imposition of collective responsibility was also manifested in such a well–known practice since antiquity as decimation – execution of one in ten for a crime or disobedience.

References

1. Bez sroka davnosti: prestupleniya natsistov i ikh posobnikov protiv mirnogo naseleniya na okkupirovannoi territorii RSFSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny. Leningradskaya oblast’: sb. arkh. dok. [No statute of limitations: crimes of the Nazis and their accomplices against the civilian population in the occupied territory of the RSFSR during the Great Patriotic War. Leningrad Region: Collection of archival documents]. Moscow, 2020, 235 p.
2. V okkupatsii na Siverskoi [In the occupation on Siverskaya]. Available at: http://www.history-gatchina.ru/article/okkupacia.htm (Accessed Date: 2025, Jan. 15).
3. Voina, okkupatsiya, rasstrel: vspominayut ochevidtsy [War, occupation, execution: eyewitnesses recall]. Available at: https://gtn-pravda.ru/2021/05/08/voyna-okkupatsija-rasstrel-vspominajut-ochevidtsi.html (Accessed Date: 2025, Jan. 16).
4. Za blokadnym kol’tsom. Sbornik vospominanii zhitelei Leningradskoi oblasti vremen germanskoi okkupatsii 1941–1944 gg. [Beyond the Siege Ring. A Collection of Memories of Leningrad Region Residents During the German Occupation of 1941–1944]. St. Petersburg, Vesti Publ., 2010, 640 p.
5. Kovalev B.N. Povsednevnaya zhizn’ naseleniya Rossii v period natsistskoi okkupatsii [Everyday life of the population of Russia during the Nazi occupation]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya Publ., 2011, 618 p.
6. Lomagin N.A. Neizvestnaya blokada [Unknown blockade]. St. Petersburg, Neva Publ., 2002, 960 p.
7. Okkupatsiya yugo-zapada Leningradskoi oblasti v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (vospominaniya ochevidtsev) [Occupation of the southwest of the Leningrad region during the Great Patriotic War (eyewitness accounts)]. St. Petersburg, Lema Publ., 2011, 364 p.
8. Smol’skii D.I. Kingisepp i kingisepptsy v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [Kingisepp and Kingisepp residents during the Great Patriotic War]. Kingisepp, Redaktor-plyus Publ., 1995, 62 p.
9. Sudebnyi protsess po delu o nemetsko-fashistskikh zverstvakh v Leningradskoi oblasti [Trial of Nazi atrocities in Leningrad region]. Available at: https://rapsinews.ru/historical_memory_publication/20221130/308521739.html (Accessed Date: 2025, Jan. 16).
10. Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga. Fond 9421. Opis 1 [Central State Archives of St. Petersburg. Archive 9421. Anagraph 1].
11. Tsypin V.M. Tsarskoe Selo – Gorod Pushkin. Evreiskie stranitsy istorii [Tsarskoe Selo – Pushkin City. Jewish Pages of History]. Lod, Khranitel’ Idei Publ., 2013, 316 p.

About the author

Vladislav N. Bannikov – Post-Graduate Student, Department of History, Moscow City Pedagogical University, Russia, Moscow (vladbannikov@bk.ru).

For citations

Bannikov V.N. Crimes of the German invaders against the civilian population of Leningrad region during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1944). Historical Search, 2025, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 5–13. DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2025-6-1-5-13 (in Russian).

Download the full article