"Why breaking the Leningrad blockade in November 1941 failed"

[Juan Fajardo <fajardos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Terrible Secrets of WWII: Injustice of the Past Uncovered
Why breaking the Leningrad blockade in November 1941 failed

by
Sergey Glezerov

September 8, 1941 is not only a tragic day in the whole history of the
Russian city of Leningrad (now St.Petersburg) when a 900-day blockade
was imposed and which tragedy and heroism shocked the world. This day is
one more reason to revive in memory the events of those days.
[...]

Nowadays, when we have access to the documents that used to be
inaccessible before, we can have a look at the events from a different
angle.[...] These documents throw light on one of the little known
episodes of the Leningrad battle, an attempt to run the blockade in
November 1941. As it often happened in the days of the war, people
guilty of the failure were sentenced to execution by shooting.

In 16 years, under Soviet Leader Nikita Khruschev, those people were
rehabilitated. However, the official ideology of the Soviet Union
couldn't allow even a slight shadow to be cast on the heroic aspect of
the Leningrad Battle. That is why the case of Division Commander Frolov
was put to the archives as classified. Some people wanted to conceal the
facts of incredible injustice from historians.

The matter of the fact was as follows: commander of the 80th rifle
division Ivan Frolov and Division Commissar Konstantin Ivanov refused to
execute the order to break the blockade on one sector of the Leningrad
front. The order was issued on November 21, 1941. The refusal was an
unprecedented event on the Leningrad front.

Frolov and Ivanov were in command of the 80th division since its very
first days. [...] The division needed more ammunition and forage; in
general, the whole of the division consisted of two rifle regiments only
before November 12. Within the five days on November 19-24, the division
changed four concentration regions; the people were exhausted and horses
died because of lack of forage.

The division was posed the task to deliver a blow against the German
positions from the side of the Road of Life [... ] Division Commander
Frolov told head of the front headquarters General Gusev that "the
division was not ready to execute the task it was posed."

But the headquarters of the front resolved that the order must be
executed at any price. [...]


Full story:
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363/10938_war.html

Read the original in Russian:
http://society.pravda.ru/society/2003/8/82/337/13783_blokada.html
(Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov)



~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.