The court claims the blockade of Leningrad as genocide


The St. Petersburg City Court found the blockade of Leningrad as a war crime, a genocide of national and ethnic groups. The Investigative Committee of Russia was directly involved in the collection and documenting the evidence of the crime, which has no statute of limitations.

The Department collected evidence of the mass destruction of the civilian population of the Northern capital by the German invaders and their collaborators within the criminal investigation of genocide during the Great Patriotic War.

During the investigative study of archival documents and files of post-war trials, interrogations of witnesses and victims, the investigation reliably established and documented the facts of the targeted Northern capital destruction by the Nazi invaders, the commission of massacres of civilians and Soviet prisoners of war. As methods, the Nazi punishers chose food isolation, massive shelling and bombing. Even before the attack on the USSR, the plans of the military-political leadership of Nazi Germany noted that large industrial centers, including Leningrad, would not be supplied from the black earth zones intended to ensure the functioning of the German army, and the inhabitants of these centers would die or be forced to relocate.

Further orders from the High Command of the Wehrmacht Ground Forces, directives from the Command of the Naval Forces and the Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces indicate that the Nazis did not plan to capture Leningrad, did not intend to accept its surrender and did not let its inhabitants out of the city.

Thus, it is obvious that the blockade of Leningrad was not caused by military necessity for the purpose of its further occupation. This plan of destruction by starvation was part of the general concept of "war of annihilation" developed by Hitler and his military leaders. The intention to implement this plan is evidenced, in particular, by the choice of targets for the bombing of Leningrad. So, in September 1941, the Badaevsky food warehouses were the first to suffer, under constant bombing was the "Road of Life", along which supplies were delivered to the city.

Massive artillery shelling was carried out daily, sometimes the attacks could happen several times a day. All this led to the destruction of at least three thousand buildings and damage to more than seven thousand buildings.

The collected documents and files also made it possible to assert that the Nazis deliberately destroyed unique monuments and architectural ensembles of Leningrad.

The Military Tribunal of the Leningrad Military Okrug established that the Nazi invaders barbarously destroyed, burned and robbed palaces and parks in Pavlovsk, Pushkin, and Peterhof. The famous system of Peterhof fountains was destroyed; more than 100 thousand museum exhibits and no less valuable books were looted. The State Hermitage was subjected to massive shelling: the methodical and consistent bombing of the building of the Winter Palace clearly testified to attempts to deliberately destroy one of the main cultural assets of Leningrad. Such actions of the Nazis were aimed at eliminating any reminders of the civilization of the national group and the eradication of its historical and cultural self-identity.

All the collected evidence and established facts confirmed that these crimes were part of the plan of the Nazi invaders to exterminate the civilian population not only of individual settlements and regions, but of the entire Soviet people.

20 October 2022 14:00

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