The 900-day siege of the Soviet city of Leningrad by the combined forces
of the Germans and the Finns is one of the most remarkable, and
terrible, events of the Second World War, yet until recently it has not
received the attention it deserves - it has been overshadowed by other
massive confrontations on the Eastern Front, at Stalingrad and Kursk.
And rarely has the compelling story of the siege been told through
graphic wartime photographs like those that author Nik Cornish has
collected for this book. Many of these images have not been published
before, and they give an unflinching insight into the reality of the
conditions of the siege as it was experienced by the soldiers on each
side and by the civilians trapped in the city who were threatened by
starvation, disease, shelling and assault. The entire course of the
siege is covered, from the encirclement of September 1941, through the
successive attempts by the Wehrmacht to break in and the dogged,
sometimes desperate defense put up by the Red Army, to the withdrawal of
the Germans and the lifting of the siege in January 1944. Nik Cornish's
portrait of the ruthless struggle of Hitler's armies to capture the
second city of the Soviet Union and the determination and suffering of
the defenders will be fascinating reading for everyone who is interested
in the war on the Eastern Front.
