8 Most Brutal World War II Battles

7. Siege Of Leningrad

After the rapid advance into the Soviet Union by the Wehrmacht following the (then) overwhelmingly successful Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Germans set their sights on three main targets which they believed would demoralise and defeat their prime enemy, Communist Russia. These were the capital, Moscow; the resource-rich Ukraine and Southern Russian regions; and the 'birthplace of the USSR', Leningrad, which was originally St. Petersburg. By September 1941, Army Group North, under the leadership of Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, had reached their target of Leningrad and began to besiege the city. Not necessarily a battle, the Siege lasted for almost 3 years, finally ending on the 27th January 1944 when it was relieved by the forces of the Red Army. Although the city was kept supplied and reinforced by a frozen route over Lake Ladoga opened in January 1943, the losses suffered during the almost three-year long defence of the city were astronomical. Almost one third of the population of the city, one million Soviet citizens, lost their life as a result of the German siege. This was not a direct result of warfare, either - disease, malnutrition, exposure and suicide all gripped the people who were trapped inside, however this somehow not managed to break the spirit of the citizens. The Red Army, too, lost one million dead and two million injured or sick as a result of the city's defence. The German casualties, whilst disputed, number almost certainly in the hundreds of thousands. In total, 2 and a half million people lost their lives. This has been named as not only one of the worst episodes in the entire Second World War, but also one of the most brutal sieges in human history €“ and will most likely remain the most costly in terms of casualties. It highlights the tremendous loss of life which set the war apart from all other conflicts.