[20] Although various theories have been put forward about Germany's plans for Leningrad, including making it the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich in Generalplan Ost, it is clear Hitler intended to utterly destroy the city and its population.

According to a directive sent to Army Group North on 29 September 1941: After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center.

Several lines of defences were built along the city's perimeter to repel hostile forces approaching from north and south by means of civilian resistance.

On 10 July, both Ostrov and Pskov were captured and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where advance toward Leningrad continued from the Luga River line.

[33] Lacking sufficient strength for major operations, Leeb had to accept the army group might not be able to take the city, although hard fighting continued along his front throughout October and November.

"[40] Arctic convoys using the Northern Sea Route delivered American Lend-Lease and British food and war materiel supplies to the Murmansk railhead (although the rail link to Leningrad was cut off by Finnish armies just north of the city), as well as several other locations in Lapland.

In the southeast, the Germans captured Tikhvin on 8 November, but failed to complete their encirclement of Leningrad by advancing further north to join with the Finns at the Svir River.

At one point, the defending front commander, Popov, could not release reserves opposing the Finnish forces to be deployed against the Wehrmacht because they were needed to bolster the 23rd Army's defences on the Karelian Isthmus.

Air cover for the city was provided by the Leningrad military district PVO Corps and Baltic Fleet naval aviation units.

Additional military operations were carried out in coordination with Baltic Fleet naval forces under the general command of Admiral Vladimir Tributs.

The Ju 88A bomber from the 1st Air Corps KGr.806 was damaged by the AA fire of the 15th Battery of the 192nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, and made an emergency landing.

[68] To sustain the defence of the city, it was vitally important for the Red Army to establish a route for bringing a constant flow of supplies into Leningrad.

Vehicles risked becoming stuck in the snow or sinking through broken ice caused by constant German bombardments, but the road brought necessary military and food supplies in and took civilians and wounded soldiers out, allowing the city to continue resisting the enemy.

"[79] According to military historian David M. Glantz, "the number of soldiers and civilians who perished during the Battle for Leningrad amounted to the awesome total of between 1.6 and two million souls.

[82] The crippling starvation and famine extended beyond Leningrad itself, affecting the surrounding satellite cities as well and de facto including them into the blockade dynamics.

Pushkinites were dying of mass hunger, the city was regularly shelled by Soviet forces, and the Germans did not introduce ration cards for bread until the summer of 1942.

In conditions of extreme temperatures (down to −30 °C (−22 °F)), and with city transport out of service, even a distance of a few kilometres to a food distribution kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens.

Anna Reid points out that "for most people at the time, cannibalism was a matter of second-hand horror stories rather than direct personal experience".

[89] Dimitri Lazarev, a diarist during the worst moments in the Leningrad siege, recalls his daughter and niece reciting a terrifying nursery rhyme adapted from a pre-war song: Sung to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb A dystrophic walked along With a dull look In a basket he carried a corpse's arse.

Lisa Kirschenbaum notes that "[rates] of cannibalism provided an opportunity for emphasizing that the majority of Leningraders managed to maintain their cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances.

[citation needed] The encirclement was broken in the wake of Operation Iskra (Spark), a full-scale offensive conducted by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts.

After fierce battles the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the south of Lake Ladoga, and on 18 January 1943, the Volkhov Front's 372nd Rifle Division met troops of the 123rd Rifle Brigade of the Leningrad Front, opening a 10–12 km (6.2–7.5 mi)[verification needed] wide land corridor, which could provide some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad.

In comparison, German forces defending atop the 516m-high Monte Cassino massif held off 100,000 Allied troops for 123 days and inflicted about 20,000 casualties.The timeline is based on various sources such as work done by David Glantz.

[105] Some 21st century historians, including Timo Vihavainen and Nikita Lomagin, have classified the siege of Leningrad as genocide due to the systematic starvation and intentional destruction of the city's civilian population.

[112] Even during the siege itself, war artifacts were collected and shown to the public by city authorities, such as the German aeroplane that was shot down and fell to the ground in Tauricheskiy Garden (Таврический сад).

The exhibition was soon turned into a full-scale State Memorial Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad  [ru] (Государственный мемориальный музей обороны и блокады Ленинграда).

[113] With the museum's revival during the wave of glasnost of the late 1980s new shocking facts were published, showing heroism of the wartime city along with hardships and even cruelties of the period.

A leading local poet and war participant Mikhail Dudin suggested erecting a ring of monuments on the places of heaviest siege-time fighting and linking them into a belt of gardens around the city showing where the advancing enemy armies were stopped forever.

[115] On 29 October 1966, a monument entitled Broken Ring [ru] (of the Siege, Разорванное кольцо) was erected at the 40th kilometre of the Road of Life, on the shore of Lake Ladoga near the village of Kokkorevo.

[117][118] During the siege, numerous deaths of civilians and soldiers led to considerable expansion of burial places later memorialised, of which the best known is Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.