World War II- (Not) Leningrad

Good morning, today let’s continue to work through documentaries on World War II and World War I for November.  Today is a documentary from World War II and the Battle of Leningrad.  This looks like an older documentary, so I do not know what to expect.  Here we go!  The run time for this episode is 49:51.  The documentary is called Leningrad and it is from the War Stories YouTube Channel.  It is part of the Battlefield series.

Hitler decided to invade Russia and by 1941, Leningrad was completely surrounded.  Hitler expected that the invasion would be quick and that the Russians would surrender quickly.  However that was not what would happen.  The Germans would lay siege to the city for 872 days.  One and a half million people would die from starvation or from the German artillery bombardment.  It was one of the costliest sieges in history. 

The story begins with Hitler deciding to invade Russia by late 1941.  A plan was drawn up to attack Russia on two fronts: one front in the north and the other front in the south.  These attacks would have two large army groups.   Leningrad would be the target of the north group and then they would go and invade Moscow.  Finland was also struggling to fight against the Russians, they would eventually lose land to Russia.  They would turn to Germany for help to regain their land.  They had no interest in invading Russia.  Unfortunately, the German plan would rely on the army uniting with the Finnish army to help with the invasion.

Eventually, the plan was changed, and three army groups were to invade Russia.  This would dangerously stretch the troops to their limits, but Hitler would not be deterred.  Many German officers were opposed to the invasion because Russia was a challenge to invade.  They tried to talk Hitler into taking a step-by-step approach to the invasion, however, Hitler would not be deterred.

Then the documentary transitions into Joseph Stalin.  He had purged the Soviet military of brilliant generals.  He had no intention of fighting a war in the West.  He had peace treaties with both Britain and Germany.  However, things started to change and the Germans were planning to invade Russia.  He slowly accepted that war with Germany was inevitable.  He worked to buy time for the invasion, he did not anticipate that Germany would invade Russia in 1941.  The people under him saw the preparations Germany was taking to invade Russia and kept that intelligence from him for fear of his temper.
Unfortunately, the Russian military was woefully unprepared for the German invasion.  With the purges, the Russian military could not be expected to face the German army.  Not only was there a lack of brain power, but the Russian military had outdated and inadequate weapons.  The German weapons were far superior to the Russian weapons.  The stage was set for the invasion of Russia.

When the invasion came, the Russians were caught off guard.  They were stunned by the quickness of the German invasion.  Many soldiers were captured and weapons were destroyed.  Joseph Stalin shot more generals as a result of the invasion.  The Red Army did not know where the Germans were going.  The German army continued to move deep into Russian territory.  The civilian populations in Riga greeted the German soldiers as liberators.  They were greeted with flowers from the locals.  To learn more about the invasion of Russia watch the rest of the documentary.

The style of the documentary is old, and I get the impression that it was geared toward a classroom setting.  That said, it was a very long setup to get to the Siege of Leningrad.  As a viewer, you did not get to the actual invasion until twenty minutes into the documentary.  That was disappointing because I found myself drifting away from the documentary in the first half of the documentary.  Then it was another ten minutes talking about the invasion.  The title should have been called the Invasion of Russia and not Leningrad.  I would expect a documentary on Leningrad to talk about Leningrad and not a whole lecture on the invasion of Russia.  I would not show this documentary to a history class, I drifted away from this documentary and I know a student will not pay attention either.