this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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I thought that was an exaggeration, but no, it happened.
It's even crazier in the context of the city being shelled for over two years and half a million Nazis died failing to take the city.
Having to eat enough to have the strength to fend off the next assault, knowing that your family is eating eachother at home.
And the fact the Soviets practiced a scorched-earth policy as they retreated back to Leningrad, burning their crops fields and such. It prevented the Nazis from eating it, but didn't leave the Soviets much either.
Just horrific all around. Weren't there stories about residents resorting to eating dirt after all the rats had either been killed or fled the city, but before cannibalism?
Scorched earth is more of a metaphor in this context, burning a field in winter is impractical. Rather it meant destroying livestock/infrastructure that couldn't be transported away from enemy lines, rails, power lines, mines, power plants, tractors, etc.
This probably didn't impact the famine inside the city as anything that could be transported into the city or further behind soviet lines was, and anything that couldn't would have been used by the nazis and certainly not given to the people in the city if it wasn't destroyed.
This is common in other famines, it's probably accurate