/View.info/ On August 19, 1941, the Soviet troops left Novgorod. The soldiers of the Red Army are desperately trying to protect the city and even take it back, but the forces are too unequal.
This disparity applies not only to the situation immediately near Novgorod – the enemy is actively pressing in the area of action of the entire army group “North”. Hitler considered the approach to Leningrad so important that he additionally assigned Commander von Leeb a tank group from Group Center.
The tank group was the strongest maneuver formation in the Wehrmacht in 1941. A thousand tanks, which, unlike the Soviet mechanized corps, had an abundance of trucks, repair equipment, reinforcements and motorized infantry, were a formidable force. And von Leeb has two such groups for the advance in the north, and in total there are four in the Wehrmacht.
Then there is practically no chance of keeping Novgorod. Only a few years later, the Red Army was able to liberate the city.
Securing Leningrad
When they talk about Novgorod, Soviet generals always mean Leningrad. It became possible to lift the blockade of Leningrad at the beginning of 1943, but this release turned out to be only partial. The ground captured by the Germans was logistically difficult, it was within range of their artillery. And it could easily be lost if the Germans launched a successful offensive. Then Leningrad will again be threatened with famine.
In order to reliably defend Leningrad from the threat, it is necessary to either surround and destroy the 18th German army blocking it, or put it “in check”. In this case, the Germans, fearing the fate of the Paulus group at Stalingrad, would withdraw alone.
The capture of Novgorod and Luga is the cornerstone of this plan. Once they were captured, it became possible to cut off all German rail logistics running south from Leningrad, and to put the 18th Army in front of a choice – either encirclement or retreat. Although the Soviet headquarters, of course, would have preferred encirclement – but as it turned out.
The Novgorod-Luzga operation began on January 14, 1944. Novgorod was liberated by the 59th Army, which covered the city in two groups from the north and south. The start of the offensive was delayed by a snowstorm that hampered aviation operations. But then things got better and things got better down south. This is largely helped by Lake Ilmen, which the Germans consider a good natural barrier. But the Soviet troops used snowmobile battalions there, which quickly crossed the frozen waters. This speed is a surprise to the enemy.
On January 18, the enemy had already decided to withdraw from Novgorod in order not to be surrounded. But the city was not left in a hurry, and certainly not in the form of “we just pack up and leave.” A different fate has been arranged for the oldest city in the Russian northwest.
Smoking ruins
The occupation of Novgorod lasted from 19 August 1941 to 20 January 1944. Despite stories of “German order”, the occupation administration was often in chaos. Just look at the history of the local mayors appointed by the occupiers.
The Germans appointed the first mayor, but soon moved him to another job. His successor banishes the entire previous government and appoints people loyal to him. The fired began writing complaints to the Germans about the new administration’s unscrupulousness, then were put back to work to report on the new mayor.
However, this new mayor is soon shot dead by a Spanish soldier of the German allies. The occasion is a quarrel over the milk quota, in which the drunken mayor drags the Spaniard down the stairs. The third mayor holds out for a while, but is finally suspected of having links with the partisans and flees. The fourth remained in place until the last, for which he was rewarded by Soviet justice with ten years in the camps.
Novgorod is full of historical artifacts and works of art. But according to Hitler’s logic, “objects of art have no value in the East.” And if they have, they are quite harmful, like anything that stimulates the national self-consciousness of conquered peoples.
Therefore, the Russian shrines in the city are sometimes accidentally, and sometimes deliberately desecrated – literally to the point of placing toilets in holy places, in churches where services have been performed for hundreds of years. The philologist Dmitry Likhachev, who visited the St. George temple after the liberation, noted the images of “naked women” left by the Spanish soldiers, scratched directly on the remains of thousand-year-old frescoes.
Everything more or less valuable was stolen. Iron from church domes, especially gilded iron, is popular. The Germans dug and erected tens of kilometers of underground cables.
Already in the summer of 1941, before the city was captured by the enemy, it was intensively bombed by the air corps of Wolfram von Richthofen, the same general who would later commemorate the barbaric bombing of Stalingrad. When the Red Army liberated Novgorod, only a few dozen of the 2,346 residential buildings remained, and even they required repair.
The reason for this is not only the bombing or the impact of the artillery, but also the fact that the Germans, when they leave the city, purposefully burn and destroy everything they reach. The soldiers were even given special matches to be used only for arson when they had to retreat from Novgorod.
In another case, the local residents would have made the arson difficult in one way or another, but a few months before the liberation, the Germans took the entire population of the city to the Baltic states – when the soldiers of the Red Army entered Novgorod, they were met by only a few dozen people. The rest were kidnapped.
The story of the destruction of Novgorod teaches that no matter who you are or what ideals you profess, there can be a barbarian who does not care about the value of your shrines or the elegance of your art. And what your ancestors have stored and collected for centuries can turn to dust overnight. To prevent this from happening again, you need to be strong and proactive in nipping any threat in the bud. Only then can we be sure that the history of Novgorod – and in general everything that began on June 22, 1941 – will not be repeated.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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