The Starving City That Defeated Hitler

Añadido: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]For 872 days, the city of Lennengrad endured one of the most horrifying sieges in human history. Not conquered, not occupied, just slowly starved.

[00:00:10]Entire families collapsing from hunger.

[00:00:12]People were boiling leather belts for soup. Bodies froze in the streets, and they were dragged away on children's sleds. And inside one research institute, scientists starve to death, surrounded by tons of edible seeds that they refused to eat because they believed protecting the future mattered more than saving themselves. Nearly a million civilians would die during the siege. Yet somehow, the city never surrendered. And today, we're going inside the siege of Leningrad. From Adolf Hitler's chilling order to let the population starve to the frozen road of life across a lake that became the city's only lifeline. From the diary of a young girl that became one of World War II's most haunting documents to a symphony performed by starving musicians while bombs fell around them. This is a morbid but important story about humanity at its worst. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp.

[00:01:12]What's up people and welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon.

[00:01:16]And thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week I explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all of history through all time, forever, for always. Yes, that is what I do here in the tent is I'm trying to understand everything that's ever happened. And every single day, more history gets made and there's more stuff that we got to read about. But today, we have a great one. All right, just for today, I'm going to say, you know what? I don't have to worry about everything that's ever happened because today we're looking at one of the more morbid and dark and in my opinion underld stories of World War II that I think is I mean extremely important to in not only the arc of the war but also specifically to understanding the Russian psyche and who Russian people are in a lot of ways and why their role in World War II uh is so important for them. I mean, as they say, World War II was won with British intelligence, American manufacturing, and Soviet blood. And uh this is the episode why you will understand why the last part is so significant. Now, before we jump in, I just want to say a few things. One, thank you so much for everyone for tuning in. Truly, yeah, dude. I'm grateful for you. Yes, you listening right now or or maybe watching for just supporting the show. Every time you click on an episode or, you know, subscribe or comment or any of that stuff, you help keep the lights on. and you help keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Additionally, I want to give a big shout out to my pal Christos.

[00:02:37]Sorry, friend.

[00:02:37]>> What's going on, Christo? We don't have time to jump in. If you want to talk to Christos, you can join our secret society. Yes, this is a secret society.

[00:02:44]This is the place where we all gather around in the woods and we talk. It's not Bohemian Grove. It's patreon.com/campagnon.

[00:02:50]And there you're going to get every single episode of this podcast. Religion camp, history camp, camp gagnon. All of those all adfree. So, if you're annoyed about the ads, for about a cup price of a cup of coffee, you're going to get every episode ad free. And on top of that, um you are going to get u monthly zooms where we just, you know, tap in with the people and we talk with all the campers. That'll be eligible to you as well as uh bonus episodes that never go out to the public that are only for the inner sanctum. Now, with all that out of the way, let's jump into the siege of Leningrad. Now, in order to understand why Lennenrad mattered at the time, we have to understand what it represented.

[00:03:28]And this wasn't just any old Soviet city. Okay? Leningrad, now known today as St. Petersburg, was the former capital of the Russian Empire. Peter the Great built it from nothing in the early 1700s as Russia's window to the west. It was the crown jewel of Russian civilization, the peak of everything that Russian culture could contribute.

[00:03:49]The home of the Hermitage Museum, the Marinsky Theater, worldclass universities, and a just a massive cultural legacy that rivaled, you know, like these culture hubs like Paris and Vienna. And by 1939, it was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output.

[00:04:07]And the naming of it is actually interesting. It was originally named St. Petersburg after Peter the Great and then it was a little too German they felt so they named it to Petrograd and then they renamed it to uh Lenenrad obviously after Vladimir Lenin in the 1920s and then after the fall of the Soviet Union in the '9s I think ' 91 is when they've returned it back to St. Petersburg. So it's been called all sorts of different names and we now know it as St. in Petersburg. But at the time that we're talking, it is just Lenenrad.

[00:04:39]And for Hitler, this place represented something else entirely. It was the birthplace of the Bolevik Revolution, the city where Lenin launched the communist uprising in October of 1917.

[00:04:50]And in Hitler's mind, Lennengrad wasn't just a strategic target. It was the ideological cradle of everything that he despised. and taking it or sacking it, you know, do basically destroying the whole thing would just be this symbolic poetic victory for him and the Nazi regime. So when Operation Barbar Roa started, this is the German invasion of the Soviet Union. On June 22nd, 1941, Army Group North had one primary objective, get Lennengrad. The advance was staggering. German forces covered hundreds of miles in just weeks, crushing Soviet defenses that were still reeling from Stalin's catastrophic purges of military leadership in the late 1930s. And by September 8th, 1941, German and Finnish forces had completed the encirclement. Every railway, every highway, every supply route into the city was completely cut off and roughly 3 million people were trapped inside this circle. Now, here's where it gets kind of messed up. And by kind of I mean extremely. Hitler didn't want to take the city. He didn't want to fight houseto house like they would later, you know, have to do in Stalenrad. Instead, he issued a directive now preserved in German military archives stating that Lenenrad should not be occupied.

[00:06:09]According to directives sent to Army Group North on September 29th, 1941, he said, "After the defeat of Soviet Russia, there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center. Following the city's encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us." So, I mean, that's as morbid and evil of a document as you could possibly imagine. I mean, think about what that means. I mean, it's kind of a, you know, a flowery sort of diplomatic uh BS paragraph, you know, but that's the exact quote. It's the deliberate starvation of 3 million human beings. And that's not like a side effect of the siege. It's not like a unfortunate thing that happened because, you know, the fog of war. That was the plan. And the people of Leningrad had no idea. And when the siege began, the city had roughly a 30-day food supply on hand. Soviet leadership had failed to evacuate most of the civilian population in time. Partly due to the disbelief that the Germans would advance so quickly, partly due to bure bureaucratic chaos, basically slowing everything down, and partly because Stalin initially forbade evacuation, seeing as you know, this is the cultural center.

[00:07:25]If everyone leaves, they see it as a defeat. On September 8th, German bombers hit Bad warehouses, which were one of Leningrad's major food storage facilities, holding particularly large amounts of sugar and flour reserves.

[00:07:38]Thousands of tons went up in flames, and citizens would later dig up the scorched earth beneath the warehouses, boiling the sugar soaked soil, trying to extract whatever calories they could. And they even had a name for it. They called it bad of Earth. I mean, this is what the Nazi regime did to the people of Lennengrad, literally causing them to dig and eat dirt. That's where things eventually get, but we're not there just yet. As autumn turned into winter, rations were cut again and again. And by November 1941, the daily bread ration for civilians, non-working dependents, children, the elderly, all the people that need it, hit the lowest point. I mean, 125 grams per day. That's like the size of like your palm. And calling it bread even is generous. By that point, the bread was just mixed with like cellulose and bran and other fillers basically to stretch out the flower supply. Workers received 250 g and soldiers at the front lines got 500 g.

[00:08:41]Think about that. 125 grams. That's supposed to keep a human being alive for weeks and weeks, months on end. And of course, as you can imagine, it couldn't.

[00:08:51]Hey, real quick. Most people who watch this channel aren't subscribed. And when you subscribe, you help the channel grow, and you stay in the loop with every new drop. Religion Camp, History Camp, and Camp Gagnon. Now, let's get back to it. The death toll in December of 1941 alone reached an estimated 53,000 people. And by January 1942, it was even worse. People would just collapse on the streets and never get up. Bodies piling up in apartments and in stairwells and courtyards. The ground was just completely frozen solid in the harsh Soviet winter and you couldn't even dig to actually carve out graves.

[00:09:26]So the corpses of people were just being stacked in parks and cemeteries anywhere that there was space and the cold. I mean, you know, there's like memes about like the Russian winter, but it's merciless. Specifically in this window, the winter of 1941 to42 was one of the harshest on record with temperatures plunging to -30° C. That's -2 222° F.

[00:09:48]And the city's water supply just froze.

[00:09:50]Sewage systems just froze. There's no electricity, no heat. People would burn furniture or books, anything combustible just to survive one more night. And then came the things that are, you know, hardest to discuss in any type of, you know, academic setting. Starvation does something unimaginable to the human mind and the human spirit in general. As the famine got worse, reports of cannibalism began to surface. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, established a dedicated unit to actually investigate these cases. And during the siege, over 2,000 people were arrested on cannibalism charges. Some cases involved consuming people that had, you know, already died. Others were even darker than that. Soviet authorities were forced to classify cannibalism into two categories. One using the flesh from corpses and two murder for the purpose of obtaining food. And it's documented that both were happening. Now obviously this isn't something that the Soviet government wanted the world to know. So for decades after the war, the full horror of what happened inside the city was actually suppressed by the Soviets.

[00:11:02]The official narrative focused on, you know, heroism and resistance, of course, because there was plenty of that. But the whole picture includes the desperation that drove ordinary good people to these unthinkable acts. And here's the thing, even in the depths of that darkness, something remarkable was happening. The city refused to let go.

[00:11:23]And the most extraordinary act perhaps of the entire siege was really just beginning. So if you look at a map of wartime Lenenrad, which I would be awesome if you wouldn't mind pulling that up, Christos, basically you can see the encirclement on the map. German forces to the south and to the west. You had the Finnish forces to the north. And the only gap was the northeast across Lake Loga, the largest lake in all of Europe. And you can see it right here.

[00:11:49]So obviously you have like we said the fins on the front or on the north side and then you have Lake Ludoga going uh to the other side on the on the eastern side of Lengrad. And in the summertime the lake was a viable but of course vulnerable supply route with you know barges running a gauntlet of German air attacks. But when winter hit and the lake froze over, Soviet engineers saw something that no one else would have even tried to do. They built a road across the ice. And on November 22nd, 1941, the first convoy of horsedrawn sleds across the frozen surface of Lake Loga was actually created. The route was roughly 18 mi across open ice, exposed to German artillery and air strikes with the constant risk of the ice just cracking and you know pulling in all of these helpless people into the frozen lake. And they called it the Deroga Zizzy, the road of life. And over the following months, engineers worked to reinforce and try to maintain this route, measuring ice thickness every single day and plotting paths around the weak spots, laying cables and even a full pipeline across the bottom of the lake. Trucks replaced sleds as the ice started to get thicker, running around the clock with their headlights off to avoid German bombers. Drivers kept their doors open so they could jump if the ice started to give way. And many of them didn't make it. trucks would break through and sink and many of them are still at the bottom of Lake Loga today.

[00:13:21]But to a degree, the Road of Life actually worked. Between November 1941 and April 1942, it carried roughly 800,000 tons of supplies into the city and evacuated over 1 million people, mostly women and children and the wounded. It was the only thing standing between Leningrad and just total annihilation of everyone there. Was it enough? Obviously not. People were still dying by the thousands every single day.

[00:13:48]But without the road of life, there would have been no one left to save.

[00:13:53]Now, at this point, to illustrate what was going on in the city, I want to tell you a story that sounds like it's made up, but it's not. Inside the besieged Lenrad sat the Valivv Institute of Plant Industry, one of the world's largest seed bankanks, founded by the brilliant geneticist Nikolai Vavalov. Vavalov had spent decades traveling the world, basically just collecting seeds and plant samples from every single continent. And by 1941, the institute held tens of thousands of varieties of seeds and grains and nuts representing this massive irreplaceable library of global agricultural biodiversity.

[00:14:33]And this is the craziest irony. Vavalov himself had already been arrested by Stalin in 1940 on trumped up charges and basically thrown into prison where he would die of starvation in January 1943.

[00:14:45]While his life's work sat in a building surrounded by starving people, his colleagues, the scientists who remained at the institute made a choice that still is difficult to even comprehend.

[00:14:57]They were starving. Their families were starving. And they were sitting in rooms filled with rice and wheat and corn and peanuts, potatoes, all these edible seeds and products that could have kept them alive, but they chose not to eat them. At least nine scientists at the Vavalov Institute died of starvation during the siege while surrounded by all of this potential food that they were protecting. Dimmitri Ivanov died at his death, surrounded by thousands of packets of rice. Alexander Stuken died guarding the peanut collection. Gilia Rodina died protecting the oat samples and one by one they all perished choosing to preserve the future of agriculture and scientific advancement over their own survival. And these scientists understood something that transcended their immediate suffering.

[00:15:44]That those seeds represented centuries of biodiversity that could never be replaced. All of Aval's research would be gone. Right? If you eat them, a piece of humanity's agricultural heritage would just be erased. I mean, think about that. Like, what would you do? I mean, if I'm in that position, I'll be honest, I'm probably eating those seeds.

[00:16:02]>> Same, >> right? Like, if my family's starving, I'm giving them the seeds. Like, it's not even a question in my mind. But I'm also not in the position where I understand the impact of what they were actually doing, you know? Like, if if they're like, "Oh, this research could potentially stop a famine in the future." Like, oh, we have like seed samples that can grow in underground environments and stop a famine in 100 years. Like, that's worth something.

[00:16:25]It's really admirable. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of remarkable that they did that. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break real quick because uh I got to tell you something kind of embarrassing. All right, I've been working out pretty consistently for a while. I love working out. I think it's super important part of my daily routine. And I don't really eat garbage and I'm doing all the stuff you're supposed to do. And I got in pretty good shape. But at some point, I noticed the results kind of just stopped like matching my effort kind of around the time that I had a kid. You know, I'd put in like the same amount of work, but like I wasn't getting the same results at the gym. I would get like a little bit more belly fat. my energy was kind of inconsistent. Recovery was taking a little bit longer and I assumed like I was just getting older, which makes sense, right? You know, guys when they hit their 30s, testosterone not like naturally goes down. And you know, when that happens, your body literally starts storing more fat and you start losing muscle faster. But here's the thing that messed me up. The more body fat you carry, the more your body actually converts testosterone into estrogen, which makes it even easier to gain this fat. And it's a cycle that keeps on going around. And so I started taking Mars Men and honestly I've been on it for a while and I've actually noticed a difference. This is going to sound crazy. This is real. 2024 I did blood work. My testosterone was like fine. It was like on the little lower side of normal. And I did blood work recently.

[00:17:37]Completely unrelated to this. And I've been taking Mars Men for I don't know maybe like four or five months. My testosterone went up. Now I don't know if it's from Mars. I'm not going to say it's only them. You know, maybe I've been eating a little cleaner. I've been sleeping better. Who knows? But my testosterone actually got an an increase. I mean, I couldn't believe it.

[00:17:54]My energy feels steadier throughout the day. My workouts have been better. And uh going into summer, I'm actually like leaning out in a way that I feel better about. Now, Marsmen is a natural supplement. I don't even have it in the studio cuz it's at my house. There's no synthetic hormones, no sketchy stimulants, just actual ingredients like Tongad Ali, Sheila, zinc, boron, and they're designed to actually support healthy testosterone levels. Now, look, you can just go buy all of these supplements yourself. You can go buy Tongad Ali, Sheila Jeet, but you got to make sure they're from the right place.

[00:18:22]You got to make sure they're the right quality and it can get expensive to actually like parse it all together. But with Mars Men, it's just all of it in one already done for you. It's made in the USA. It's third party tested and every batch and over 91% of users actually report higher energy. Now, here's the crazy thing with Marsmen.

[00:18:39]There's a 90-day money back guarantee.

[00:18:41]90 days, 3 months of trying it out and if it's not for you, you get your money back. Zero risk and for a limited time.

[00:18:48]the people are listening to this program, you're going to get 50% off for life. I don't know how often this offer comes around. I don't know why they're doing this. 50% off for life, free shipping, and three free gifts at mengo tomars.com. That's men go toarss.com for 50% off and three free gifts when you check out. It's also available on Amazon. It really worked for me. I like it. I still take it cuz, you know, I like natural supplements and it makes me feel good. Now, when they ask where you heard about it, tell them the good people at Camp Gagnon sent you. It really helps the show more than you know. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick cuz I want to tell you a scary story. Yeah.

[00:19:23]Specifically for the dudes. All right.

[00:19:24]Imagine you're going out with your wife.

[00:19:26]Okay. You're having some dinner. You know, you get some drinks. The vibes are good. And you go back to your apartment, your house, the lights are low, you got a little Miguel playing on the radio, and all of a sudden you realize your piece is like, "Yeah, dude. I'm I'm actually good." You're like, "Wait, what? We're we're ready to go." And your piece is like, "No, dude. I'm just actually going to sit this out." I mean, you're trying everything. All right. and your wife's just looking at you like, "All right, are we gonna do this?" And you gotta be like, "Maybe, maybe tomorrow." Well, this doesn't have to happen anymore because I want to tell you about Blue Chew Gold. Yes. Because this isn't just about showing up physically and being the man that you are. It's about actually being in the moment. Blue Chew Gold's new formula combines ingredients that support blood flow and mental arousal. And that's also going to help blood flow flow to your brain. You're probably going to be thinking of funny lines. You know what I mean? Being being cool off the cuff.

[00:20:12]It's not just performance, it's connection. All right? And now you're not overthinking. You're not stressed.

[00:20:16]You're just there and able to be you.

[00:20:18]Now, if this is a tablet that dissolves under your tongue, and it's really simple and discreet, and you can just put it in your wallet or something. That way, you are always ready to go. And ladies, if you're listening, send your man the link. Turn him into a trophy husband. Keep him in the house. You know what I mean? A stay-at-home uh house husband. That's what you want, right?

[00:20:34]Give it to him and let him lay it down.

[00:20:36]All right. No awkward timing, no weird pressure, just the confidence you really want. So discover your options right now at bluw.com. And we got a special deal for the listeners of this program. Yes, if you are hearing my voice right now, when you buy two months of Bluw Gold, you're going to get a third free with the promo code gagnon. That's right, the promo code gagnon gagg n. Visit blu.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue for sponsoring this podcast and making this show possible. Now, let's get back to it. Crazy enough, things actually get even more unbelievable. So this guy Dimmitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, was in Lenenrad when the siege began. He started composing his seventh symphony during the first weeks of bombardment, writing music while serving as a volunteer firefighter on the roof of the Leningrad conservatory. The Soviet authorities eventually evacuated him to a nearby town now now called Samara where he completed the symphony in December of 1941. The symphony premiered in the town of Quebeesev in March of 1942 and was quickly performed in Moscow as well as London. But Soviet leadership wanted something more powerful, something borderline insane. They wanted the seventh symphony performed inside Lennengrad itself while it was being besieged. And the task fell on Carl Eliasber, conductor of the Leningrad radio orchestra. But there was an issue.

[00:22:01]His orchestra was decimated. Many musicians had died of starvation. Many were killed in the bombing and many of them were even evacuated. When Eliasburg gathered these surviving players, only 15 musicians showed up. Barely enough for, you know, an ensemble, let alone a full symphony that required over 80 performers. So, the Soviet military recalled musicians from the frontline units, and players were pulled from anti-aircraft batteries and infantry positions to fill the orchestra, and rehearsals began. But the musicians were so weak from so many weeks of malnutrition that some couldn't even blow into their instruments. Brass players reportedly fainted during practice. Eliasberg himself had to be carried to rehearsals on a sled because he was just too frail to even walk. And on August 9th, 1942, the performance took place. The date was very deliberately chosen. It was the day Hitler had originally planned to celebrate the fall of Leningrad with a banquet at the Hotel Atoria. Instead, the city's loudspeakers broadcast's seventh symphony across all of Leningrad and played it directly into the German lines. Before the concert, Soviet artillery launched a massive barrage, what they call operation squall, specifically to silence the German guns, so that the music could be heard uninterrupted. And for over an hour, the symphony poured out of the speakers across the city. Citizens who could barely stand listened in the streets.

[00:23:31]German soldiers were hearing it from their own trenches. As one account often attributed to a German soldier says, uh, "We heard it and we knew we would never take this city." Whether that exact quote is real or apocryphal or, you know, maybe it's just a part of a legend that grew around the event, the message, the feeling is very real. The Leningrad Symphony became an international symbol of resistance. A city that couldn't feed itself could still make music. It's could still create art and culture and be this intellectual hub that it always was. And it's not just resilience, it's defiance in the face of evil. And speaking of, you know, using art and culture as a, you know, a mechanism for defiance, there's another story from the siege that absolutely deserves to be told. The Hermitage Museum was one of the greatest art collections in the world. home to, you know, many Rembrandt and uh Da Vinci and Raphael and thousands of other masters. And before the siege fully closed, curators and volunteers worked desperately to evacuate over 1 million pieces of art east to the Euro Mountains for safekeeping. But then the thousands of museum workers stayed behind in the empty space. And here's the crazy part.

[00:24:47]The galleries were stripped completely bare. All that remained were just empty frames hanging on the walls where the paintings used to be. Yet the guides continued to give tours. They would stand in front of these blank spaces and describe these missing masterpieces just from memory. The brush work, the composition, the history of each piece, the story as if the paintings were still there. And visitors would just walk through these empty halls while starving staff would recite the art from memory.

[00:25:14]And some of those museum workers died during the siege while guarding a building full of nothing but the frames.

[00:25:21]But those frames were hope in a way. It was a belief. It was a promise that the art would come back, that the city would survive, and that the culture that was there was worth preserving even when the walls were completely barren and the people were starving. I mean, all of these stories from, you know, the symphony that played, the seeds that remained uneaten, the empty frames, Leningrad kept insisting on civilization even when the civil world had just abandoned it. Among the millions trapped inside Lenrad was an 11-year-old girl named Tanya Seevicha. Tanya kept a small notebook barely bigger than, you know, just like a passport or something. And in it, she recorded what was happening to her and to her family.

[00:26:06]And the entries are just devastating in how morbid and simple they are. She wrote only dates and names. And here are some of the examples. And I apologize, I don't speak Russian, so if I mispronounce any of these names, uh, it's unintentional. It just says Zena died 28th December 12:30 in the morning, 1941. Next entry, Grandma died 25 January 3:00 1942. Lea died 17 March 5 o'clock in the morning 1942. Uncle Vasia died 13 April 2 o'clock at night 1942.

[00:26:43]And the names go on and on and on until there are just three final entries.

[00:26:50]The Cvichev are dead. The next entry everyone is dead. And the final entry only Tanya is left. Tanya was eventually evacuated from Leningrad, but her health had already been destroyed by the siege.

[00:27:04]She died of intestinal tuberculosis on July 1st, 1944 at the hospital in the town of Shatki. She was only 14 years old at the time. And her diary has become one of the most recognized symbols of the human cost of the siege.

[00:27:21]And it sits today in a museum in St. Petersburg. Nine pages that capture the murder of an entire family. I mean, generations of bloodlines just completely wiped off the map, written in a child's handwriting. A memorial complex on the green belt of glory along the road of life is dedicated to her memory. But the reality is there were thousands of Tanya, hundreds of thousands actually. I mean, children who watched their parents die, parents who simply watched their children die, entire families that just vanished from the face of the earth, leaving behind nothing but names and dates on ration cards. Now, the siege didn't end in one single dramatic moment. It wasn't some, you know, supernatural force or heroes coming in and saving the day. It was ground down over months and years. And in January 1943, the Soviet military launched Operation Iskra or Operation Spark, which punched a narrow corridor through the German lines just south of Lake Loga. The gap was only about, you know, a couple miles wide and it was under constant fire, but it allowed a railway to be built, the so-called Road of Victory, which vastly increased the flow of supplies into the city. The full liberation wouldn't come until a year later. On January 27th, 1944, after a massive Soviet offensive pushed German forces back along the entire front, the siege of Lennengrad was officially lifted. And that night, the city celebrated with 324 artillery guns, firing a 24 salvo salute over the Neva River. 872 days, 2 years, 4 months, and 19 days. one of the longest and deadliest sieges of a major city in modern history. And the numbers are just horrendous to even comprehend even now.

[00:29:13]Historians estimate that roughly 800,000 to a million civilians perished inside the city itself. With the total death toll, including soldiers and those who died during the evacuations, reaching roughly 1.1 to 1.3 million. The vast majority of civilian deaths were caused by starvation. And by comparison, the entire British civilian death toll for all of World War II was roughly 67,000.

[00:29:39]After the war, Leningrad was awarded the title of hero city by the Soviet government, one of only 12 cities to receive the honor. The siege became a foundational element of the Soviet identity, proof that the Russian people could endure anything. They could survive anything, overcome anything. And on January 27th, it is still commemorated as the day of the lifting of the blockade. And in St. Petersburg, it remains one of the most solemn dates on the entire calendar. Now, of course, when looking at a tragic historical event, there's always a question, right?

[00:30:12]Like, what could they have done? What else could they have done? Is there anything they could have done differently? I mean, was there a way to negotiate? Was there a way to maybe find a way out? Well, not really, right?

[00:30:22]Hitler's own directive suggested that surrender wouldn't have been accepted anyway. The plan was extermination.

[00:30:28]There was never supposed to be an occupation. Some historians argue that the defense of Lennengrad tied down so many German forces that could have been redeployed to Moscow or to the southern front and as a result actually contributed to the broader Soviet survival. Others point out that Stalin's refusal to evacuate the city early when it was still somewhat possible was a massive catastrophic failure that certainly cost countless of lives. But here's what I keep noticing when doing research for this story. The scientists who guarded the seeds so that you know they could be preserved for all of humanity and never ate them. The musicians who played a symphony that, you know, they could barely even breathe through. I mean, a little girl who kept recording the dates and the times of her family's deaths because she just didn't know what else to do. The truck drivers who crossed a frozen lake with their doors open, knowing that at any moment they could just be dropped to the bottom of a cold, cold body of water. I mean, none of these people were generals or politicians or like, you know, like even soldiers. Like obviously there was many soldiers but most of the people we're talking about were none of these big you know top brass making grand strategic calculations. They were just ordinary people caught in this monstrous human calamity and they found ways to take some autonomy and they asserted their humanity in the face of deliberate dehumanization. And the siege of Leningrad isn't just a story about war.

[00:31:57]Of course, it's a story about what happens when, you know, a system uh when evil is sort of mechanized and you have these purely rational, bureaucratic, evil dictators basically deciding that 3 million people should just not exist.

[00:32:15]It's like it's confounding and it's difficult to even really process how, you know, 3 million people that all had lives and their own opinions and just like you and I liked art and sports and music and, you know, eating dinner with their friends and family were just going to be decimated. And instead, they those same people responded with strength and courage and a national pride to not be defeated. And to me, that's kind of the most morbid but beautiful part. You know, that even beyond the war, the politics or anything like that, it shows us what it means to insist on being human and perseverance and to keep giving tours in the museum when, you know, all hope is lost. to protect the seeds for the betterment of humanity even at your own expense. And to continue to create art and music and try to inject beauty into the most tragic and awful situations because what else can you do, you know? Cuz to me, like that's even more than survival. It's it's a general resistance to evil and it's a showcasing of the beauty of humanity even in the darkest hour. And that ladies and gentlemen is an abridged history of the siege of Leningrad. I mean once again like I always think about like this uh it's going to sound kind of dumb but Mr. Rogers quote an alumni of my college. Let the record show.

[00:33:40]>> It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

[00:33:42]>> Not that one. That is not the quote. It is not a beautiful day Christos. It's a terrible day in Leningrad. uh but uh you know looking at disaster and sure you can look at a disaster and you can look at a calamity and the most awful things that human beings do and we should focus on the terrible parts but simultaneously in order to preserve your own well-being. Look at the people that are helping. Look at the people that are spending their time and risking their lives to do what they can to help a situation. Even if it's something small or you know trivial in the moment like playing a symphony might not seem like it's going to really help that much but or it's something like massive you know like literally forgoing your own sustenance in order to preserve you know scientific research for all of humanity.

[00:34:25]Doing something rather than nothing is the thing that I always look at in these kind of situations. the people that helped. And I'm sure there's countless other stories that never got recorded of people sacrificing their own lives for their families, their friends, people that they didn't even know. And those people get lost to history, but we didn't forget them. There's got to be a psychological thing about having sustained all this torture of like hunger and everything else where they're like, "No, we're going to end up on the right side of history here."

[00:34:54]>> Yeah. I mean, probably. I mean, I also think like the uh like there's a Russian ethic and a Russian pride that I think stems from moments like this. Of course, the totality of World War II is probably part of it, but like withstanding this type of brutal, you know, torment and evil and effectively like a genocide in a way. I don't even know if it's classified as a genocide in the broad sense because yeah, I wonder if it would. I mean technically, but by resisting that and trying to like not only survive, but to thrive in the way that they could showcases something like that is so embedded into what it means to be Russian. You're saying it's not classified as a genocide?

[00:35:36]>> No, not generally.

[00:35:37]>> Cuz it's not ethnic. Is that the reason?

[00:35:40]Uh, under the UN definition, genocide requires an intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, >> right? So, I guess they weren't trying to go h I'm curious. I feel like Yeah. I mean, I guess that were they going after him because they were Russian?

[00:35:59]>> I think it was like a personal thing with Hitler. It's what it makes it seem like. And then others classify it as a war crime, a crime against humanity or >> certainly a war crime. I mean, they're targeting like, you know, like food reserves and, you know, like seed silos and stuff like that, >> right?

[00:36:14]>> Like if you're trying to disrupt like a people's ability to feed themselves, like it's just civilians. I mean, that's obviously a war crime.

[00:36:21]>> It was tied more to strategic/political destruction of a city and the Soviet population than to eliminating a specific protected ethnic group.

[00:36:29]>> I see. That makes sense. Yeah, I get that. So, I mean, all that to say, it is a uh yeah, it's a just a tragic moment in history. But again, when when looking at these horribly morbid tales, I really try to focus on the good and what good is there, if there is any good. And often times, the bad largely outweighs the good. But, uh, I don't know, it just gives me like a little bit of pride to see human beings trying to be good, even in these types of moments, and even the stories that we don't know about. And, um, yeah, I mean, the Russians are these are badass [ __ ] dude. like they are they are tough people and uh I don't think they were tough because of this. I think they are tough and this also happened and they continued to be tough and showed off their resilience.

[00:37:11]But it's uh yeah one of these stories that it just makes you glad that I'm not living in that type of situation. You know what I mean? Like as a new father the idea of like having like h like many women had new babies in that time and they were like what do I do? And it's these types of things like I've become so soft since having a kid. Oh my gosh, I can't even handle it.

[00:37:32]>> A little tear on the monitor here.

[00:37:33]>> No, no, no. Come on, dude. Don't be crazy. I'm Russian. No, >> I'm I'm culturally Russian. Sometimes I actually went to I was in France one time and a guy thought I was Russian, came up to me, started speaking pure Russian. So, just off my face alone.

[00:37:44]>> What' you say?

[00:37:46]>> Spaca.

[00:37:47]>> Really? Yeah. I hit him with a little bit. Um, but I'm curious what you guys think. If you're Russian, Russian, you know, history, if you, you know, Russian lineage, if you've heard of this story through your own family's tales and accounts, or uh if this is something you've read about, I'd love to know if there's anything I missed or overlooked.

[00:38:03]Again, I'm not a historian. I'm just a comedian with a great team that helps me research, as well as a Wi-Fi connection to help me deep dive on my own. But if there's anything I missed, please let me know. Um, if there's future topics we should cover, please drop a comment. If there's anything you learned here that you didn't know, I would love to know what that is. YouTube, Spotify, I read all the comments. So, please don't hesitate to hit me up. I would love to know what you're thinking. Also, if you like religious content, I have great news. We have Religion Camp where we deep dive on every religion that's ever happened under and over the sun. And uh if you like deep dives and other kind of crazy stuff going on right now, whether it's a cult, conspiracy, mystical, all that happens at Camp Gagnon. I also do great interviews with people way smarter than me that actually know what they're talking about. And uh if you just like the history vibe, well, great news. We drop these episodes every single week.

[00:38:46]And uh I hope you subscribe, tune in, and uh join us in the tent for another deep dive into everything that's ever happened. God bless you all. Thank you so much for uh making the show possible.

[00:38:56]And I will see you in the future to talk about the past. Pace.