Hitler Wanted The Entire City to Starve
Hitler had a plan for Leningrad and one that he even had experts analyze. He believed that Leningrad would be too difficult to take in a normal battle. He did not want to start a fight with the large city because he did not want to divert the manpower and artillery needed to take the city by force. So he came up with the plan to encircle the city and starve it to death. Food stores were targeted by the bombings and any attempt to get food into the city was also targeted by the bombings. Hitler’s experts calculated how long the food in the city would last and assured Hitler that Leningrad would be eating itself in a matter of weeks.
This seemed like a much better option for Hitler than trying to take over the city. It was also better for Hitler’s ultimate plan for Leningrad. He was more concerned with trying to feed his army than trying to feed millions of urban citizens in Leningrad. He wanted to use the USSR to feed his army and not bother with feeding Russian citizens, so even if the city were to surrender, he would only use it as a chance to destroy the city. Diaries from his generals and others reveal that the plan was to let the population starve and to raze the historic city afterward.
Hitler and his experts were correct in that the city would start eating itself within weeks. The first winter of the siege was the worst for freezing and starvation as rations dropped to nearly nothing and supply trucks failed to get through. But ultimately it was the resolve of the people of Leningrad and perhaps the belief that they would fare no better if they surrendered that led to the Red Army eventually defeating the German blockade and freeing the city.