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86-1020: Commanded by Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb (Chief of Staff - Lt. Gen. Kurt Brennecke ) Colonel General Ernst Busch Colonel General Georg von Küchler (Chief of Staff - Maj. Gen. Kurt Waeger ) Colonel General Erich Hoepner (Chief of Staff - Colonel Walter Chales de Beaulieu ) Commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock (Chief of Staff - Maj. Gen. Hans von Greiffenberg ) Field Marshal Günther von Kluge Colonel General Adolf Strauß Colonel General Heinz Guderian Colonel General Hermann Hoth Commanded by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt (Chief of Staff - Lt. Gen. Georg von Sodenstern ) Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau Colonel General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist General of Infantry Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel General Ion Antonescu Colonel General Eugen Ritter von Schobert The "Main Command of

172-572: A European great power . It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia , and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1712 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period of time between 1728 and 1730). After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow. The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924. It was the site of the siege of Leningrad during

258-521: A fortress at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, which was later called Ingermanland . The small town of Nyen grew up around the fort. Before the 17th century, this area was inhabited by Finnic Izhorians and Votians . The Ingrian Finns moved to the region from the provinces of Karelia and Savonia during the Swedish rule. There was also some Estonian , Karelian , Russian and German population in

344-400: A naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк ( Sanktpetersburk ), emulating German Sankt Petersburg , and Сантпитербурх ( Santpiterburkh ), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh , as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург. A former spelling of

430-492: A new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south. Constructivism was rejected in favour of a more pompous Stalinist architecture . Moving the city centre further from the border with Finland, Stalin adopted a plan to build a new city hall with a huge adjacent square at the southern end of Moskovsky Prospekt , designated as the new main street of Leningrad. After the Winter (Soviet-Finnish) war in 1939–1940,

516-577: A new plan in 1737. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka . It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty building and are now known as Nevsky Prospect (which is considered the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Avenue . Baroque architecture became dominant in

602-557: A rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed but is evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716, Peter the Great appointed Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. The style of Petrine Baroque , developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace , Kunstkamera , Peter and Paul Cathedral , Twelve Collegia , became prominent in

688-492: Is combined with the city's Russian heritage. Another nickname of Saint Petersburg is "The City of the White Nights" because of a natural phenomenon which arises due to the closeness to the polar region and ensures that in summer the night skies of the city do not get completely dark for a month. The city is also often called the "Northern Palmyra ", due to its extravagant architecture. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans ,

774-448: Is still named Leningrad . Having passed the role of capital to Petersburg, Moscow never relinquished the title of "capital", being called pervoprestolnaya ('first throned') for 200 years. An equivalent name for Petersburg, the "Northern Capital", has re-entered usage today since several federal institutions were recently moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Solemn descriptive names like "the city of three revolutions" and "the cradle of

860-765: Is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow . It is situated on the River Neva , at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea . The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area . Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As

946-639: Is Αγία Πετρούπολη, Agia Petroupoli ). Saint Petersburg has been traditionally called the "Window to Europe" and the "Window to the West" by the Russians. The city is the northernmost metropolis with more than 1 million people in the world, and is also often described as the " Venice of the North" or the "Russian Venice" due to its many water corridors, as the city is built on swamp and water. Furthermore, it has strongly Western European-inspired architecture and culture, which

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1032-722: The Wehrmacht during the Second World War , who was subsequently convicted of war crimes . Leeb was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Military Order of Max Joseph which granted him the title of nobility. During the Battle of France , he commanded Army Group C , responsible for the breakthrough of the Maginot Line . During Operation Barbarossa —the invasion of

1118-686: The Eastern Front , where he distinguished himself in the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive , the capture of the fortress Przemyśl and the campaign in Serbia. In 1915, he was awarded the Military Order of Max Joseph , the receipt of which conferred a title of nobility. Leeb's surname changed to " Ritter von Leeb". After the war, Leeb remained in the Reichswehr , the army of the Weimar Republic . Before

1204-686: The Gold Star sign was installed in April 1985. In October 1946 some territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland , which had been annexed into the USSR from Finland in 1940 under the peace treaty following the Winter War , were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District . These included the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948). Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over

1290-606: The Great Northern War , Peter the Great captured Nyenskans and soon replaced the fortress. On 27 May [ O.S. 16 May] 1703, closer to the estuary (5 km (3 mi) inland from the gulf ), on Zayachy (Hare) Island , he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress , which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia; in some years several Swedish prisoners of war were also involved under

1376-743: The Holocaust . Leeb was a beneficiary of Adolf Hitler 's bribery scheme for senior Wehrmacht officers , receiving secret, extra-legal gifts of 250,000 Reichsmark in 1941 and of an estate valued at 638,000 Reichsmark in 1943. Following the war, Leeb was tried in the High Command Trial as part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials . He was convicted of transmitting the Barbarossa Decree and its criminal application by subordinate units and sentenced to three years' imprisonment time served and

1462-518: The Leningrad Affair (1949–1952), a notable event in the postwar political struggle in the USSR . It was a product of rivalry between Stalin's potential successors where one side was represented by the leaders of the city Communist Party organization – the second most significant one in the country after Moscow. The entire elite leadership of Leningrad was destroyed, including the former mayor Kuznetsov ,

1548-759: The Leningrad Military District of the Russian Armed Forces . The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage , one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center , the tallest skyscraper in Europe , and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020 . The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when

1634-685: The Narva Triumphal Arch . In 1825, the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after Nicholas assumed the throne. By the 1840s, neoclassical architecture had given way to various romanticist styles, which dominated until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider ( Mariinsky Palace , Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace , Nicholas Palace , New Michael Palace ) and Konstantin Thon ( Moskovsky railway station ). With

1720-544: The October Revolution , which led to the end of the social-democratic provisional government , the transfer of all political power to the Soviets , and the rise of the Communist Party . After that the city acquired a new descriptive name, "the city of three revolutions", referring to the three major developments in the political history of Russia of the early 20th century. In September and October 1917, German troops invaded

1806-521: The October revolution " used in the Soviet era are reminders of the pivotal events in national history that occurred here. Petropolis is a translation of a city name to Greek, and is also a kind of descriptive name: Πέτρ- is a Greek root for 'stone', so the "city from stone" emphasizes the material that had been forcibly made obligatory for construction from the first years of the city (a modern Greek translation

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1892-539: The Russian Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul . The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress , while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue

1978-513: The Second World War , the most lethal siege in history. In June 1991, only a few months before the Belovezha Accords and the dissolution of the USSR , voters supported restoring the city's original appellation in a city-wide referendum . As Russia's cultural centre, Saint Petersburg received over 15 million tourists in 2018. It is considered an important economic, scientific, and tourism centre of Russia and Europe. In modern times,

2064-624: The Soviet Union —Leeb commanded Army Group North , which advanced through the Baltic States towards Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg ), eventually laying siege to the city . Units under Leeb’s command committed war crimes against the civilian population and closely cooperated with the SS Einsatzgruppen , death squads primarily tasked with the murder of the Jewish population as part of

2150-604: The West Estonian archipelago and threatened Petrograd with bombardment and invasion. On 12 March 1918, Lenin transferred the government of Soviet Russia to Moscow, to keep it away from the state border. During the Russian Civil War , in mid-1919 Russian anti-communist forces with the help of Estonians attempted to capture the city, but Leon Trotsky mobilized the army and forced them to retreat back to Estonia . On 26 January 1924, five days after Lenin's death, Petrograd

2236-461: The emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and an Industrial Revolution , the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously developed on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth; it became one of the largest industrial cities in Europe, with a major naval base (in Kronstadt ),

2322-435: The 1920s and 1930s, the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs . Constructivist architecture flourished around that time. Housing became a government-provided amenity ; many "bourgeois" apartments were so large that numerous families were assigned to what were called "communal" apartments ( kommunalkas ). By the 1930s, 68% of the population lived in such housing under very poor conditions. In 1935,

2408-1157: The Armed Forces of the USSR" ( Stavka Glavnogo Komandovaniya ) was formed on 23 June, largely from the existing People's Commissariat for Defence. Commander in Chief: Marshal Semyon Timoshenko (until July 19), then Josef Stalin Deputy Commander-in-Chief: Army General Georgy Zhukov (from August 8) Chief of the General Staff: Army General Georgy Zhukov (until July 21), then Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov Lieutenant General Mikhail Lukin Lieutenant General Ivan Konev Lieutenant General Fyodor Remezov Lieutenant General Vasily Gerasimenko Lieutenant General Filipp Yershakov General Colonel Markian Popov The front

2494-586: The Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The siege lasted 872 days, or almost two and a half years, from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944. The Siege of Leningrad proved one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of a major city in modern history . It isolated the city from food supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga , which could not make it through until

2580-627: The German words Sankt and Burg . In March 1917, during the February Revolution Nicholas II abdicated for himself and on behalf of his son, ending the Russian monarchy and over three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule . On 7 November [ O.S. 25 October] 1917, the Bolsheviks , led by Vladimir Lenin , stormed the Winter Palace in an event known thereafter as

2666-598: The Neva River, and a seaport on the Baltic. The names of Saints Peter and Paul , bestowed upon the original city's citadel and its cathedral (from 1725 – a burial vault of Russian emperors) coincidentally were the names of the first two assassinated Russian emperors, Peter III (1762, supposedly killed in a conspiracy led by his wife, Catherine the Great ) and Paul I (1801, Nikolay Alexandrovich Zubov and other conspirators who brought to power Alexander I ,

Operation Barbarossa order of battle - Misplaced Pages Continue

2752-505: The Rear Area commander, informed Leeb of the massacres of Jews by Einsatzgruppe A , Lithuanian auxiliaries and the men of the 16th Army outside Kaunas. Leeb noted in his diary afterwards that all he could do was to "keep one’s distance" and that both men agreed it might be "more humane" to sterilise the Jewish men. Leeb approved of the killing of Jewish men and claimed their crimes during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania justified it but that

2838-555: The Soviet Union. In June 1941, Army Group North, composed of Panzer Group 4 , the 16th Army and the 18th Army , overwhelmed Soviet border defences and in the Baltic Operation rapidly advanced through the Baltic states by capturing Kaunas and Riga by 1 July. Leeb had jurisdiction over the area of military operations and over the Army Group North Rear Area . In late June and early July 1941, Franz von Roques ,

2924-654: The Soviet era, many historic architectural monuments of the previous centuries were destroyed by the new regime for ideological reasons. While that mainly concerned churches and cathedrals, some other buildings were also demolished. On 1 December 1934, Sergey Kirov , the Bolshevik leader of Leningrad, was assassinated under suspicious circumstances, which became the pretext for the Great Purge . In Leningrad, approximately 40,000 were executed during Stalin's purges. During World War II, German forces besieged Leningrad following

3010-631: The Soviet–Finnish border moved northwards. Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Square maintained the functions and the role of a city centre. In December 1931, Leningrad was administratively separated from Leningrad Oblast . At that time it included the Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District , Krasnoselsky District , Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944). During

3096-456: The Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s–1780s, the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments. However, it was not until 1850 that the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Annunciation Bridge , was allowed to open. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769–1833) became

3182-559: The acting mayor Pyotr Sergeevich Popkov, and all their deputies; overall 23 leaders were sentenced to the death penalty, 181 to prison or exile (rehabilitated in 1954). About 2,000 ranking officials across the USSR were expelled from the party and the Komsomol and removed from leadership positions. The Leningrad Metro underground rapid transit system , designed before the war, opened in 1955 with its first eight stations decorated with marble and bronze . However, after Stalin's death in 1953,

3268-463: The area. At the end of the 17th century, Peter the Great, who was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, wanted Russia to gain a seaport to trade with the rest of Europe. He needed a better seaport than the country's main one at the time, Arkhangelsk , which was on the White Sea in the far north and closed to shipping during the winter. On 12 May [ O.S. 1 May] 1703, during

3354-438: The army group might not be able to take the city but hard fighting continued along his front throughout October and November. Since September, the headquarters of the army group and OKH had pondered the fate of the city and what to do with the starving Soviet population. Leeb ordered the artillery to fire at any civilians trying to escape from the encircled city to kill them out of view of the frontline infantry. In mid-November,

3440-423: The army group's war diary noted the artillery was preventing civilians from approaching the German lines. The operations led the command to ponder whether the shooting of unarmed civilians would lead to the "loss of inner balance". Senior officers were also concerned about "false" compassion that might affect the fighting qualities of their men. Forces under Leeb's command killed Romani people , handed others over to

3526-440: The author of the first nickname of Petersburg which he called Петри ( Petri ). It took some years until the known Russian spelling of this name finally settled. In 1740s Mikhail Lomonosov uses a derivative of Greek: Πετρόπολις (Петрополис, Petropolis ) in a Russified form Petropol ' (Петрополь). A combo Piterpol (Питерпол) also appears at this time. In any case, eventually the usage of prefix " Sankt- " ceased except for

Operation Barbarossa order of battle - Misplaced Pages Continue

3612-671: The city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences , University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great. In 1725, Peter died at age fifty-two. His endeavors to modernize Russia had been opposed by the Russian nobility . There were several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his son. In 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia , Saint Petersburg

3698-400: The city authorities arranged for the mayoral elections and a referendum upon the city's name, when the original name Saint Petersburg was restored. The turnout was 65%; 66.13% of the total count of votes went to Anatoly Sobchak , who became the first directly elected mayor of the city . Meanwhile, economic conditions started to deteriorate as the country tried to adapt to major changes. For

3784-496: The city authorities until December 2010, when after the statement of President Dmitry Medvedev , the city decided to find a more appropriate location for this project. In the same year, the new location for the project was relocated to Lakhta , a historical area northwest of the city centre, and the new project would be named Lakhta Center . Construction was approved by Gazprom and the city administration and commenced in 2012. The 462 m (1,516 ft) high Lakhta Center has become

3870-522: The city during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace . In the 1760s, Baroque architecture was succeeded by neoclassical architecture . Established in 1762, the Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg ruled that no structure in the city could be higher than

3956-873: The city has the nickname of being "the Northern Capital of Russia" and is home to notable federal government bodies such as the Constitutional Court of Russia and the Heraldic Council of the President of the Russian Federation . It is also a seat for the National Library of Russia and a planned location for the Supreme Court of Russia , as well as the home to the headquarters of the Russian Navy , and

4042-415: The city was renamed Leningrad in January 1924. The referendum on restoring the historic name was held on 12 June 1991, with 55% of voters supporting " Saint Petersburg " and 43% supporting " Leningrad ". The turnout was 65% . Renaming the city Petrograd was not an option. This change officially took effect on 6 September 1991. Meanwhile, the oblast whose administrative center is also in Saint Petersburg

4128-410: The city's name in English was Saint Petersburgh . This spelling survives in the name of a street in the Bayswater district of London, near St Sophia's Cathedral , named after a visit by the Tsar to London in 1814. A 14 to 15-letter-long name, composed of the three roots , proved too cumbersome, and many shortened versions were used. The first General Governor of the city Menshikov is maybe also

4214-428: The city. On 5 September, he received new orders, including the destruction of the Red Army forces around the city. By 15 September, Panzer Group 4 was to be transferred to Army Group Centre to participate in a renewed offensive towards Moscow. The expected surrender did not materialise although the renewed German offensive cut off the city by 8 September. Lacking sufficient strength for major operations, Leeb had to accept

4300-463: The de facto lead defence counsel and often represented other parties in matters of procedure. He defended the "decency" of the German officer corps and asserted that it had displayed respect for the laws of war. The defence attributed the actions of the German military against civilians, hostages and partisans to battle conditions and military necessity. Addressing the criminal orders that Leeb and other defendants had passed on, Laternser claimed that Leeb

4386-419: The economic authorities is being rendered impossible by the senseless 'organisations' of the troops". The last rail connection to Leningrad was cut on 30 August, when the German forces reached the River Neva . In early September, Leeb was confident Leningrad was about to fall. Having received reports on the evacuation of civilians and industrial goods, Leeb and OKH believed the Red Army was preparing to abandon

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4472-400: The first time since the 1940s, food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. This dramatic time was depicted in photographic series of Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko . Economic conditions began to improve only at the beginning of the 21st century. In 1995, a northern section of the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro

4558-400: The formal official documents, where a three-letter abbreviation "СПб" ( SPb ) was very widely used as well. In the 1830s Alexander Pushkin translated the "foreign" city name of "Saint Petersburg" to the more Russian Petrograd (Russian: Петроград , IPA: [pʲɪtrɐˈgrat] ) in one of his poems. However, it was only on 31 August [ O.S. 18 August] 1914, after

4644-426: The former capital of Imperial Russia , and a historically strategic port , it is governed as a federal city . The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress , and was named after the apostle Saint Peter . In Russia , Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as

4730-480: The fund in September 1941 for his birthday. The same month, Franz Walter Stahlecker , the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, in a report to Berlin praised Army Group North for its exemplary co-operation with his men in murdering Jews in the Baltic states. Soviet resistance stiffened significantly as the army group crossed the Latvian–Russian border in early July 1941. At the same time, Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, German Army High Command) ordered that Panzer Group 3

4816-411: The head of the city administration . The title of the city head was changed from "mayor" to "governor". In 2000, Yakovlev won re-election. His second term expired in 2004; the long-awaited restoration of the broken subway connection was expected to finish by that time. But in 2003 Yakovlev suddenly resigned, leaving the governor's office to Valentina Matviyenko . The law on election of the City Governor

4902-500: The killing of women and children might have been excessive. In early July, General Rudolf Schmundt , Hitler's aide responsible for the disbursing secret extra-legal payments from the Konto 5 fund, visited the headquarters of Army Group North. He told Leeb's staff that the pogroms against and the murder of the Jews by Einsatzgruppe A were a "necessary cleaning up operation" and that "soldiers should not concern themselves with political matters". Leeb received 250,000 Reichsmarks from

4988-420: The lake froze. More than one million civilians were killed, mainly from starvation. There were incidents of cannibalism, with around 2,000 residents arrested for eating other people. Many others escaped or were evacuated, so the city became largely depopulated. On 1 May 1945 Joseph Stalin , in his Supreme Commander Order No. 20, named Leningrad, alongside Stalingrad , Sevastopol , and Odesa , hero cities of

5074-557: The marshy terrain around Lake Ilmen and fierce Red Army counterattacks prevented a quick advance. By early August, Army Group North was seriously overextended, having advanced on a widening front and dispersed its forces on several axes of advance. Leeb estimated that he needed 35 divisions for all of his tasks, but he only had 26. The attack resumed on 10 August but immediately encountered strong opposition around Luga. Leeb's forces were able to take Kingisepp and Narva on 17 August. The army group reached Chudovo on 20 August, severing

5160-512: The measure the following day in a personal meeting with Hitler in the Wolfsschanze . On 15 January 1942, Leeb asked Hitler to give him freedom of action or to relieve him of his command. Hitler chose the latter and Küchler assumed command of Army Group North. Hitler never employed Leeb again but Hitler's gratitude lasted until he killed himself in April 1945. After Leeb joined the Führerreserve in 1942, Leeb turned to Hans Heinrich Lammers and indicated that in addition to his estate at Solln on

5246-416: The original name, Sankt-Peterburg , was returned by citywide referendum. Today, in English the city is known as Saint Petersburg . Local residents often refer to the city by its shortened nickname, Piter (Russian: Питер , IPA: [ˈpʲitʲɪr] ). After the October Revolution the name Red Petrograd (Красный Петроград, Krasny Petrograd ) was often used in newspapers and other prints until

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5332-416: The outskirts of Munich, he wanted an estate in the countryside. Hitler promptly presented him with one at Seestetten, near Passau . According to Gauleiter (regional Nazi Party leader) Paul Giesler , it was worth an estimated minimum of 660,000 Reichsmarks. Leeb was tried by the United States military tribunal in Nuremberg in the High Command Trial . Leeb's defence attorney Hans Laternser acted as

5418-432: The perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. From the 1960s to the 1980s many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts; while the functionalist apartment blocks were nearly identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre to live in separate apartments. On 12 June 1991 , simultaneously with the first Russian SFSR presidential elections ,

5504-417: The plans for the Battle of France the 1940 offensive through the neutral Low Countries and wrote, "The whole world will turn against Germany, which for the second time within 25 years assaults neutral Belgium! Germany, whose government solemnly vouched for and promised the preservation of and respect for this neutrality only a few weeks ago". During the battle, his troops broke through the Maginot Line . Leeb

5590-421: The post-war decades, partially according to pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan for Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. In 1953, Pavlovsky District in Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory, including Pavlovsk, merged with Leningrad. In 1954, the settlements Levashovo , Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad. Leningrad gave its name to

5676-540: The preservation of its historical and architectural environment became controversial. After 2005, the demolition of older buildings in the historical centre was permitted. In 2006, Gazprom announced an ambitious project to erect a 403 m (1,322 ft) skyscraper (the Okhta Center ) opposite to Smolny , which could result in the loss of the unique line of Petersburg landscape. Urgent protests by citizens and prominent public figures of Russia against this project were not considered by Governor Valentina Matviyenko and

5762-401: The rail link between Leningrad and Moscow. Tallinn fell on 28 August. Units under Leeb's command engaged in widespread plunder of foodstuffs as they advanced. Excessive looting prompted Leeb to issue orders in an attempt to limit looting and destruction of property because they would impede the exploitation of the conquered lands. Leeb's order of 16 August 1941 stated that "the start-up work of

5848-470: The rise of Adolf Hitler to power, Leeb commanded the military district covering Bavaria. In July 1938, Leeb was given command of the 12th Army , which took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland . At the start of World War II , the 63-year-old Ritter von Leeb was the second-oldest general, after Gerd von Rundstedt , who was 64. In the summer of 1939, Leeb was given command of Army Group C and promoted to Generaloberst on 1 November 1939. He opposed

5934-442: The son of their victim). The third emperor's assassination took place in Saint Petersburg in 1881 when Alexander II was murdered by terrorists (see the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood ). The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. On 1 September 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd , meaning "Peter's City", to remove

6020-455: The southern limit of the city. The most prominent neoclassical and Empire-style architects in Saint Petersburg included: In 1810, Alexander I established the first engineering higher education , the Saint Petersburg Main military engineering School in Saint Petersburg. Many monuments commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 , including the Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and

6106-407: The supervision of Alexander Menshikov . Tens of thousands of serfs died while building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate . Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, nine years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war. He referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital (or seat of government) as early as 1704. While the city

6192-572: The units of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and participated in the killing of mentally disabled people. In December 1941, with the consent of 18th Army commander Georg von Küchler , SD personnel shot 240 patients in a psychiatric facility. On 15 December 1941, in the midst of the crisis of the Battle of Moscow , Leeb pulled back his forces on the northern wing to a line behind the Volkhov River without permission from OKH. Leeb gained approval for

6278-554: The war with Germany had begun, that Tsar Nicholas II renamed the city Petrograd in order to expunge the German words Sankt and Burg . Since the prefix "Saint" was omitted, this act also changed the eponym and the "patron" of the city from Saint Peter to Peter the Great, its founder. On 26 January 1924, shortly after the death of Vladimir Lenin , it was renamed to Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград , IPA: [lʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat] ), meaning 'Lenin City'. On 6 September 1991,

6364-686: The war. A law acknowledging the honorary title of "Hero City" passed on 8 May 1965 (the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War), during the Brezhnev era . The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded Leningrad as a Hero City the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal "for the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege". The Hero-City Obelisk bearing

6450-466: The world has ever yet had to fight under such a load and tragedy". His statement foreshadowed the narrative of victimisation prevalent in West Germany in the 1950s and the 1960s. Leeb was found guilty on one of four charges; he was convicted of transmitting the Barbarossa Decree and its criminal application by subordinate units. He was sentenced to time served and was released after trial. The sentence

6536-554: Was a humane soldier who had neither seen nor transmitted such orders and had no opportunity to countermand them. He claimed that Leeb knew nothing of the activities of the Einsatzgruppen in his area of command and anyway had no jurisdiction to stop them. As the most senior officer of those on trial, Leeb presented a closing statement on behalf of the defendants. He stated the accused never compromised their soldierly principles and presented them as victims of history: "No soldier in all

6622-581: Was again designated as the capital of the Russian Empire . It remained the seat of the Romanov dynasty and the Imperial Court of the Russian tsars , as well as the seat of the Russian government, for another 186 years until the communist revolution of 1917 . In 1736–1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. To rebuild the damaged boroughs, a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Münnich commissioned

6708-576: Was being built, Peter lived in a three-room log cabin with his wife Catherine and their children. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan. By 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by

6794-524: Was changed, breaking the tradition of democratic election by universal suffrage that started in 1991. In 2006, the city legislature re-approved Matviyenko as governor. Residential building had intensified again; real-estate prices inflated greatly, which caused many new problems for the preservation of the historical part of the city. Although the central part of the city has a UNESCO designation (there are about 8,000 architectural monuments in Petersburg),

6880-400: Was cut off by underground flooding, creating a major obstacle to the city development for almost ten years. On 13 June 1996, Saint Petersburg, alongside Leningrad Oblast and Tver Oblast , signed a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy. This agreement was abolished on 4 April 2002. In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev defeated Anatoly Sobchak in the elections for

6966-624: Was lighter than those of other convicted defendants. The judgement stated, "No criminal order has been introduced [into evidence] that bears his signature or stamp of his approval". After Leeb was released, he returned to his estate in Hohenschwangau , Bavaria . He died of a heart attack in 1956 in Füssen and was buried in the Solln Waldfriedhof . St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg , formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad ,

7052-482: Was no longer to support Army Group North and was to focus solely on Army Group Centre , leaving Leeb to pursue his objectives, Novgorod , Pskov and Luga , as well as Estonia , without the support of an additional Panzer group. Leeb did not protest, presumably because he believed in the superiority of the German forces and that resistance by the Red Army would not affect his operations. In contrast to those expectations,

7138-660: Was promoted to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . During Operation Barbarossa , the invasion of the Soviet Union , Leeb was given command of Army Group North to invade the Baltic states and to capture Leningrad. Leeb was one of more than 200 senior officers who on 30 March 1941 attended a speech in which Hitler laid out his plans for an ideological war of annihilation ( Vernichtungskrieg ) against

7224-478: Was renamed Leningrad . Later many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly, with names in honour of communist figures replacing historic names given centuries before. The city has over 230 places associated with the life and activities of Lenin. Some of them were turned into museums, including the cruiser Aurora – a symbol of the October Revolution and the oldest ship in the Russian Navy . In

7310-404: Was the Leningrad Military District until 24 June. Lieutenant General Filip Danilovich Gorelenko Lieutenant General Valerian A. Frolov Lieutenant General P.S. Pshennikov Frontal aviation Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb Wilhelm Josef Franz Ritter von Leeb (5 September 1876 – 29 April 1956) was a German Generalfeldmarschall ( Field Marshal ) of

7396-813: Was therefore released after the trial concluded. Leeb was born in 1876 in Landsberg am Lech as Wilhelm Josef Franz Leeb into a Roman Catholic family. Wilhelm joined the Bavarian Army in 1895 and served in China during the Boxer Rebellion . Between 1907 and 1913, he attended the Bavarian War Academy and served on the General Staff. At the outbreak of World War I , Leeb rejoined the Bavarian Army. He served on

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