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Ingria in World War II

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Military history of Ingria during World War II. Ingria (Ingermanland) also suffered during World War II. On 27 June 1941 the Council of deputies of the working people of Leningrad decided to mobilize thousands of people for the construction of fortifications. Several defences were built. One of the fortifications ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudovo, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo and then through the Neva River. The other defence passed through Petergof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino and Koltushy. Another defence against the Finns was built in the northern suburbs of Leningrad (Nevanlinna). In all 190 km of timber blockages, 635 km of wire entaglements, 700 km of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earth-and-timber emplacements and ferro-concrete weapon emplacements and 25,000 km of open trenches were built by civilians. Even the gun of the Russian cruiser Aurora was mounted on the Pulkovskiye Heights to the south of Leningrad. However, when Soviet troops of the North-Western Front in the end of June were defeated in the Baltic Soviet Republics, the Wehrmacht had forced its way to Ostrov and Pskov. On 10 July both cities were captured and the Germans reached Kunda and Kingisepp whereupon they advanced to Leningrad from Iivananlinna, the Luzhski region and from the south-east and also to the north and south of the Lake Ilmen in order to isolate Leningrad from the east and to join the Finns at the eastern bank of the Lake Ladoga. The shelling of Leningrad began on 4 September. Bombing on 8 September caused 178 fires. In early October the Germans refused to assault the city and Hitler's directive on 7 October, signed by Alfred Jodl was a reminder not to accept a capitulation.

In 1942, during the siege of Leningrad, 25,000-30,000 Ingrian Finns were deported to Siberia by NKVD. When the Nazi Germany occupied the the southern and western parts of Ingria during World War II, most of the remaining Finnish speaking people were evacuated to Finland. Their resettlement to Finland was allowed by German authorities to the basis of applications.

The siege continued until Operation "Spark" — a full-scale offensive of troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts — started in the morning of 12 January 1943. After fierce battles, the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the South of the Ladoga Lake, and on 18 January 1943 the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts met, opening a land corridor to the besieged city.

In January 1944, a Soviet offensive drove off the besieging Germans from the southern outskirts of the city, ending the siege. Later, in the summer of 1944, the Finns were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the river Vuoksi. The bravery of the city's defenders was an important symbol of the Soviet will to resist - in the first few weeks of the war the British had been so disheartened by the collapse of the Soviet armies, they thought a Nazi victory was all but inevitable. The warnings to citizens of the city as to which side of the road to walk on to avoid the German shelling can still be seen (they've been restored after the war). The ultimate number of casualties during the siege is disputed. After the war, The Soviet government reported about 670,000 deaths from 1941 to January 1944, mostly from starvation and exposure. Some independent estimates give a much higher death toll of anywhere from 700,000 to 1.5 million, with most estimates around 1.1 million. Most of these victims were buried on the Piskarevskoye Cemetery. On 3 February 1944, the Soviet assault began. A Soviet armoured group quickly penetrated the German line and established a bridgehead on the western bank of Narva. On 14 February 1944, the Red Army Volkhov and Leningrad Fronts launched operations aimed at forcing the German Generalfeldmarschall Georg von Küchler's Army Group North back from its positions near Oranienbaum and out of Reichskommissariat Ostland (Estonia). In the process, the attack was expected to encircle Generaloberst Georg Lindemann's 18.Army. The huge force fell on the sector of SS-Obergruppenfüher Felix Steiner's III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps, hitting the area of the 9th and 10th Luftwaffe Field Divisions. The Luftwaffe units crumbled quickly, and soon Army Group North was falling back to new positions around the Narva river on the western border of Ingria. Steiner's SS Corps brought up the rear, fighting many bloody rearguard actions until it finally reached the positions in Iivananlinna on the eastern bank of Narva river which provided a natural chokepoint between the Northern end of Lake Peipus and the Baltic Sea. This position, known as the Panther line, was where von Küchler wanted to set up his defense. Adolf Hitler refused, and replaced von Küchler with Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model as commander of Army Group North. Model agreed with von Küchler, however, being one of Hitler's favourites, he also was allowed more freedom by Hitler. Using this freedom to his advantage, Model managed to fall back and begin establishing a line along the Narwa river with a strong bridgehead on the Eastern Bank. This appeased Hitler, and also followed the German standard operating procedure for defending a river line. The main brunt of the Soviet attack was to fall on Steiner's SS Corps, positioned east of the strategically important town of Narva. Steiner's corps was mostly made up of SS Freiwilligen or volunteer formations. SS men from Scandinavia, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Spain and the Baltic States joined German formations in the defense of the river line. The Dutchmen of the 4.SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland and the various nationalities of the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland began frantically digging in along what had become known as the Narva Line. The defensive line ran for over seven miles, from the village of Lilienbach in the north to the village of Dolgaja Niva in the south, bulging eastwards from the Narva river near Iivananlinna. 63,227 Ingrian refugees, including the Votes and the Izhorians, had left for Finland by 31 October 1944. Many of them settled in Finnish families, helping them by working on farms. After the war, the Soviets demanded these people back and Finland had to return them to the Soviet Union after the armistice. The Ingrians were promised by Soviet auhtorities that they could return to their own region, but instead were deported to different parts of the Soviet Union. 55,773 Ingrians arrived and were scattered to the regions of Novgorod, Kalinin, Vologda, Sverdlovsk, etc. Some years after the war even those children of Ingrian descent that had been adopted by Finnish families were reclaimed by the Soviet Union. Later some Ingrians moved back to Ingria. Others moved to Estonian SSR, partly because the Estonian language is close to Finnish.

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