Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, Episode 160,

Leningrad under siege, Part 2, Unarmed for War.

Last time as war came to the Soviet Union, the men and women of Leningrad rose to the

occasion, volunteering to help the state and their city to fight off the Germans.

The men either went into the military or were organized into partisan units.

The women were sent south and to the southwest to dig anti-tank trenches.

But though digging ditches was a rather straightforward affair, the process the men went through

to be prepared for war was anything but straightforward, or thought out, or well-organized,

more effective.

Early into Barbarossa, General Zhudanov in charge of the northwestern front asked the

Stavka if he could form Apocchinev, volunteer divisions, thinking these men could perform

basic guard duty and one day be absorbed into the army reserves when their numbers fell

from combat.

Zhukov in Moscow not only said yes, but he wanted seven divisions of such formed straight

away.

Two and after Moscow sent out word to all the larger cities to begin forming their own

Apocchinev.

Clearly this was a good idea until it wasn't.

When Leningrad had its first 31,000 volunteers, they were put into the first three divisions.

The first division was called Korutsky, after the Korov defense works, as each division

was named after a Leningrad district.

As these men had all worked together, they knew each other and so morale was high from

...