Moscow demands compensation
Russia: Leningrad blockade was genocide
March 20, 2024, 7:21 a.m
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Russia is demanding that Germany recognize the Leningrad blockade as genocide and complains about a “contradictory approach” to the past. Moscow is also bothered by the fact that Berlin only pays individual compensation to Jewish victims of the blockade.
Russia is demanding that Germany recognize the siege of Leningrad in World War II 1941-44 not only as a war crime, but as a genocide. The Russian Foreign Ministry has sent a corresponding diplomatic note to the Foreign Office, reported the state news agency TASS in Moscow.
The German side was accused of an allegedly “contradictory approach” to the past: German crimes from the colonial era were recognized as genocide, but the National Socialist crimes against the peoples of the Soviet Union in the Second World War were not. “The Russian side insists on official recognition of such atrocities by the Third Reich as genocide,” the note said.
During the almost 900-day long siege of the northern Russian city of Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg again, by the Wehrmacht and its allies, around 1.1 million people died. Countless civilians starved to death or froze to death.
“The Leningrad blockade was a terrible war crime that the German Wehrmacht brought upon Leningrad and its population,” said the Foreign Office. The federal government has emphasized this several times and is sticking to this legal opinion. On the 80th anniversary of the end of the blockade this January, the German embassy in Moscow commemorated the victims with several events. Ambassador Alexander Graf Lambsdorff met with survivors.
Russian diplomacy is increasing the pressure on Germany with its demand. Legally, the accusation of genocide goes further than that of war crimes. The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention requires competent courts to issue convictions for genocide. For cases before this, it is a question of coming to terms with politics, society and historiography.
Moscow also wants compensation for non-Jews
In the note, the Russian Foreign Ministry was again bothered by the fact that Germany only pays individual compensation to Jewish victims of the blockade. “The Russian side sees such a practice on the German side as ethnic discrimination,” TASS quoted the note as saying. Victims of all nationalities should be compensated – this is the demand.
Germany justifies the different treatment by saying that Soviet Jews were exposed to particular pressure of persecution because of National Socialist racial policy. The compensation for other victims was paid for with the war reparations that were paid from Germany after 1945.
As a humanitarian gesture, the federal government has been supporting social and medical aid for surviving blockade victims in St. Petersburg since 2019. The new paper from Moscow states that a humanitarian gesture that is appropriate to what is happening is still missing.