Sinyavinsky heights, which became the site of fierce hostilities in the period 1941 - 1944, played a decisive role in the battle for Leningrad. It was in the forests and swamps near the small village of Sinyavino that the fate of the heroic besieged city was decided.
By the beginning of autumn, the forty-first northern wing of the Soviet-German front was characterized by a rather alarming operational situation - under threat of capture was a symbol of Soviet power - Leningrad. On September 8, after the loss of Shlisselburg, a dense asphyxiation ring closed around the country's second-largest and strategic city. Communication with the mainland was interrupted, which threatened Leningrad with the most serious consequences. Especially in light of the loss of the wooden Badayevsky warehouses burnt by the German aerial bomb, which the party leadership of the city did not think to disperse over the well-fortified underground vaults.
In such a situation, the Sinyavinsky heights were chosen as the direction of the main debilitating strike. In this territory, the distance between the two Soviet fronts - Volkhovsky and Leningrad turned out to be the most minimal. Another important reason that the Sinyavinsky heights were chosen as the main direction of the breakthrough of the blockade ring lies in their dominance over the surrounding area from a tactical point of view. Consequently, the capture of the chain of these highlands made it possible to seize the strategic initiative and take control of the vast lowlands from Ladoga on the northern flank to the Mgi River on the southern.
Cruel and bloody battles at Sinyavinsky heights can be divided into three stages. The first of them started on the night of September twenty-first the forty-first crossing of one of the battalions of the one hundred and fifteenth infantry division to the left bank of the Neva, held by the divisions of the commander of the German army group "North", Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb. There was no stubborn resistance by the enemy, which made it possible to seize a small bridgehead, which then landed units of the first NKVD division, the fourth marine brigade and directly the main parts of the 115th SD.
Such forces managed to cut the highway connecting Leningrad with Shlisselburg and come close to the 8th state district power station captured by the Germans. This legendary bridgehead went down in history under the name "Nevsky Piglet". In fact, this was the first success of our troops on the Leningrad Front. Units of the fifty-fourth army of Lieutenant General Ivan Fedyuninsky made their way from the Volkhov direction to the Nevsky Piglet. The offensive of our troops from two converging directions to Sinyavinsky heights gained momentum. The advanced units were no longer divided by 12–16 km, when the shock units of the 54th Army encountered stiff resistance from the enemy and, after suffering heavy losses, were forced to retreat. The inability to master the Sinyavinsky heights eventually turned into a failure of the entire tactical plan.
The second phase of the Sinyavinsky operation began in August with a forty-second strike by troops of two Soviet fronts. At the same time, divisions of the eleventh army from the Crimea with its large-caliber siege artillery, which destroyed Sevastopol and its fortifications, began to arrive in the badly battered Army Group "North", which was already commanded by Karl Küchler. The situation was complicated by the fact that the well-equipped and trained Crimean divisions of Manstein took up positions along the Neva from Lake Ladoga to Leningrad.
Front-line intelligence managed in time to get information about the arrival of fresh German units. And in order to forestall the enemy assault on Leningrad, which was commissioned to lead Field Marshal Manstein by Hitler himself, two Soviet fronts launched an attack on the Sinyavinsky heights. The memorial and the Walk of Fame, the construction of which began in 1975, is preserved by 64 marble slabs with the names of the soldiers who fell here.
Returning to August forty-second, it should be noted that in the first hours of the offensive, parts of the Volkhov Front suffered heavy losses. Despite this, by the end of August, the gap with the encircled city had steadily begun to narrow, and Manstein had to throw his reserve into battle - the 170th Crimean division. In the battle at the Sinyavinsky heights, as in a meat grinder, German troops were milled for the September assault on Leningrad.
In two days of fighting (August 27th and 28th), a powerful German defense was breached. Developing success, our troops continued the offensive towards the Neva. This time the chain of Sinyavinsky heights was taken. But Manstein managed to concentrate shock groups from his reserve at the breakthrough site. As a result, our units, plunged into a breakthrough, were surrounded. Parts of the troops later nevertheless managed to escape from this trap, but most of them died in the Sinyavinsky swamps. Successfully launched the offensive again ended in failure.
The third stage of the Sinyavinsky operation, this time crowned with success, began in January of the forty-third. The direction of the main blow was the area of peat mining, located north of Sinyavino. The Germans created a fairly powerful defensive line on this site. A well-fortified stronghold was created in each of the eight working villages located here. On January 12th, a well-planned offensive began. And already on the eighteenth day the reunion of the advanced units of the two fronts - Volkhovsky and Leningrad. This operation was, in its essence, a generalization of the failed experience of previous attacks. Perhaps that is why it ended successfully.