 The citizens of Leningrad were subjected to heavy bombardment and a siege that would last 872 days and starve more than a million people to death , of whom approximately 400 @,@ 000 were children below the age of 14 . The German @-@ Finnish blockade cut off access to food , fuel and raw materials , and rations reached a low , for the non @-@ working population , of four ounces ( five thin slices ) of bread and a little watery soup per day . Starving Soviet civilians began to eat their domestic animals , along with hair tonic and Vaseline . Some desperate citizens resorted to cannibalism ; Soviet records list 2 @,@ 000 people arrested for " the use of human meat as food " during the siege , 886 of them during the first winter of 1941 – 42 . The Wehrmacht planned to seal off Leningrad , starve out the population , and then demolish the city entirely . 
