Halswell (outer suburb)

South and west of Leningrad, the German armies still crouched in the outer suburbs. (Fritz Hockenjos, peering from his new observation post БЂ” another monastery bell tower БЂ” on the Gulf of Finland, could see cars and pedestrians moving along the streets, and count the windows in a government building.11) In February 1943 a second operation, БЂPolar StarБЂ™, aimed to lift the siege completely by encircling GermanyБЂ™s Eighteenth Army to the west, cutting its railway connection to the rear at Pskov. It failed thanks to rain, HitlerБЂ™s belated caution after Stalingrad, and to the Spanish Blue Division, which successfully defended its positions in vicious hand-to-hand trench fighting. (Hockenjos, who had earlier dismissed the Spaniards as БЂa great bunch of caballeros, dagger-wielders and operetta tenorsБЂ™, presumably had to eat his words.) The corridor did, however, allow the construction of a new thirty-four-kilometre temporary railway line into Leningrad, via a pontoon bridge over the Neva. The first train direct from the БЂmainlandБЂ™ rolled into Finland Station on 7 February, to speeches, bunting and a brass band ...»