compared to the number of people died in Hiroshima 78,150 died, 13,983 missing, and 37,426 wounded, the people died in Leningrad are more than ten
times than in Hiroshima p. 513. There is no exact number of people who died in Leningrad because of the
siege. A Soviet Army newspaper; Red Star on June 28, 1964 published a declaration from a official Soviet response to a Swedish official inquiry. It is said:
“No one knows exactly how many people died in Leningrad and the Leningrad area.”
The Soviet Government announced that the deaths by starvation and hunger in city of Leningrad was 632,253. Deaths by bombs and shells were
16,747 persons. So the total civilian deaths were 649,000. The number above was only in the city of Leningrad, before it was added by the deaths in nearby Pushkin
and Peterhof. So the total of deaths by starvation was 461,803 and deaths by all war causes were 671,635. Leningrad City Commission attested these figures to
Investigation Nazi Atrocities, and submitted at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. The Commission figures are not complete because they do not cover the
other Leningrad areas, such as Oranienbaum, Sestroretsk and the suburban parts of the blockade zone. And then an elaborate apparatus of City and Regional Party
officials, which was headed by Party Secretary Kuznetsov prepared the new counting of the death number. The task involved 6,445 local commissions and
more than 31,000 persons. They made the individual lists for each region. The regional lists consisted of 440,826 names, and it was added 191,427 names from a
general city-wide list p. 514.
Deprivation happens when one social group or individual does not have enough resources to survive or fill the minimum standard to live as cited by
Turner, 2006, p. 349. Leningrad people prove that they did not have enough resources to survive, so many of them died, most of them were because of hunger.
B. Relative Deprivation
Relative deprivation is a condition when it is based on a comparison with the resources of other groups as cited by Turner, 2006, p. 503. The basic concept
of deprivation is the situation when one social group or individual does not have enough resources to survive or fill the minimum standard to live. Relative
deprivation is that similar situation but when it is compared to another group as cited by Turner, 2006, p. 349. According to the concept of relative deprivation,
Leningrad also had the experienced of that condition. In order to reveal the relative deprivation in Leningrad during World War II, this study takes the parts
in David Benioff’sCity of Thieves to show the condition. The relative deprivation in this study deals with the condition of Russian army and Germany army, so
what is being compared here is there power, because it is also the factor that affects the Leningrad people’s life.
1. The Power of German and Russian Army
a. The Power of German Army
Leningraders and all with Russia residents were terrified with the Germany’s invasion. Germany was on the peak of its rules to the world. They had
a strong and organized force to invade almost countries. One of their squads is the Einsatzgruppen as described by Benioff 2008 in his novel:
The Einsatzgruppen were Nazi death squads, killers, handpicked from the ranks of the regular army, the Waffen-SS, and the Gestapo, chosen for
their brutal efficiency and their pure Aryan blood. When Germans invaded a country, the Eisatzgruppen would follow behind the combat divisions,
waiting until the territory was secured before hunting down their chosen targets: Communists, Gypsies, intellectuals, and, of course, Jews p. 157.
Edeiken 2000 states that the Eisatzgruppen were four paramilitary units
formed for “liquidating” murdering Jews, Romany, and political operatives of the Communist Party. They were established before the invasion of the Russia.
The Einsatzgruppen were divided into Eisatzgruppen A, B, C, and D. The Eisatzgruppen A, B, and C were attached to army groups taking part in the
invasion. The Einsatzgruppen D was sent to the Ukraine without being attached to any army group. All of the groups operated in the territories occupied by the Third
Reich on the eastern front. Most of their crime took place in the Ukraine and the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
The most succinct description of the purpose of the Eisatzgruppen was given at the trial of Adolph Eichman by Dr. Michael Musmanno, Justice of the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who presided over the trial of 23 of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen. He states that the purpose of the Eisatzgruppen was to murder
Jews and deprive them of their prosperity. SS General Erich von dem Bach- Zelewski confirmed this at the main Nuremberg Trial when he testified that the
principal task of the Einsatzgruppen was the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, and political commissars.
