The ferocious fighting for control of the city on the Volga, now known as Volgograd, lasted from early September 1942 to Feb. 2, 1943. Troop losses on both sides numbered in the hundreds of thousands; official statistics tally 64,224 civilian deaths in the fighting, with most buildings reduced to rubble. But Stalingrad, Mr. MacGregor maintains, “broke the cycle of continual German victories, thus ensuring that it was now a case of when and not if the Allies would eventually defeat the Nazis.” A very vivid picture . . . Personal testimonies nobody has seen before. A fast-paced, compelling read' * We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast * But in his carefully researched new book “The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II,” Mr. MacGregor points out that “the mythologizing of the struggle for Stalin’s city can sometimes distort the true history, which in itself is unambiguously heroic.” Particularly at a time when Vladimir Putin is invoking the cult of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is called in Russia, to justify his disastrous invasion of Ukraine, Mr. MacGregor argues that it is vital to separate fact from propagandistic fiction. This deluxe hardcover features 24 issues of the hit series, The Walking Dead, along with the covers for the issues all in one massive, oversized slipcased volume. The maps and the detail help one get as good a picture as is feasible, 80 years later, of this battle that turned the tide of the Great Patriotic War, and quite possibly WWII as well.

The Lighthouse of Stalingrad | Book by Iain MacGregor The Lighthouse of Stalingrad | Book by Iain MacGregor

A look at brave men and women in difficult circumstances as they battled in the fall and winter of 1942-43 over the city of Stalingrad. Iain MacGregor tells how the Germans attempted and failed to capture the city. It is a story of heroism, death, and denial. In it, he discusses the "myth" of Pavlov's House. While Junior Sargent Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov, 3rd Nat talion, 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment was part of the storming of the House he was injured and was not there the entire time, but he was turned into the leading figure by the Soviet government in an attempt to rally the Soviets to victory in WWII. Five years later, Stalin, now head of the Soviet Union following Lenin’s death, had the city renamed in his honour. As a vast trading port, with a rich supply of fish from the river and raw materials from the factories on its banks, ‘Stalingrad’ would help power the promised Soviet economic miracle. Surprisingly, however, when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Stalingrad was not an immediate target. The city was initially just a name on the map for the German High Command, symbolic perhaps but not as strategically important as Moscow or Leningrad (the renamed St Petersburg) or the oil fields deep in the southern Caucasus. The Lighthouse of Stalingrad goes into a lot of detail about the fighting between Russian and Germany over Stalingrad. There are also some maps of the battles at the beginning of some of the chapters. It also has a small section of photos. My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Scribner for an advance copy of this history of Stalingrad and its legacy.The procession had arrived at the pathway to the enormous memorial complex, which covered 1.3 square miles of the eastern slope of the Mamayev. Before they would reach their destination, the mourners were now faced with a series of terraces to ascend, each with sculptures eulogizing a stage of the battle.14 They began by walking up the 100-meter (328-foot) path, before climbing up the two hundred steps, representing the two hundred days of the battle, which took the cortege and the multitude of followers up to the Avenue of Lombardy Poplars. They were now walking through a circular piazza enclosed by birch trees, giving the mourners a dominating view across the Volga that emphasized how crucial in commanding the high ground this position had been to both sides. MacGregor retells [this story] with impressive skill and relish . . . closely researched and enormously engaging * Sunday Times * The procession had arrived at the pathway to the enormous memorial complex, which covered 1.3 square miles of the eastern slope of the Mamayev. Before they would reach their destination, the mourners were now faced with a series of terraces to ascend, each with sculptures eulogizing a stage of the battle. 14 They began by walking up the 100-meter (328-foot) path, before climbing up the two hundred steps, representing the two hundred days of the battle, which took the cortege and the multitude of followers up to the Avenue of Lombardy Poplars. They were now walking through a circular piazza enclosed by birch trees, giving the mourners a dominating view across the Volga that emphasized how crucial in commanding the high ground this position had been to both sides. It very nearly worked. With their path cleared by the merciless aerial bombing of Generaloberst Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (cousin of the Red Baron), Army Group B, the bulk of which was formed by the German Sixth Army, commanded by Friedrich Paulus, reached deep into the city – as far as the banks of the Volga – by early September. Key landmarks, such as the State Bank, the Univermag Department Store, and one of the city’s main railway stations, fell into German hands. Soon, it was joked, the Berlin to Stalingrad express would be up and running. Toe hold The Russians fought the Germans hard for this city. It was completely destroyed during the fall and winter of 1942.

The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Centre

Join Iain MacGregor as he brings to light the story of the small garrison of Red Army guardsmen based in this strategic front-line building, who held out against the German Sixth Army.MacGregor retells [this story] with impressive skill and relish . . . closely researched and enormously engaging." — Sunday Times (UK)

The Lighthouse of Stalingrad - A Titanic Book Review: The Lighthouse of Stalingrad - A Titanic

Investigating these events, Mr. MacGregor combed the records and interviewed Pavlov’s son and Chuikov’s grandson. While he does not doubt Pavlov was a fierce combatant, he discovered contradictory evidence about who really tookcommand of the lighthouse—and whether the legend of the battle comes close to matching what really happened. He concludes that “the imagined storyline was deemed more important than the actual truth.” A besieged city, a hostile army enveloping on all sides, and a ruthless commander refusing to surrender – this was not 1942, but 1919, when the city in southern Russia then known as Tsaritsyn was on the verge of being captured by the anti-revolutionary Whites. It was this appalling pile-up of corpses that began to chill spines throughout the German High Command. Paulus watched in horror as his best men were cut down and replaced by rookies – easy prey for the Soviet snipers, who were themselves the subject of much mythologising in the months and years to come.Soon, national Soviet newspapers like Isvestia and Pravda took up the story and ran their own increasingly feverish versions. The image of the defiant house – representative not just of Stalingrad’s defence, but of the resistance of every family and every home across the Soviet Union – was too good a piece of propaganda to pass up. Stunning. History at its very best: a blend of impeccably researched scholarship, genuinely revelatory primary sources, and a beautifully written narrative.' - James Holland