Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Iain MacGregor, "The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II" (Scribner, 2022)
Description: To the Soviet Union, the sacrifices that enabled the country to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II are sacrosanct. The foundation of the Soviets’ hard-won victory was laid during the battle for the city of Stalingrad, resting on the banks of the river Volga. To Russians it was a pivotal landmark of their nation’s losses, with more than two million civilians and combatants either killed, wounded, or captured during the bitter fighting from September 1942 to February 1943. Both sides endured terrible conditions in brutal, relentless house-to-house fighting.Within this life-and-death struggle, Soviet war correspondents lauded the figh...