Stalingrad is regarded as one of the pivotal battles of the Second World War. Over two million civilians and combatants were either killed, wounded, or captured during the brutal fighting of September 1942.

‘The Lighthouse of Stalingrad’ Review: Truth and Lies After

Stalingrad is one of the most important battles in history and this a great look at it. MacGregor eschews looking at things entirely as a whole, like Beevor did in his titular work on the battle. Instead he focuses on one building. The result is a wonderful work of history. Within this life-and-death struggle for the heart of the city and situated on the frontline was a key strategic building, codenamed: 'The Lighthouse'. Here, a small garrison of Red Army guardsmen withstood German aerial bombardments and fought off daily assaults of infantry and armour. Red Army newspaper reports at the time would be seized upon by the Moscow media needing to place a positive spin on the fighting that had at one point looked beyond salvation. By the end of the war, the story of this building would gather further momentum to inspire Russians to rebuild their destroyed towns and cities until it became the legend it is today, renamed after the simple sergeant who had supposedly led the defence - 'Pavlov's House'. Brezhnev had long admired Chuikov, the “Legendary One.” While he himself had made his way up the ladder during the Great Patriotic War as a political commissar, it had not stopped him from inflating his own contribution to the war effort, awarding himself the military honors that commanders such as Chuikov had spilled blood for. Both men had endured an uneasy relationship with Brezhnev’s predecessor as first secretary—Nikita Khrushchev. Brezhnev respected Chuikov’s bluntness, and laughed at the way he had publicly questioned where Khrushchev had been during the fighting in Stalingrad. 12 And more important, Brezhnev had counted on his support when the time came to oust the erratic leader and take control of the Central Committee himself in 1962. He owed Chuikov.

Splendid. . . . MacGregor writes with great fluency and narrative drive, and his account of the context to the battle and the complexity of its fraught swings of fortune and misfortune is compellingly terse."— New Statesman

The Lighthouse of Stalingrad by Iain MacGregor | Waterstones

The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II," by Iain MacGregor (ISBN: 781982163587), publishing date 29 November 2022, earns a strong four stars. The title of MacGregor’s book refers to one of these staunchly defended outposts, today something of a shrine to the heroism represented by battle itself. Known as “Pavlov’s House” (codename “Lighthouse”), it was under the command of Junior Sergeant Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov. The ethnic mix of the soldiers under him encompassed the peoples of all Russia and, thanks to their endurance and cunning, they held out against overwhelming German opposition for two months. However, MacGregor has established that Pavlov himself was wounded fairly swiftly and evacuated. The legend of the “Lighthouse” was a deliberate act of propaganda that lasted long after the end of the war. Pavlov was heavily decorated and lauded for his uncommon bravery, paraded everywhere as a hero of the Soviet Union and cynosure of everything that Stalingrad came to symbolise. Beevor's book is off the whole battle, this book covers a much smaller aspect which is no less riveting. 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. Most Russians need no convincing that the Red Army’s grueling victory at Stalingrad was the most important event of World War II. Many Western historians concur that it was the turning point of the war on the Eastern Front, which means its significance can hardly be overstated. “The Battle of Stalingrad in my opinion is quite simply the most staggering feat of human endurance, sacrifice, and arms in the history of warfare,” writes British historian Iain MacGregor.A wonderful and important and timely book’– Alexander Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of The Bedford Boys and First Wave The book is well researched but the title is quite misleading. It also seemed that the author sometime simply walked around the same topic over and over again without moving with their research. The Lighthouse of Stalingrad by Iain MacGregor is a tale of two books. Well, actually, one book and one major marketing error.