Welcome to the Naddold Better Show. I'm your host Paul Vogelzink and this is episode

number 243. As part of our Smithsonian Associates, Art of Living Interview Series, our guest today on the

Not Old Better show is Timothy Mulligan. Timothy Mulligan is an author and a retired archivist at the National Archives who

specialized in captured German and related American military records of World War II.

Timothy Mulligan, our guest today,

will be joining us to talk about the decisive battle

of the Second World War, the Battle of Stalingrad.

And because music played such a role in promoting propaganda,

we're playing the March of the Soviet Tankman

and the March of Stalin's Air Force,

both of which are original recordings and both were played frequently during World War II

So we thought we'd use those as our music today the Battle of Stalingrad is a fascinating yet tragic subject and a battle fought mostly for prestige,

notably considered history's first battle over oil, but the battle ended with

the annihilation of an entire German army of 250,000 men.

It ultimately evolves that way, but it started off as something completely different. And what it started off as something completely different and what it started off as comes back at the very end in one reason why

the disaster for the Germans becomes the way it does because the commander of the 6th Army

understands the situation in the Caucasus, which was this was all part of a plan to invade the Caucasus and

take the oil and he understands that that had bogged down and so one reason why

he doesn't retreat one reason why he stays on and fights and even doesn't

you surrender when he really should have is because he's aware of those troops down there having to be able to evacuate and pull out.

So even at the end the doom the fate of sixth army is affected by what was the original plan and

sometimes we forget about that original plan. That of course is our guest today

...