World War II

The Second World War provides us with more documentation then almost any other period, war or event in history. The main reason for this windfall of information is principally due to the rapid collapse of the 3rd Reich. When the allies launched the final offensives in the spring of 1945 the fall of Germany was almost instantaneous and one of the pre-occupations which Germany was cursed or blessed with was the keeping of records having to do with everything. For the most part there was no time and in many case little inclination, to destroy these records. This massive amount of captured documents provided historians with an almost limitless supply of primarily material to study and analysis. In addition to this, the allied side was more then willing to publish and provide documents to back their point and of view and justify the actions they took throughout the war.