Historiography of World War II The Historiography of World War II is the study of how historians portray the causes , conduct , and outcomes of World War II . Historiographical Viewpoints . Contemporary View . Especially directly after World War II , Nazi Germany was held to blame for starting the war . Historians cited several reasons for this . Germany was the one who initially invaded Poland against the recommendation of the allies , and also attacked the Soviet Union . Also , the system of alliances between the Axis Powers was one that was only meant for war . The tripartite pact stated that if any country declared war on one of the Axis countries , the other two would also declare war on those countries . Another reason , historians saw , is that the policies of Hitler were overly aggressive ; not only did Hitler preach war with France and the Soviet Union , but he followed a careful pre - made plan of expansionism . Methods of Historiography . Canada . Canada deployed trained historians to Canadian Military Headquarters in the United Kingdom during the war , and paid much attention to the chronicling of the conflict , not only in the words of the official historians of the Army Historical Section , but also through art and trained painters . The official history of the Canadian Army was undertaken after the war , with an interim draft published in 1948 and three volumes in the 1950s . This was in comparison to the First World War ' s official history , only 1 volume of which was completed by 1939 , and the full text only released after a change in authors some 40 years after the fact . Official histories of the RCAF and RCN in the Second World War were also a long time coming , and the book " Arms , Men and Government " by Charles Stacey ( one of the main contributors to the Army history ) was published in the 1980s as an " official " history of the war policies of the Canadian government . Some battles have remained controversial , such as Hong Kong and Dieppe , and a variety of books have been written on them from various points of view . Serious historians - mainly scholars - emerged in the years after the Second World War , foremost Terry Copp ( a scholar ) and Denis Whitaker ( a former soldier ) . Eastern Front . It is commonly said that history is written by the victors ; but the exact opposite occurred in the chronicling of the Eastern Front , particularly in the West . Soviet secrecy and unwillingness to acknowledge events that might discredit the regime led to them revealing little information , always heavily edited - leaving western historians to rely almost totally on German sources . While still valuable sources , they tended to be self - serving ; German generals in particular tried to distance themselves and the " Heer " as a whole away from the Nazi Party , while at the same time blaming them for their defeat ( individuals supporting these arguments are commonly called part of the ' Hitler Lost Us The War ' group ) . While this self - serving approach was noticed at the time , it was still generally accepted as the closest version of the truth . The end result was a commonly held picture of the " Heer " being the superior army , ground down by the vast numbers of the ' Bolshevik horde ' and betrayed by the stupidity of Hitler . Not only did this ignore Hitler ' s talent as a military leader , an erratic talent that was sometimes brilliantly incisive and sometimes grossly in error , it also severely undervalued the remarkable transformation of the Soviet armed forces , especially the Red Army ( RKKA ) , from the timid , conservative force of 1941 to an effective war - winning organisation . After the fall of the wall , Western historians were suddenly exposed to the vast number of Soviet records of the time . This has led to an explosion of the works on the subject , most notably by Richard Overy , David Glantz and Antony Beevor . These historians emphasised the brutality of Stalin ' s regime , the recovery of the USSR and the RKKA in 1942 and the courage and abilities of the average Russian soldier , relying heavily on Soviet archival material to do so . Netherlands . It is commonly said in the Netherlands that the country was liberated by ' the Americans ' . However , the US liberated most of Dutch Limburg and participated in the liberation of the eastern part of North Brabant , together about 15 % of the country . The rest was liberated by Canadian , British , Polish and several other forces ( predominantly Canadians , whom the Dutch may have regarded as ' Americans ' ) . Holocaust denial . An aberration has developed , discredited by all reputable scholarly sources , denying German responsibility for the war , and even denying the reality of the Holocaust . These proponents are now commonly known as Holocaust deniers .