 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, from the timid, conservative force of 1941 to an effective war-winning organisation.After the fall of the Berlin 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.