In his research overview, "The Hitler of History" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), the American historian John Lukacs presented Zitelmann's thesis, as well as his book "Hitler. Eine politische Biographie" ("Hitler. A Political Biography""), as important contributions to the scientific study of Hitler. The echo in specialist journals, such as the "Journal of Modern History" (in a review by Prof. Klemens von Klemperer), and the "Historische Zeitschrift", were predominantly positive. In the latter, Germany's leading academic journal for historiography, Prof. Peter Krüger wrote, "Rainer Zitelmann has written one of those books that make you wonder why they have not been available much earlier". In the historiographic quarterly "Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte", the Polish historian Franciszek Ryszka agreed: "Without a doubt, Dr. Zitelmann’s merit is to have substantially amended, and possibly surpassed, all other Hitler biographies".