The Bonn-based historian Prof. Klaus Hildebrand reviewed the thesis for the German daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung" in its September 29, 1987, issue: "To view Hitler—just like Stalin and Mao Zedong—as representatives of a permanent revolution or a modernising dictatorship reopens an academic debate that has been ongoing since the years between the wars of the twentieth century. To be welcomed in this context is that Zitelmann, critically controlling his sources and striving for objective balance, inquires with renewed vigour into Hitler’s motives while remaining fully aware of the fact that history fails to coincide with human intentions".