In "Der europäische Bürgerkrieg", Nolte wrote that in 1939 Germany was a "liberal" country compared with the Soviet Union. Nolte argued that most German citizens provided that there were "Aryans" and were not politically active had little to fear from the Gestapo whereas in the Soviet Union at the same time millions were being arrested, tortured and executed by the NKVD. Likewise, Nolte argued that the death rate in the German concentration camps was lower those in the Soviet Gulag camps, and used Hitler's long-running dispute with the German judiciary over the "correct" sentences to hand down as an example of how 1939 Germany was a "normal" country compared to the Soviet Union since Stalin did not have the same trouble with his judges over the "correct" sentences to hand out. The British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that Nolte was taking Hitler's dispute with the judiciary out of context, and that differences between German judges and Hitler were of a degree, not of kind.