Nolte is best known for his role in launching the "Historikerstreit" ("Historians' Dispute") of 1986 and 1987. On 6 June 1986 Nolte published a " feuilleton" opinion piece entitled "Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will: Eine Rede, die geschrieben, aber nicht mehr gehalten werden konnte" ("The Past That Will Not Pass: A Speech That Could Be Written but Not Delivered") in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". His "feuilleton" was a distillation of ideas he had first introduced in lectures delivered in 1976 and in 1980. Earlier in 1986, Nolte had planned to deliver a speech before the Frankfurt Römerberg Conversations (an annual gathering of intellectuals), but he had claimed that the organizers of the event withdrew their invitation. In response, an editor and co-publisher of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", Joachim Fest, allowed Nolte to have his speech printed as a "feuilleton" in his newspaper. One of Nolte's leading critics, British historian Richard J. Evans, claims that the organizers of the Römerberg Conversations did not withdraw their invitation, and that Nolte had just refused to attend.