In regard to the functionalist-intentionalist divide that once pervaded Holocaust historiography, Mayer's work can be considered as intermediate between the two schools. Mayer argues that there was no masterplan for genocide and that the Holocaust cannot be explained solely in regard to Hitler's world view. At the same time, Mayer agrees with intentionalist historians such as Andreas Hillgruber (with whom Mayer otherwise has little in common) in considering Operation Barbarossa and the Nazi crusade to annihilate "Judeo-Bolshevism" as major developments in the genesis of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question."