The book was described as "problematic" by historians Konrad Jarausch and Michael Geyer. Historians Dan Diner and Joel Golb write that the tendency of "allow the Germans to perceive themselves also as victims" is "manifest in the work of the best-selling author Alfred-Maurice de Zayas". Nottingham Trent University Bill Niven writes that de Zayas is "often cited in support of the comparability thesis", i.e. the argument that crimes committed by Germany during the war were equivalent to crimes committed against it. A review in the scholarly journal "Central European History" describes it as having a "distinctively revisionist flavour".