Following the lead of Andreas Hillgruber, who argued that Hitler had a Stufenplan ( stage by stage plan ) for world conquest, Hildebrand argued that Ribbentrop may not have fully understood what Hitler's Stufenplan was, or alternatively in pressing so hard for colonial restoration was trying to score a personal success that might improve his standing with Hitler.

Globalist historians ( who believe Hitler had a master plan for conquering the world ) such as Andreas Hillgruber, Klaus Hildebrand and Gerhard Weinberg have argued that Hitler was never seriously interested in the " Mediterranean plan ", that his main priority was always the invasion of the Soviet Union, for which he ordered planning to start in July 1940, and that Hitler's interest in the " Mediterranean strategy " in late 1940 was only half-hearted at best.

The German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that the foreign policy of General Ludendorff, with its demand for lebensraum to be seized for Germany in Eastern Europe during World War I, was the prototype for German policy in World War II.

The German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was the prototype for Hitler's vision of a great empire for Germany in Eastern Europe.

Augstein called for Hillgruber to be fired from his post at the University of Cologne for being a " constitutional Nazi ", and argued that there was no moral difference between Hillgruber and other " constitutional Nazis " like Hans Globke.

Though General Halder's notes did not record any mention of Jews, the German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against " Judeo-Bolshevism ", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of the Jewish population therein.

" Though General Halder's notes did not record any mention of Jews, the German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because Hitler's frequent statements at the same time about the coming war of annihilation against " Judeo-Bolshevism ", that his generals would have implicitly understood Hitler's call for the total destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the total destruction of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union.

Hillgruber and Hildebrand argued for the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik approach with empirical research on the foreign-policy making elite, while Wehler argued for the Primat der Innenpolitik approach, treating diplomatic history as a sub-branch of social history with the focus on theoretical research.

In his first address as a professor at Freiburg in 1969, Hillgruber argued for understanding the entire " Bismarck Reich " as one of continuities between 1871-1945.

In his first book, Hitler, König Carol und Marschall Antonescu ( Hitler, King Carol and Marshal Antonescu ) ( 1953 ), a study of relations between Germany and Romania from 1938 to 1944 with a focus on the personalities of Adolf Hitler, King Carol II and Marshal Ion Antonescu, Hillgruber argued for the fundamental normality of German foreign policy, with the foreign policy of the Reich being no different from that of any other power.

Together with Hans-Günther Seraphim, Hillgruber had argued that Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, had been a " preventive war ", forced on Hitler to prevent an imminent Soviet attack on Germany.

Hillgruber argued that in the 1870s, Germany had won a position of " semi-hegemony " in Europe, and that Otto von Bismarck had three options for preserving that " semi-hegemony ":

Hillgruber argued that the " war-in-sight " crisis of 1875 was Bismarck's way of probing the European reaction towards a German " preventive war " to destroy France, and finding that Russia was unsupportive and Britain inclined to intervene, chose the third option.

Hillgruber argued that the accession of Wilhelm II in 1888 marked a watershed in German diplomatic history.

Hillgruber argued that Wilhelm's policy of Weltpolitik ( World Politics ) which he launched with great fanfare in 1897 had with the First Moroccan Crisis in 1905 ended in failure, and that thereafter Germany was forced to retreat into a defensive posture in the " bastion " of Central Europe with Austria-Hungary forming the crucial " land bridge " to the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.

Hillgruber argued in the aftermath of Fischer's 1961 book Griff nach der Weltmacht ( Grasping at World Power ) that the old distinction made by the Swiss historian Walter Hofer between the " outbreak " of World War I in 1914, in which all of the Great Powers were equally at fault, and the " unleashing " of World War II in 1939, in which Germany was exclusively responsible, was no longer acceptable.

Hillgruber argued that, long before 1914, the leaders of Germany had been increasingly influenced by Social Darwinism and völkisch ideology, and had become obsessed with Russian industrial and military growth, leading to the view that Germany was in an untenable position that required drastic measures.

Hillgruber argued that, when the Austrian attack on Serbia caused Russia to mobilize instead of backing down and seeking an accommodation with Germany as expected, the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, under strong pressure from a hawkish General Staff led by General Motke the Younger, panicked and ordered the Schlieffen Plan to be activated, thus leading to a German attack on France.

Hillgruber argued that Ludendorff's foreign policy, with its demand for extensive territorial gains together with plans for obtaining lebensraum in Eastern Europe through a program of ethnic cleasing and German colonization, was in many ways the prototype of National Socialist foreign policy.

Hillgruber argued that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the empire it created for Germany in Eastern Europe was the prototype for Hitler's vision of a great empire for Germany in Eastern Europe.

Hillgruber argued that the Weimar Republic was only a " bridge " between the expansionism of the Second Reich and the even radical expansionism of the Third Reich rather a new era in German diplomacy.

Hillgruber wrote that Stresemann was seeking the return of the Bismarckian " semi-hegemony ", which would serve as " the prerequisite and the basis for an active Weltpolitik ".

In the 1970s, the conservative German historian Andreas Hillgruber, together with his close associate Klaus Hildebrand, was involved in a very acrimonious debate with the leftish German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler over the merits of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (" primacy of foreign politics ") and Primat der Innenpolitik (" primacy of domestic politics ") schools.

During the Historikerstreit of 1986-1987, Augstein was fierce in his criticism of Ernst Nolte and Andreas Hillgruber for creating what Augstein called the “ New Auschwitz Lie ”.

A controversial statement by Augstein was his description of Hillgruber as a “ constitutional Nazi ”.

Those historians who take an intentionlist line like Andreas Hillgruber argue that everything that happened after Operation Barbarossa was part of a masterplan he credited Hitler with developing in the 1920s.

The Einsatzgruppen massacres were usually justified under the grounds of anti-partisan operations rather than racist attacks, but the historian Andreas Hillgruber wrote that this claim was just an " excuse " for the Wehrmacht's considerable involvement with the Einsatzgruppen massacres.

Likewise, the late Andreas Hillgruber contended that Hitler was embarking on expansion " without Britain ", preferably " with Britain ", but if necessary " against Britain ".

Many of the left-wing participants in the Historikerstreit were to claim that this museum was meant to “ exonerate ” the German past, and asserted that there was a connection between the proposed museum, the government, and the views of such historians as Michael Stürmer, Ernst Nolte and Andreas Hillgruber.

The American historian Gordon A. Craig was highly critical of the views of Nolte, but generally defended Hillgruber.

In the 1970s, Wehler was involved in a somewhat discordant and acrimonious debate with Hildebrand and Hillgruber over the merits of the two approaches to diplomatic history.

Besides Nolte, Wehler also attacked the work of Michael Stürmer as " a strident declaration of war against a key element of the consensus upon which the socio-political life of this second republic has rested heretofore " During the Historikerstreit, Wehler was one of the few historians who endorsed Jürgen Habermas's method of attacking Andreas Hillgruber by creating a sentence about " tested senior officials in Nazi Party in the East " out of a long sentence in which Hillgruber had said no such thing on the grounds that it was a secondary issue of no real importance.

It was, as Hillgruber ’ s argument would have it, also justified even from today ’ s standpoint, despite the fact that prolonging the war in the East mean that the gigantic murder machinery of the Holocaust would be allowed to continue to run.

Hillgruber ’ s essay is extremely problematic when viewed from the perspective of a democratically constituted community that orients itself towards Western moral and political standards. There is no getting around the bitter truth that the defeat of National Socialist Germany was not only in the interest of the peoples who were bulldozed by Hitler ’ s war and of the peoples who were selected by his henchmen for annihilation or oppression or exploitation-it was also in the interest of the Germans.

In his 1974 essay “ Militarismus am Ende der Weimarer Republik und im “ Dritten Reich ”” (" Militarism at the End of the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich "), Eberhard Kolb noted that :“ Referring to M. Geyer ’ s research, which had not then been published, Hillgruber pointed out from the mid-1920s onwards the Army leaders had developed and propagated new social conceptions of a militarist kind, tending towards a fusion of the military and civilian sectors and ultimately a totalitarian military state ( Wehrstaat )”.

Hillgruber claimed that through Hitler was highly flexible in ways of realizing his " progamme ", Hitler was consistent throughout his political career in trying to achieve the " programme " he worked out in the 1920s.

In another feuilleton, Hildebrand argued in defense of Nolte that the Holocaust was one of out a long sequence of genocides in the 20th century, and asserted that Nolte was only attempting the " historicization " of National Socialism that Martin Broszat had called for During the Historikerstreit, Hildebrand often used the press as way of attacking Jürgen Habermas over what Hildebrand regarded as Habermas ’ s unfair criticism of Nolte and Hillgruber.

Hillgruber and Hildebrand made a case for the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik approach to diplomatic history with the stress on examining the records of the relevant foreign ministry and studies of the foreign policy decision-making elite.

With regard to the Nazi foreign policy debate between “ globalists ” such as Klaus Hildebrand, Andreas Hillgruber, Jochen Thies, Gunter Moltman and Gerhard Weinberg, who argue that Germany aimed at world conquest, and the " continentalists ” such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, Eberhard Jäckel, and Axel Kuhn, who argue that Germany aimed only at the conquest of Europe, Kershaw tends towards the “ continentalist ” position.

This (" primacy of domestic politics ") argument to explain foreign policy, for which Wehler owes much to the work of Eckart Kehr, places him against the traditional (" primacy of foreign politics ") thesis championed by historians such as Gerhard Ritter, Klaus Hildebrand, Andreas Hillgruber, and Ludwig Dehio.

The exchange between Hillgruber and Weinberg on the pages of Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte in 1953-54 marked the beginning of a long series of clashes between the two historians over interpretations of German foreign policy.

For Hillgruber, there were many elements of continuity in German foreign policy in the 1871 – 1945 period, especially with regard to Eastern Europe.

Hans Mommsen wrote that the " ground-laying works of Andreas Hillgruber ... suggested the view for the continuities of German policy from the late Wilhelminian period up to the capitulation ".

Moreover, he accepted Fischer's argument that Germany was primarily responsible for World War I, but as a follower of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (" primacy of foreign policy ") school, Hillgruber rejected Fischer's Primat der Innenpolitik (" primacy of domestic policy ") argument as to why Germany started the First World War.

Thimme noted that Hillgruber relied almost entirely upon the diary of Bethmann Hollweg's aide and friend, Kurt Riezler, to support his " calculated risk " thesis, which was a dubious source because portions of Riezler's diary had been forged after the war to make German foreign policy appear less aggressive then it was in 1914.

Despite the example provided by Ludendorff and his circle, for Hillgruber, the changes in German foreign policy introduced by National Socialist Ostpolitik ( Eastern Policy ) were so radical as to be almost differences of kind rather than degree.

In the 1960s-70s, Hillgruber was one of the leaders of a group of German historians comprising Klaus Hildebrand, Gunter Moltman and J. Henke who argued that far from being “ haphazard ” as was thought after the war, that Hitler possessed and attempted to executed a coherent and detailed foreign policy programme aiming at nothing less than world conquest.

Hillgruber stated that Hitler ’ s foreign policy “ geographically was designed to span the globe ; ideologically, too, the doctrine of universal anti-Semitism and Social Darwinism, fundamental to his programme, were intended to embrace the whole of mankind ”.

Together with Andreas Hillgruber, Hildebrand argued for the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik ( Primacy of Foreign Policy ) approach with the focus on empirically examining the foreign policy making elite.