meet with even less public opposition. In the 1984 essay "War in the East and the Extermination of the Jews", Hillgruber argued that based on a reading of Hitler's early speeches and writings that Hitler associated Jews and the Communists as one and the same, and accordingly Hitler regarded the destruction of the Jews and the Soviet Union as part and parcel of the same process. Hillgruber argued that the decision to begin the Holocaust was probably taken during the very earliest stages of the planning for Operation Barbarossa in late June-early July 1940, but that the surviving documentary evidence was not conclusive on this point. Based upon Hitler's statements to his generals about the coming war of annihilation against “Judeo-Bolshevism” and Reinhard Heydrich's orders to re-establish the Einsatzgruppen, Hillgruber argued that the decision to start the Endlösung was not taken later than March 1941. Through Hillgruber noted that the massacres of Soviet Jews by the Einsatzgruppen that were to culminate in their extermination were often justified under the grounds of anti-partisan operations, that this was just a mere "excuse" for the German Army's considerable involvement in the Holocaust in Russia and the term war crimes and crimes against humanity were indeed correct labels for what happened. Hillgruber maintained that the slaughter of about 2.2 million defenceless men, women and children for the reasons of racist ideology cannot possibly be justified for any reason, and that those German generals who claimed that the Einsatzgruppen were a necessary anti-partisan response were lying. Hillgruber described the relationship between the Einsatzgruppen and the Wehrmacht as follows:The practical cooperation of the regular army and the Einsatzgruppen with regard to Jews took this form: Immediately after gaining control of an area the army commander issued orders for the Jews to be registered. Instructions for Jewish residents to come forward and identify themselves were provided on large-format posters, making it easy for the units of the security police and SD to place them under arrest - unless some of them, having learned of their intended fate, fled to the woods or otherwise "went underground"... Just like the Einsatzgruppen in the Rear Army areas, in parts of the Soviet Union placed under German civilian administration the "Higher SS and Police Leaders" had a prescribed set of duties - that included the systematic killing of Jews. Hillgruber took a rather extreme "No Hitler, no Holocaust" position. He believed