vision which envisioned for the Soviet Union to expand at the expense of its neighbours and the establishment of Communist regimes in all of the countries of Eastern Europe. Hillgruber claimed that Roosevelt and, even more so, Churchill blinded by their hatred of everything German failed to see that their vision was flawed as it called for the dismemberment of Germany, the only power capable of keeping the Soviet Union out of Central Europe and thus tragically allowed Stalin's vision to prevail. Hillgruber ended his essay "Der Zusammenbruch im Osten 1944/45" with a call for a history that would take account of what Hillgruber considered the decisive events on the Eastern Front. Hillgruber wrote that: The mighty happenings between the autumn of 1944 and the spring of 1945 still demand a description and treatment which keeps in view the events on the world historical stage, and yet illustrates the sufferings, deeds, ambitions and failings of men as individuals. This must be one of the most difficult tasks which lie before historians. With stupendous effort historians have researched the decline of the democratic Republic, the rise of the National Socialist movement and its Führer, and the foundation of the Third Reich and its structures. Perhaps the last great demand on this historiography will be to form a comprehensive picture of the collapse of the battle fronts, the conquest of eastern Central Europe, and the shattering of the Third Reich and the fall of the Germanic East, together with all the things that these developments mean. The British military historian Christopher Duffy was to write in the preface to his 1991 book Red Storm on the Reich that his book was meant to answer the call for the sort of history that Hillgruber wanted to see written about the final days of the Eastern Front. Hillgruber praised those German generals who had stayed loyal to Hitler during the 20 July plot as making the right moral decision. Hillgruber called the leaders of the putsch attempt of 20 July 1944 Gesinnungsethiker (sentimental moralists) and those who stayed loyal to Hitler Veranthworthungsethiker (responsible moralists). Hillgruber argued that if Hitler had been killed, the Eastern Front would have collapsed faster than it did, thereby endangering the lives of millions of German civilians, and he therefore condemned the July plot as irresponsible. John Lukacs commented that what Hillgruber appeared to be saying here was that, in