longer acceptable. Hillgruber commented that Fischer had established that Germany was indeed responsible for both world wars, and Hofer's formula had to be disregarded by all serious historians. Having conceded that much to Fischer, Hillgruber went on to challenge Fischer's argument that Germany had started a premeditated war of aggression in 1914. Hillgruber believed that what had happened in 1914 was a "calculated risk" on the part of the Imperial German government that had gone horribly wrong. Germany had encouraged Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia in an attempt to break the informal Triple Entente alliance between the United Kingdom, France and Russia by provoking a crisis that would concern Russia only, the so-called "calculated risk". Hillgruber maintained that Germany did not want to cause a world war in 1914, but, by pursuing a high-risk diplomatic strategy of provoking what was supposed to be only a limited war in the Balkans, had inadvertently caused the wider conflict. 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. In Hillgruber's opinion, the "calculated risk" gambit was a highly dangerous and foolish one, as Bethmann Hollweg and the rest of the German leadership gratuitously failed to anticipate what the most likely Russian reaction to an Austro-Serbian war would be, and that therefore the German leadership of 1914 was extremely irresponsible in trying to use the "calculated risk" of an Austro-Serbian war as a diplomatic device to break the Triple Entente. The German historian Annelise Thimme commented that Hillgruber's "calculated risk" theory to explain World War I was little more than putting "new wine into old wine skins". 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