the Final Solution, an account in which initiatives were undertaken by mid-level officials in response to general orders from senior ones. Such initiatives were broadened by mandates from senior officials and propagated by increasingly informal channels. The experience gained in fulfilling the initiatives fed an understanding in the bureaucracy that radical goals were attainable, progressively reducing the need for direction. As Hilberg put it: As the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, "There shall be no laws." Then there were orders and directives that were written down, but still published in ministerial gazettes. Then there was government by announcement; orders appeared in newspapers. Then there were the quiet orders, the orders that were not published, that were within the bureaucracy, that were oral. Finally, there were no orders at all. Everybody knew what he had to do. In earlier editions of Destruction, in fact, Hilberg discussed an "order" given by Hitler to have Jews killed, while more recent editions do not refer to a direct command. In a 1999 interview with D.D. Guttenplan, Hilberg commented that he "made this change in the interest of precision about the evidence ...". Notwithstanding Hilberg's focus on bureaucratic momentum as an indispensable force behind the Holocaust, he maintained that extermination of Jews was one of Hitler's aims: "The primary notion in Germany is that Hitler did it. As it happens, this is also my notion, but I'm not wedded to it" (qtd. in —). This contradicts the thesis advanced by Daniel Goldhagen that the ferocity of German anti-Semitism is sufficient as an explanation for the Holocaust; Hilberg noted that anti-Semitism was more virulent in Eastern Europe than in Nazi Germany itself. Hilberg criticized Goldhagen's scholarship, which he called poor ("his scholarly standard is at the level of 1946") and he was even harsher concerning the lack of primary sources or secondary literature competence at Harvard by those who oversaw the research for Goldhagen's book. Hilberg said, "This is the only reason why Goldhagen could obtain a PhD in political science at Harvard. There was nobody on the faculty who could have checked his work." This remark has been echoed by Yehuda Bauer. What is most contentious about Hilberg's work, the controversial implications of which influenced the decision by Israeli authorities