Writing the actual thesis took me no more than three months, even though it was over 600 pages long, with notes running in the thousands. But before I sat down to pen my thesis, I had spent two years researching archives. I had the ambition to study every speech, document, book, and essay by Hitler before trying to reconstruct his social, economy and domestic policy views. The research gave me a deeper understanding why so many Germans had been attracted to, and seduced by, Hitler and his National-Socialist ideology. I discovered many genuinely socialist, almost “leftist” elements in Hitler’s program. In 1986, in any case, I completed my doctorate with a “summa cum laude,” the best grade possible. The thesis was published initially in German by Klett-Cotta-Verlag and later in English under the title “Hitler: The Policies of Seduction” by Allison & Busby. Reviews that there published at the time in internationally renowned magazines as well as by leading German newspapers such as SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, DIE WELT, the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG and DIE ZEIT. For a selection of the reviews (some in English), please go to www.historiker-zitelmann.de. The reviews penned by internationally renowned historians from a number of countries were predominantly positive, and emphatically so.