 Habermas first expressed his views on the above-mentioned historians in the "Die Zeit" on 11 July 1986 in a "feuilleton" (a type of culture and arts opinion essay in German newspapers) entitled "A Kind of Settlement of Damages".Habermas criticized Nolte, Hildebrand, Stürmer and Hillgruber for "apologistic" history writing in regard to the Nazi era, and for seeking to "close Germany's opening to the West" that in Habermas's view had existed since 1945.Habermas argued that Nolte, Stürmer, Hildebrand and Hillgruber had tried to detach Nazi rule and the Holocaust from the mainstream of German history, explain away Nazism as a reaction to Bolshevism, and partially rehabilitate the reputation of the Wehrmacht (German Army) during World War II.