His critics (e.g., Yehuda Bauer) replied that Goldhagen ignored most recent research and ignored other developments both in Germany and abroad.[25] Ruth Bettina Birn asserts that Goldhagen "allow[ed] his thesis to dictate his presentation of the evidence".[26] Nonetheless, Goldhagen is often held to have succeeded in reviving the debate on the question of a German "collective guilt", and, in Germany, of bringing many Germans to a modern confrontation with, and a lively and fruitful debate about, the legacy of the Holocaust.