> Kershaw sees this rivalry as causing the "cumulative radicalization" of Germany, and argues that though Hitler always favoured the most radical solution to any problem, it was German officials who, for the most part, in attempting to win the Führer's approval, carried out on their initiative, increasingly "radical" solutions to perceived problems like the "Jewish Question", as opposed to being ordered to do so by Hitler.[65] In this, Kershaw largely agrees with Mommsen's portrait of Hitler as a distant and remote leader standing in many ways above his system, whose charisma and ideas served to set the general tone of politics.