Major spent some time researching in the West German security services. He later discovered that his supervisor in the West German version of MI5 was a former Stasi agent.
Selected publications
The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945-1956.
The workers' and peasants' state: communism and society in East Germany under Ulbricht, 1945–71. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002. (Editor with J. Osmond) ISBN9780719062896
"Our friend Rommel: the Wehrmacht as "worthy enemy" in postwar British popular culture", German History, 26 (4), 2008, pp.520–35.