Hitler broods on the eve of battle
20th June 1941: And Wehrmacht commanders are confident of surprise on the eve of Barbarossa as they see no Soviet preparations for defence
Hitler’s hour of destiny had almost arrived. He had long made clear that he viewed Soviet Communism as the greatest threat to Germany. This was mixed up with a deeply racist worldview that saw ‘Bolshevism’ entwined with Judaism.
In Mein Kampf, published in 1925, he had made his outlook abundantly clear:
The right to possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its soil a great nation seems doomed to destruction . . . Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany ... If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.
Here Fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign. By handing Russia to Bolshevism, it robbed the Russian nation of that intelligentsia which previously brought about and guaranteed its existence as a state . . .
[That] was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacy of the German element in an inferior race .. . For centuries Russia drew nourishment from this German nucleus. …
Today it can be regarded as almost totally exterminated and extinguished. It has been replaced by the Jew . . . The giant empire in the east is ripe for collapse. And the end of jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state ..
So the invasion of the Soviet Union was about much more than territorial expansion, but was also a war on communism and a war on the Jews. A series of orders issued in the past few weeks had spelt this out to the Wehrmacht commanders leading the operation.
These had included the instruction:
the soldier must have full understanding for the necessity of a severe but just revenge on subhuman Jewry
