ABSTRACT
The Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the USSR, of 23 August 1939, had only postponed the date for fulfillment of German aspirations to expand eastward. On 18 December 1940, a short time after Molotov’s visit to Berlin, Adolf Hitler issued his Weisung 21on Operation Barbarossa ordering the German armed forces to prepare to crush the Soviet Union in a swift campaign even before the end of the war against England. In a meeting with the heads of the Nazi Reich on 16 July 1941, Hitler said of the war against Russia: “Germany must take power, rule and exploit.” He also minimized the strength of the Soviet state and the Red Army, believing that a strong, swift blow would cause them to disintegrate. The heads of the German government planned the economic exploitation of the USSR and looked on the occupied territories to the east as colonies.
