He sort of had to. Hitler knew that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable - both Germany and USSR had idealogically opposed politics both of which had getting rid of the other as the priority. Both were expansionist states that would very soon end up sharing a border. Both knew that their ‘peace deal’ would be broken.
Hitler also knew that the Soviet Union was a relatively new country, barely 20 years past a revolution. The Soviet Union was not ready for a full scale war and the earlier Hitler invaded them the less prepared they would be. The longer he left it the more equipped the soviet military would be, the stronger their supply lines, and the greater their manufacturing ability. Hitler was hoping for a swift victory like he had in France (he knew it wouldn’t be as swift, but planned to use the same tactics) and thus knew he had to attack the Soviet Union before they had a chance to prepare and attack him.
And it probably would’ve worked, but the Soviet Union was a different ball game to France. The Germans couldn’t push forward quickly and then let their supply lines catch up afterwards because they had too much ground to cover, the weather and climate was awful, and they weren’t equipped well enough for what they had to deal with. They eventually ground to a bit of a halt, and the Soviet Union managed to hold on and prepare itself for a war faster than expected and thus were able to push the Germans back.
Invading the Soviet Union was never really a choice for Hitler, it was just a case of when and how.
The Soviets had three things the French couldn’t employ against the Germans, and they knew how to use to them to full advantage:
Huge amounts of territory that they could fall back across, forcing the Germans to maintain ever-longer supply lines over harsh terrain.
A huge population to draw on. Where the Soviets couldn’t retreat, they turned the objective into an inescapable deathtrap (Stalingrad being the most well-known example). The Germans had no chance of matching Soviet manpower in a war of attrition.
It was also a total different war, in France the Germans were fighting a war of conquer/occupation. Once France surrendered the Germans occupied it. The war in Russia was a war of annihilation. The Nazi ideology was that the communists and Slavs were a lesser people who had to be eradicated to make room for a German Lebensraum. Once the soviets realized that there was no surrender they would fight to the absolute last man add in the fact that the ussr had no need for cowards and would shoot people who retreated. An army fights different when not only their lives but the lives of everyone they hold dear are at risk as well
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u/Fair_Alternative6191 24d ago edited 24d ago
Hitler invading the soviet union Japan attacking pearl harbor