“Vast numbers of these people would have risen in rebellion if Hitler’s legions had entered with the promise of freedom and elimination of Soviet oppression.”

People never rise up, they will pick the stronger side. They will rise if they are led and there is an organization. They are utterly passive and self interested and will HIDE from danger if not.

A warlike and tribal people such as the Arabs can and do rise quickly but they are organized socially FOR WAR for thousands of years.

How many of the 1 million [!] Soviet Citizens that joined Germany were POWs or in occupied territory, that is they stayed alive longer than in a POW camp and for a time improved their material conditions?

Read Stalin’s order 227 and you’ll see why they fought WHEN the entire Communist party organization went to the front lines – the Commissars were front line leaders – it was a combination of dynamic leadership from the front at every level the Commissars and party members leading and fighting AND fear of the Communists that turned it around.

Belief in the people including and especially the long peace atrophied manhood Americans is utter romantic nonsense. The people are POTENTIAL.
It’s organization and leadership that move them, the people are almost an inert mass of chemicals without the catalyst of organization and leadership.

There must be dynamic and energetic leadership at every level and there must be organization.

If Germany had entered Russia as a liberator, Germans in Germany would have starved. Hitler had no choice once he started other then to exterminate foreign civilian populations that would compete with Germans for food.

They knew what was going to happen to them when caught.

He might even have got the Soviet Union into the Axis. Stalin and Molotov were okay with it, as long as Soviet “spheres of influence” were respected.

In a sense, I don’t even think Hitler attacked Soviet Union for Lebensraum, like some of his lunatic co-religionaries. I essentially see Hitler as a gambler suffering from incontrollable addiction, evolving to suicidal tendencies.

The Ukrainians *did* greet the Reich as liberators, but the Reich wanted no part of that; core National Socialist policy forbade it. Even if Hitler saw an advantage in playing the liberator card, he couldn’t change a core policy without losing face. As far as I can remember Hitler never backed off any previous policy, even when it was shown to be counterproductive. As an example, his “no retreat” order, which severely limited the army’s ability to maneuver in the field.

You’d have to go all the way back to when Hitler and Hess were in prison after the putsch, and Hess was transcribing Hitler’s commentary and speeches into Mein Kampf. After that was printed, Hitler’s path was set.