Answer:
The destruction of the Soviet Union by military force, the permanent elimination of the perceived Communist threat to Germany, and the seizure of prime land within Soviet borders for long-term German settlement had been core policy of the Nazi movement since the 1920s. Adolf Hitler had always regarded the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, signed on August 23, 1939, as a temporary tactical maneuver. In July 1940, just weeks after the German conquest of France and the Low Countries, Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union within the following year. On December 18, 1940, he signed Directive 21 (code-named Operation "Barbarossa"), the first operational order for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
From the beginning of operational planning, German military and police authorities intended to wage a war of annihilation against the Communist state as well as the Jews of the Soviet Union, whom they characterized as forming the "racial basis" for the Soviet state. During the winter and spring months of 1941, officials of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres-OKH) and the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA) negotiated arrangements for the deployment of Einsatzgruppen behind the front lines to physically annihilate Jews, Communists, and other persons deemed to be dangerous to establishment of long-term German rule on Soviet territory. Often known as mobile killing units, Einsatzgruppen were special units of the Security Police and the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst-SD).
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