 Evidence from a speech given by General Erich Hoepner indicates the disposition of Operation Barbarossa and the Nazi racial plan , as he informed the 4th Panzer Group that the war against the Soviet Union was " an essential part of the German people 's struggle for existence " ( Daseinkampf ) , also referring to the imminent battle as the " old struggle of Germans against Slavs " and even stated , " the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today 's Russia and must therefore be waged with unparalleled harshness . " To Hoepner , the imminent conflict would be " the old battle of the Germanic against the Slav peoples ... the defense of European culture against Moscovite @-@ Asiatic inundation , and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism ... No adherents of the present Russian @-@ Bolshevik system are to be spared . " Walther von Brauchitsch also told his subordinates that troops should view the war as a " struggle between two different races and [ should ] act with the necessary severity . " Racial motivations were central to Nazi ideology and played a key role in planning for Operation Barbarossa since both Jews and communists were considered equivalent enemies of the Nazi state . Nazi imperialist ambitions were exercised without moral consideration for either group in their ultimate struggle for Lebensraum . In the eyes of the Nazis , the war against the Soviet Union would be a Vernichtungskrieg , a war of annihilation . 
