(Mein Kampf, 1923-1924). He also wanted to give extra Lebensraum or "living space" for Germans from Eastern Europe and Russia. .
"We turn our eyes towards the lands of the east when we speak of new territory in Europe today, we must principally think of Russia and the border states subject to her. Destiny itself seems to wish to point out the way for us here. Colonization of the eastern frontiers is of extreme importance. It will be the duty of Germany's foreign policy to provide large spaces for the nourishment and settlement of the growing population of Germany."(From Hitler's Mein Kampf). .
Hitler undertook the war against Russia for many reasons- some ideological, some strategic-but economic factors may be judged to have predominated. Hitler feared the industrial might of the Soviet Union and coveted its agricultural and natural resources.
When Hitler came to power in 1933 he introduced a revolutionary program to transform both Germany and Europe as a whole. Within Germany he wanted to "purify" and rebuild the nation, to overturn certain provisions of the Versailles Treaty (especially the ban on German rearmament), and to punish those groups whom he held responsible for defeat in 1918 (particularly Jews and communists). To achieve these ends Hitler suspended parliamentary democracy, subordinated all sectors of German society to control by the Nazi Party and introduced draconian racial laws designed to dispossess, disenfranchise and eventually destroy the Jews living in Central Europe.
Outside Germany Hitler had an equally ambitious program. He wanted to (re) unite all German-speaking territory (the German parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria) in one German Reich - the "Third Reich" - and to subordinate economically and politically the other nations of Eastern Europe to the new Germany.