Hitler's Strategic Memorandum of August 1936

Hitler was well aware of the rich resources that lay in the Soviet Union, control of which would turn Germany into a superpower. He also thought in large historical terms about the threat posed by the Soviet Union. War with France and Britain in September 1939 undermined the thrust of his geopolitical transformation of Eastern Europe but did not halt it. Failure to create conditions for invasion of Britain in the autumn of 1940 pushed Hitler to the conclusion that defeat of the Soviet Union was a necessary step to force British capitulation.