I happen to be reading Antony Beevor’s book on Stalingrad right now, so I’ll bring things back to Wretchard’s post: It’s worth remembering that when Operation Barbarrossa began, many non-Russian Slavs greeted the German Army as liberators from Stalinist oppression and misrule. In fact, thousands of Ukranians served in the German Army, and by German accounts, fought ferociously. With a little finesse, they probably could have had a relatively helpful and friendly population in their rear as they pressed on to Moscow and the Volga. But instead, they insisted on treating the non-Russian Slavs as subhumans, as per Nazi doctrine, which did not encourage them to continue accepting German occupation willingly.

So even though I haven’t read Mazower either, I would guess that he’s on the right track. Nazi genocide, driven by their core ideology, probably made it harder to win the war in the East. But OTOH, if he hadn’t been a genocidal freak, Hitler probably wouldn’t have considered invading the USSR to begin with. Heck, even von Ribbentrop thought it was a bad idea, and told the Soviet ambassador so on the eve of the invasion.