After the conquest of Ukraine, a sane German leadership would've enacted agricultural policies to fully utilise the absolutely massive productivity of chernozem (srsly, that stuff's like Miracle-Gro). A properly administered Ukraine could feed half of Europe (along with itself).
However, as we know, Nazis gotta Nazi. And the rest truly is history.
Unfortunately (especially for Ukranian civilians of the day, as well as the Jews, Romany, etc) the above makes no sense at all.
Firstly, food takes time to grow. With the Royal Navy blockading the sea routes, no more exports from the USSR, and most of Europe the Germans needed food NOW. (Or rather, THEN.) Not at the end of next year's harvest. Still less after several years' agricultural reforms.
Secondly, the transport links between Germany and Russia were poor. The only way to supply the Germany army halfway adequately was to strip the Ukraine of food. Not the best circumstances to start agricultural reform.
Thirdly, the Ukraine had to be stripped of material like cattle cake to prop up German agricultural production to make up for the lack of imports.
Talking of reforming agriculture in the Ukraine in time to prevent famine in Europe, while fighting a war, is simply insane. juanml82 is correct; once the German's had decided to invade Russia they had to make the decision to kill most of the inmates of the Camps - and even more people in the Ukraine and Russia.
Bri2k
I've often thought that if Hitler had left the Jews alone and allowed them in the armed forces and also treated the Ukrainians and other Slavs equally, he might've had a shot at winning.
Yes, this seems utterly reasonable until you do some serious reading on economics of Germany in WW2. However, in reality it was not possible - see Tooze's "Wages Of Destruction." In the absence of peace with the UK, Hitler had only two options:
1. Make more and more concessions to Stalin to avoid starvation - during which time Stalin would inevitably gain a superior position
2. Invade Russia and loot like crazy so that the army and Germany wouldn't starve.
This sort of thing doesn't get explained on the History Channel because making people think is ratings poison - it's better just to give them lots of pictures of Tiger tanks.