And if there was ever a time you don't reveal more how much you buy into German general apologia...
Pardon? I think you are confusing what I am saying for what I personally believe with that I am saying was told to the rank and file. He certainly told his very told generals more, that it was a race war and they were to destroy Russia as a state and eradicate Jews and communism, but no one in the military was let in on the full extent of the Generalplan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost
The body responsible for the drafting of this plan was the Reich Main Security Office (
Reichssicherheitshauptamt -
RSHA), the security organization of the
SS responsible for fighting all enemies of Nazism. It was a strictly confidential document, and its contents were known only to those at the topmost level of the Nazi hierarchy.
No, the core war from its conception to its execution, was about racist conquest and exploitation. For the Germans, fighting communism was tied up within that racist context, not something that existed outside of it. The German people are not going to be willing to die by their millions in frozen fields for no material benefit to themselves beyond the altruistic glow of liberating the oppressed Slavs from the scourge of Communism.
Yes, which was known only to specific insiders. It was not publicly announced that the war was anything but against communism and the highest levels of the military did not even know fully what was planned, even if they knew elements of the exterminationalist efforts. Certainly the German army was willing to fight communism due to years of propaganda around that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism#Nazi_Germany
The war, presented in racial and ideological terms, was about the destruction of the Soviet state, propaganda did not say what came after in terms of the planned genocide, colonization, and cruel exploitation. Destroying communism was enough to motivate the German soldier to fight initially, then it was fear of losing the war and what would happen to them if they lost. Part of the problem with the German military in WW2 was that it considered itself a tool of the political establishment and didn't think strategically/politically about what came after the violence, their job WAS just the violence. They saw fighting the war as a means of destroying the threat to themselves from their hated ideological enemy.
Outside the territories annexed by the Soviets in 1939, Ukrainian reaction was on the average no different from the Russian reaction.
Got a source on that? In the end you're right except for the parts the UPA had control over, but initially the Ukrainians in the western parts of Soviet Ukraine were pretty welcoming of the Germans. That changed pretty quick based on their treatment.
No matter how nicely the Germans treat them, the Ukrainians are not going to give up so much resources that they themselves will starve to death, which is what the Germans need to take in order to get "all the necessary food and raw materials that were seized IOTL." Simply feeding the conquered Soviet population would be such a huge draw on Germab stocks and transport that the Germans could never hope to logistically sustain their operations beyond the frontier regions.
The atrocities perpetrated on the Soviet citizenry were not some regrettable unpleasantness the invasion could have done without. They were a key factor in making the whole venture worthwhile to Nazi Germany. Without them, the invasion loses not just economic legitimacy, but even the OTL facade of logistical sustainability.
Sure the UPA will ensure they have their minimum necessary at very least, but they wouldn't have a problem inflicting their own 'Holodomor' on Russian identity people in what they consider 'their' Ukraine. So a lot of Russian speaking people in the Ukraine SSR would starve like IOTL, but with UPA help. As already pointed out the areas where the UPA were strongest weren't the best farm areas, the Russian inhabited parts of Ukraine were, so they'd suffer as per OTL. I am well aware that the planned requisition atrocities were based on the need of the German army, but in term of where the food was coming from it seems it was areas that the UPA was weakest in and in areas where Russian identity/language was the strongest, which means those areas suffer, while the least agriculturally productive areas that are under the UPA produce soldiers/police for the new Ukrainian allies of the Germans, so they spend their efforts taking from the Russians in Ukraine on behalf of the war effort, while their supporters in Galicia and West Ukraine get to keep most of their stuff. If you have numbers on how much was taken from West Ukraine IOTL I'd like to see it.
In which case, the entire history of the world, much less the war, is so altered that the Germans can't even begin to contemplate an invasion of Soviet territory.
That is debateable, do you have numbers of what and where requisitions from Ukraine IOTL happened to back up your point?