We keep hearing that old saw. That Hitler was basically in a defensive war with Russia. The fact is, his plan was out there in Mein Kampf in 1925. And Russia was in no condition to invade anyone. They barely fought Finland to a stalemate settlement just before that.
The only Russian plan for Germany was subversion. They thought German communists would basically be able to do it for them, until that idea collapsed.
And a few weeks earlier of a launch to Barbarossa would not have made a difference. Even capturing Moscow wouldn’t have. Like Napoleon, the Nazis would have entered a stripped and burning city, with the government relocating further east. And all our supplies would have still poured in. The krauts were doomed no matter when they started.
The main thing the Nazis could have done to win would have been to not murder innocent civilians wholesale. All the time, effort, manpower, and material to do that was stolen from the effort. And worse, it ended the Russian and Ukrainian theme at first that held that Germans were civilized and might be their salvation. Had they acted as good people expected, the Russians might not have fought so stiffly as a people.
But Nazi Germans just gotta be what they are.
Right. The Nazis were hamstrung by their ideas on race - that the Slavs were an inferior race that only deserved to be enslaved by Aryans. Many Eastern Europeans, Ukrainians, White Russians, etc. hated the Soviets so much that at first they welcomed the Germans with open arms and would have been happy to fight alongside them. But the Germans treated them with contempt, enslaved them, starved them, stole their food and possessions to send back to Germany.
If the Germans had treated these people respectfully, as allies, instead of as inferior scum, it would have helped a lot vis-a-vis the USSR.