Imagine had Hitler occupied Russia in the way that France was occupied, Russia could be a puppet state, but the people were treated decently for the most part unless they caused trouble.
What a difference that could have made. Then once the Red Army was vanquished, Hitler could do with the population whatever he wanted.
One of the ways to win a war is to make it easy for your enemy to surrender.
Quite so. But due to his racial theories it wasn’t possible for him to even consider this.
The peoples of western Europe could be considered more or less Aryan, but those of the East were sub-humans and couldn’t be treated like people without giving up the whole rationale for the Nazis’ power.
This is similar to the way the commies were unable to build an effective economy without abandoning the theory that was the source of their power.
Although it should be pointed out the Chinese commies appear to have successfully accomplished this. They appear to be able to run a (sorta) market economy while retaining complete political power for the Party.