Just to use one example: When the Nazi’s took the Ukraine, they were seen as liberators. Ukraine could have been a critical ally against the USSR. But Hitler created an enemy instead, rounding up the jews for extermination and treating them as “conquered”.
And, at the end of the day, the russian front was really just hitler biting off more than he could chew. If he had simply focused on Western Europe, and waited for his people to produce the atomic bomb, the Us never would have entered the war and we’d have a very different world today.
“The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone.”
-Colonel Bernd Von Kleist
His focus was always on the East. He attacked East. He did not attack West until Britain had already declared war on Germany.