Why did Adolf Hitler decide to invade the Soviet Union despite the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact?

Adolf Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union, despite the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, was driven by a combination of long-standing ideological goals and immediate strategic suspicions.

Hitler viewed the pact as a temporary measure of expediency to avoid a two-front war while he subjugated Western Europe. However, his fundamental convictions remained rooted in anti-Bolshevism and the pursuit of Lebensraum (living space). He sought to seize vast territories in the East to provide resources and land for the German people, while systematically exterminating or displacing the Slavic and Jewish populations he deemed inferior.123

His decision to accelerate the invasion was triggered by growing distrust of Joseph Stalin. Soviet territorial expansion in the Baltic states, Bessarabia, and Bukovina in 1940 brought Soviet forces dangerously close to the Romanian oil fields, which were vital to the German war effort. Fearing Soviet intentions, Hitler concluded he could no longer wait to finish his campaign in the West before attacking the Soviet Union, leading to the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941.123