Hitler argued in late 1940 that the army was free and only the air forces and navy were occupied in pinning down Britain, whose acceptance of Germany's peace terms was expected soon. Thus, he said, it was "necessary to strike while it is possible to do so [and] to destroy the Russian armed forces before they become dangerous" (quoted in Higgins 81-82). As Grand Admiral Raeder pointed out to Hitler, however, the threats to Britain in North Africa and the Middle East were being removed "concentration of the entire war effort against England" was the most urgent need of the moment (Higgins 91). But Hitler's primary concern was that Russia was growing too strong and was about to block vital access to the Balkans. Russia's defeat of Finland and annexation of the Baltic states meant that Estonian oil was no longer available and the USSR was in a position to cut off Germany's access to supplies of ore from Sweden. In the south the Russians had occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in Rumania -- essentially placing them in the position to cut off German access to Rumanian oil and Balkan grain -- since they were in control of the mouth of the Danube and all land routes to the Balkans. By the end of 1940, "from Finland to the Balkan passes there was not an economic cord in the east which the Red Army could not have severed or seriously endangered" (Rich 204).
Thus the economy played a vital role in Hitler's decision to carry out Operation Barbarossa in 1941. As Hayes argues, Hitler's actions in declaring war on Poland earlier than he had intended and his subsequent actions in Russia were motivated in part by the economic imperative that he had "recognized consistently -- the insufficiency of Germany's resources to achieving world power within the prevailing context" (203). The Russian domination of the Baltic states ended German access to agricultural imports nearly equivalent in value to the amount that Germany was to receive fro...