The general response of the German public to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a mixture of both relief and confusion. There was very little enthusiasm for the war with Poland and many Germans feared that the invasion would prompt another war in which Germany would be surrounded. The appearance that the Third Reich was acting in cooperation with the Soviet Union meant that this danger was avoided, at least temporarily. However, the Pact did not change the ideological underpinnings of the regime and SD reports on the German population indicated that the many Germans believed that Hitler had little intentions of honoring the Pact.

For its part, the state's propaganda between 1939-1941 often encouraged this skepticism. Although screeds against the USSR disappeared in Germany and German-controlled areas, the antisemitic tone of its propaganda remained. The target of this propaganda was no longer the USSR (eg Judeo-Bolshevism and the like), but rather the plutocratic capitalist elite that allegedly ran the British and French empires. While there were a few voices in Germany that invoked the Pact as a rebirth of the spirit of Rapallo and German-Soviet cooperation, such voices were in the distinct minority. When mentioned in the state media, they emphasized Hitler's genius in realizing the Pact to avoid encirclement and render Britain's blockade moot.

The Pact also engendered a great deal of apprehension in some German circles despite the obvious immediate support Germany gained from Soviet raw materials. The Pact had provisions allowing Soviet observation of German industrial and access to technical secrets of German industry. German industrialists were leery of sharing these technical secrets for fear of them not only being copied by the Soviets, but that the Soviets would then distribute this information to whomever they wished. Nor were the German military chiefs confident of the Pact's viability. Among the Heer, the sentiment was the Pact would only be of use if the Soviets could be prodded south to take on Britain in India and the Middle East. Other members of the German military were alarmed by the scale of Soviet occupation of the Baltics, which denied Germany its traditional strategic route into Russia. Soviet gains and Western intransigence by having the temerity to keep in the war after Poland's fall fostered an increasingly dour and pessimistic attitude about Germany's future in OKH circles. Although the Soviets provided the Germans with war material, there was always the threat they could stop at anytime or hold Germany up to its commitments, which it was bot between 1939-40. The swift Fall of France, a situation that many in the German high command did not expect, reversed this pessimistic attitude and further encouraged thoughts to abandoning the Pact and invading the USSR. The only branch of the Wehrmacht that was in favor of keeping the Pact, at least temporarily, was the Kriegsmarine, who saw this strategic reorientation of German arms as denuding the Battle of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean of support. Another source of concern about the Pact was among Germany's Catholic and Protestant leaders, who saw that an alliance with the Godless Bolsheviks as a signal for a new round of anticlericalism by the Third Reich. Again, the general understanding of the Pact was not as a functional alliance, but as a tool that enabled Hitler to deal with his enemies, both foreign and domestic. German Catholic Bishops' support for the war against Britain and France was relatively low-key and they refused to comment on the Pact from the pulpit.

After the Fall of France, the Propaganda Ministry devoted an increasing amount of time and resources to justify the abandonment of the Pact. It secretly printed up 30 million leaflets and 200000 pamphlets justifying the war as an ideological crusade and necessary in light of the continuation of the war, which was foisted upon Germany by a Jewish cabal. Although these materials sometimes stressed the Soviet's preparations for an attack upon Germany, the idea of a preventative was was not nearly as foregrounded as it was during the Polish campaign. in Hitler's address on 22 June, he referred to the "so-called friendship treaty" tangentially and portrayed it as a tactical maneuver that avoided Britain's plans for encirclement, but one untenable because of the "Jewish-Bolshevist rulers in Moscow." The state's antisemitic propaganda shifted back to its anti-Bolshevik roots, and although condemnation of British, and later American, plutocracy continued, the epicenter of this shadowy cabal shifted back to Moscow in German propaganda.

The commencement of hostilities was for many Germans a return to the status quo after an uneasy interregnum with the USSR. Many in the military adjusted all to easily into the ideological line of the war as one of annihilation. In contrast to their lukewarm support for war in 1939, Germany's Catholic bishops were much more enthusiastic for this crusade against Godless Communism. There were still lingering doubts about the war though among the greater German population. Although the Fall of France made the war more popular among Germans, the expansion of the war caused great unease. Even though the victories of 1940 had engendered a confidence in German arms, there was a concern among civilians that Soviet POWs and a conquered Soviet population would be too much for the over-burdened and expanded Reich to feed. Although the state's rationale for the invasion was expansive enough to gain the support of of a broad swath of German public opinion. such doubts grew as the Barbarossa failed to achieve its ends immediately.

Sources

Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. Germany and the Second World War, Volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

_. Germany and the Second World War. : Vol. IX/1, German wartime society 1939-1945, politicization, disintegration, and the struggle for survival. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008.

_. Germany and the Second World War. : Vol. IX/2, German wartime society 1939-1945, Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008.

Stargardt, Nicholas. The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945 : Citizens and Soldiers. New York City: Basic Books, 2015.