The German invasion of the Soviet Union was incredibly bloody, and the fighting there was among the hardest and bloodiest of the Second World War. Compounded on top of that is were the myriad atrocities committed by German forces. The Germans murdered, raped, and tortured their way through the western Soviet Union. The war Germany was fighting was one of utter destruction--Hitler hated the Soviet government and people, and was determined to completely wipe them out. As a result, the Soviets quickly learned to hate the Nazis. The Nazis killed at least 20 million Soviets, both military and civilian, which has a tendency to make people not view you in the best light. Thousands upon thousands of Belarusian and Ukrainian villages were burned, some multiple times. The sheer volume of pain inflicted on the Soviet Union by Germany brewed an incredible hatred of Nazism in the Soviet populace. The Germans were utterly merciless to Soviet civilians. The Soviet Union, being a communist nation with a large Slavic populace, was all but number one on Nazi Germany's list for destruction.