Kershaw, Ian. The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944-1945. New York: The Penguin Press, 2011.
Sereny, Gitta. Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Seem to indicate more that he may have thought more evolved to "they betrayed me and themselves by failing. Therefore they deserve total destruction."
This may have originated from realizing he could not sustain his armies. "Because lines of supply were so extended, the German High Command ordered the Wehrmacht to live off the land, stealing food and necessities from the Russian people wherever they could. With Hitler as with Napoleon, Russian peasants began burning villages and crops, denying the invaders sustenance and shelter, and forcing them to rely more and more on the vulnerable jugular of their supply lines. Hitler appreciated the Russian scorched earth policy even as his armies suffered its effects."
So his thoughts turned to "For the Führer the impending defeat proved that Germans were simply neither strong nor ruthless enough to do what was necessary to achieve victory. Deeming Germany a failure of a nation Hitler prepared a decree that would seal the country’s collapse with catastrophic finality. The decree came about after Hitler studied a memorandum sent to him on March 18 by his trusted Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer. Therein, Speer reported the German economy could only hold out another four to eight weeks. That was the absolute limit for the Third Reich’s war effort. In the text, Speer went on to urge Hitler to concentrate on doing everything possible for the country’s population to ensure their survival.Unmoved, Hitler did not yield an inch. In Gitta Sereny’s biography of Speer, Hitler is quoted as responding, “it is not necessary to worry about their [the German people’s] needs for elemental survival.” He stunned his Armaments Minister, accustomed to the Führer’s fulminations against the “inferior” peoples of the Soviet Union, by declaring “the future belongs entirely to the strong people of the East.” On March 19, Hitler then promulgated a special decree titled “Destructive Measures on Reich Territory.” Otherwise remembered as the “Scorched Earth Decree” or “Nero Decree,” for the brutal Roman Emperor Nero (ruled 54-68 C.E.), the order mandated the destruction of Germany’s infrastructure."
Speer managed to not-execute thee order.