From an earlier answer of mine

The example of Napoleon really did not figure much in the direct planning for Barbarossa. The example of a failed invasion was certainly there, but Napoleon was not much of a factor for the Germans.

For one thing, Napoleon's objectives in the invasion of Russia were quite different than those of Hitler's. Napoleon's endgame when he crossed the Niemen was vague, but he certainly was not trying to conquer and disestablish the Russian state. His overarching goal was to defeat the Russian armies and force the Romanovs into a subordinate position in the French hegemony over Europe. The French emperor sent Alexander I entreaties to come to terms with France throughout the campaign. The goal of Napoleon's campaign was not to occupy Moscow; it was a late consolation prize after the slog match at Borodino at the end of the campaign after Napoleon's earlier hope to smash the Russian armies at the frontier had failed.

The goal of Barbarossa was manifestly different than 1812. The German attack was predicated on the very notion that the strategic end of the campaign was the destruction of the USSR and its replacement by a German imperium. Planning for the invasion anticipated destroying the Soviet armies and occupying resource-rich areas and the industrial heartland of the USSR. Napoleon at best might have resurrected the Kingdom of Poland and left a French army of observation in Lithuania if his plan had worked. The Germans were counting on staying there for generations to come.

There were other areas of departure as well. Although the German army was not as mechanized as the public image of Blitzkrieg holds, there was still a mechanized component of the invasion. When looking at the past campaigns, German planners could rightly note that Napoleon did not have access to railways, air-dropped supplies, or tanks. Additionally, the German planners knew that they could pin down and destroy the Soviet armies at the frontiers. The problem though was that the Soviet state could mobilize resources in far greater numbers than its tsarist predecessors. The opening stages of Barbarossa was not a futile chase into the interior during the summer with little to show for it. The cauldron battles of 1941 were massive affairs far larger than anything from the Napoleonic period. Additionally, the Germans had captured vast stocks of Soviet resources and farmlands in the initial invasion. While the German mobilization of these resources was soon to be found lacking, this was far from an army entering into a ravaged countryside.

Where the spectre of Napoleon did exert itself was as a negative example used by Germans to justify their actions. When the Heer began to push for the occupation of Moscow in August 1941, Hitler initially refused because Napoleon had shown that occupying the capital made little difference. According to an account produced by Adolf Heusinger, Jodl believed that Hitler had "an instinctive aversion to treading the same path as Napoleon. Moscow gives him a sinister feeling." Later during the winter of 1941/42, there was a determination for the Axis forces not to suffer the same fate as the Grande Armee. A strongly worded mid-December directive to Army Group Center laid out that history would not repeat itself:

Talk of Napoleon’s retreat is threatening to become reality. Thus, there must only be a withdrawal where there is a prepared position further in the rear.

Hitler would likewise invoke Napoleon when arguing for his "stand fast" directives that prevented retreat. Nor was he alone in this matter. When he was appointed commander of Army Group North in January 1942, Georg von Küchler was adamant that retreating without preparations would only repeat the mistakes of Napoleon. Hitler would later cite the fact that German armies recovered from the 1941/42 winter as evidence that he had beaten the Napoleonic curse. In a curious way, the Hitler and his generals also inverted the lessons of the Napoleonic invasion. Scorched earth tactics would precede any German retreat, hoping that the Soviet armies would not be able to follow as quickly or utilize the resources of the recaptured territory.

Germans and other Europeans also saw a repeat of Napoleon as Barbarossa lurched into the autumn months with no end in sight. Tolstoy's War and Peace became something of a bestseller as bookstores and libraries soon ran out of copies. But although Hiter's failure begged comparison to that of Napoleon's, the differences between the two campaign stood in very sharp relief.

Sources

Kershaw, Ian. Hitler 1933-1945: Nemesis. London: Penguin Books, 2001.

Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. Germany and the Second World War. Volume IV, The Attack on the Soviet Union. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

Müller, Rolf-Dieter. Enemy in the East: Hitler's Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union. London: I. B. Taurus, 2015.