Following the commencement of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, any lingering German ambitions to expand the Reich westward beyond annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg were, for all intents and purposes, abandoned. The war with the Soviet Union brought the prospect of vast conquests in the East that would have taken decades (if not generations) to colonize. Hitler, who had always believed Germany's destiny lay in the east, basically lost whatever interest he had in diverting German settlers and resources from the East in an effort to colonize what he saw to be Germany's relatively "civilized" western neighbors.