re: What fascinates you concerning WW2?

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I'm not so sure this is necessarily true. Stalin was a subscriber to realpolitik. I haven't seen much that has convinced me that he had real ambitions at launching a major war against Germany any time soon following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The Soviets were, however, using their leverage to prod Germany to allow an expansion of Soviet influence deeper and deeper into Europe, which began to give the Germans a great sense of unease. While war from Hitler's viewpoint may very well have been inevitable, he always recognized that a two front war was not favorable. Eventually he wanted to crush the USSR, but Stalin did not recognize this as he viewed Hitler as being a pragmatist/subscriber to realpolitik like himself.

Stalin's true intentions are harder to gauge. Hitler was quite candid with his long term ambitions, Stalin much less so.

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I've read before that Stalin had his own plans for "Lebensraum" in Europe pretty much just like Germans. The difference though is that while the Germans were ready to make their move by the end of the 1930's, the Soviets, thanks to Stalin's purges of the Red Army, would not be ready for large scale offensive operations until about 1943. The Germans knew this and deducted they could either sit back and wait for the Soviet hammer to fall in a few years or they could gamble and strike the Soviets before the Soviets were ready.

Now all that of course is historic theory only and next to impossible to prove thanks to Soviet secrecy. I think there is a very good chance this therory is very much true though.

And just so there is no question, I'm not trying to defend Germanyvor the war of conquest they launched. The Nazis were pure evil. I'm just pointing out the Soviets were just as bad.