As they planned to invade the Soviet Union, Nazi leaders developed new policies that required soldiers to pillage conquered territory and liquidate racial enemies. In contrast to the regulations that governed the 1940 invasion of Western Europe, directives issued before the invasion of the Soviet Union ordered German soldiers to disregard the Hague and Geneva conventions and injected an unprecedented level of violence into military occupation policy. Enduring Soviet resistance elicited further changes in German military policy in the latter half of 1941. The Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) and the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH) reduced the number of administrative and security personnel in Western Europe, sent all available reserves to the Eastern Front, and ordered the men in charge of all rear areas and occupied territories to suppress resistance activity with the troops who remained at their disposal. Obeying directives from Berlin as well as acting on their own initiative, field commanders employed exemplary violence against civilians, shot hostages in response to any act of resistance, and mounted a deadly campaign against alleged Jewish partisans. As the German offensive ground to a halt in December, Nazi leaders revamped German policy to offset manpower and material losses incurred during the course of Operation Barbarossa. Army quartermasters requisitioned additional supplies from conquered farms and factories while Fritz Sauckel, the plenipotentiary for labor deployment, began to collect millions of foreign workers for service in the German war economy.