Did the Nazis even try to justify their violation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?

Following its invasion of the USSR in June 1941, did Germany even attempt to rationalize or justify its violation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? (Say, something along the lines of what had been done by the Nazis in late August 1939, i.e. Operation Himmler - a set of false flag actions designed to make it look as if Poland had been the aggressor toward Germany).

Did Hitler try the same type of thing again? Did he say something akin to, “It was the Bolsheviks who attacked us! We were simply responding to their aggression (and their broken promise)”? Or, somewhat more plausibly, perhaps he asserted, “We were only acting in self-defence. The Soviets were about to attack us. Should we have waited for them? No!! What we did was nothing more than pre-emptive self-defence”.

Or, as I suspect, did Hitler not even bother to try to explain or justify his and Germany’s lie(s) and aggression?

Thanks!

I meant to have added: "whether for domestic or international consumption, did Hitler try to justify . . . "

From the Wiki page on Operation Barbarossa:

Ah, thank you! It was right there; almost in front of my eyes.

By the way, the contents of the entire paragraph you linked to was news to me - very interesting!

I see the wiki entry mentions Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun’s (pen name Viktor Suvorov) “Icebreaker” theory. It’s being very generous in describing it as “it has not been accepted by many western historians.” It’s been eviscerated as the steaming pile of shit it is, replete with shoddy scholarship, serious methodological flaws and highly selective use of evidence by pulling single sentences from memoirs and using them completely out of context. From the wiki entry on Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, Historians’ views section:

And, thank you! I feel somewhat less embarrassed for not having known about it before.

Americans would never fall for that.

It was intended for Americans. Rezun was essentially the Reinard Gehlen of the eighties - he switched teams and cemented his position with his new friends by telling them what they wanted to hear.

It’s interesting that Nazi Germany didn’t really bother to come up with a justification for it’s attack on the Soviet Union. This was a blatant, unprovoked attack on a neighbouring country which had honored all the bilateral treaties and had not shown any signs of hostility.

This is different from the German attacks on some of the other countries where at least in theory some sort of pretext or excuse could be constructed (like Poland or Norway).

I could be wrong but I read it as a reference to the buildup to Gulf War II.