One useful perspective here is naturalism. What is natural? What happens in the state of nature? Often what is natural is for individuals and groups to pursue their interests at the cost of the well-being of other individuals and groups. For example, what is good for Jews is not always good for other groups. What is good for Germany nationalism is not always good for other groups.
Mein Kampf is not some beyond-human-reason document. It fits squarely within the literary tradition of us vs. them. If Germany had been led by another leader in the 1930s, it would have had the same incentives to go to war to conquer Western Europe and the Soviet Union. In both world wars, Germany came very close to winning. Germany was constituted to win quickly. The longer its wars dragged on, the more it was at a disadvantage.
The same incentives that led Germany and Japan into war in the 20th Century have operated similarly on other countries throughout history.
On the other hand, there would not have been a Holocaust if Germany had a different leader during WWII.
Today’s right-wing movements, which include the Alternative für Deutschland party, whose leadership recently advocated for shooting refugees at the German border to stop them from entering the country, have so far refrained from using Hitler’s brutal ideology to justify their contemporary goals.
Every nationalism contains a victimology and the capacity for genocide. Mein Kampf’s ideology is not unique in these respects. The Torah of the Jews for instance says that God commanded Israel to commit genocide against the native inhabitants of Canaan (Amalek). Amalek is the eternal enemy of the Jews and Jews have often used the term “Amalek” to designate modern enemies such as the Nazis and the Palestinians. From an Amalekite perspective, aka the enemy of the Jews perspective, the Torah is akin to how Jews view Mein Kampf. It’s all who gores whom. Unless you are a religious believer, there is no righteous group and there is no fairness, there is only group and individual conflict over scarce resources. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.
Most Israelis, for instance, wish that all Palestinians disappear. Arabs and Muslim certainly wish for the Jewish state to disappear. Every group of people has enemies. Us versus them is a natural ordering principle. It is not unique to Hitler and the Nazis.
When Jews identify as a separate people but live in gentile lands, they are placing themselves in danger because nobody likes a stranger, not even the angels (Mark Twain).
The Torah makes no provision for non-Jewish citizenship in the Jewish state of Israel and no gentile is to be in a leadership position there, not even over water carriers (Maimonides).
