Abstract: Hitler fulminated in Mein Kampf that if during the First World War, thousands of the "Hebrew corrupters of the people" had been "held under poison gas"--as happened to "hundreds of thousand of German soldier," then the sacrifice of millions at the front "would not have been in vain." Bringing the Holocaust into being, he fulfilled his fantasy: holding the "Hebrew corrupters of the people" under poison gas. Hitler the creator--prime mover--enacted his dream of murderous revenge: Do unto others as had been done unto you.

Omer Bartov states that the Holocaust--the concept of the mass-killing of human beings by states--was “lifted directly from the Great war." The Holocaust was “the perfect reenactment of the Great War,” with the correction that “all the perpetrators were on one side and the victims on the other.”

The death camps incorporated the attributes of a military environmen:” uniforms and barbed wire, watch towers and roll calls, hierarchy and order, drill and commands. What was present during the First World War was present at the death camps: the barbed wire, machine guns, charred bodies, the gas, the uniforms, and the military discipline.

Perhaps most significantly, what the Holocaust had in common with the First World War I was the mass-murder of human beings by poison gas. 

In Mein Kampf (Vol. I, Chap. VII), Hitler discussed the poison gas attack that wounded him during the First World War:

• In the last few days of that titanic struggle, when the waves of poison gas enveloped me and began to penetrate my eyes, the thought of becoming permanently blind unnerved me.

In Vol. II, Chap. XV, he fulminated:

• If at the beginning of the War and during the War, 12 or 15 thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.

Bringing the Holocaust into being, he fulfilled his fantasy set forth in Mein Kampf: holding the "Hebrew corrupters of the people" under poison gas. Hitler the creator--prime mover--enacted his dream of murderous revenge: Do unto others as had been done unto you.