So I remembered an argument that me and two of my professors got into over Nazism's relation to the greater politics of Europe and I was interested in shooting it to this sub. Basically to summarize what we talked about me and one professor felt like Nazism was a logical conclusion to imperialism, white man's burden, and other white supremacist ideology that was common at the time. The other professor felt like Nazism was itself a unique ideology to Germany and was unrelated to the greater imperialist philosophies of Europe. Granted I understand there is a difference between imperialism and Nazism, but I feel like it's an evolution of the philosophy. I guess for more context the professor who supported me was a African history professor who held a very negative view of imperialism and the professor who didn't was an anglophile who specialized in 20th century British history.
I think a good way to at least get into the question is to look at the Jewish Question. This is a topic that the Nazis addressed, and their answer would eventually be the Final Solution, resulting in the Holocaust. A great outline of this is The Jewish Question in German Speaking Countries, 1848-194, A Bibliography.
The Jewish Question, that term, was first used in about 1753. It was attached to the Jew Bill controversy in Great Britain. The Jew Bill, or the Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753 allowed Jews to become naturalized citizens. The following year it was repealed because of the amount of opposition that came with it. There was claims that with it, there was an abandonment of Christianity.
France would discuss it in 1789, Germany in 1843 and after that, it really became widespread. Interestingly, in 1898, the proposal, at least by Theodore Herzl, in Der Judenstaat, was to create an independent state for them in Palestine.
Basically, what to do with the Jews in Europe was a very long discussed question. They were seen as others, and often, because of their religion, it was often assumed they could not really assimilate.
By 1860, the Jewish Question was increasingly being used in growing antisemitism. The Nazi solution grew out of all of this.
We can also look at Russia. Between 1791 to 1917, Jews were only allowed in an area called Pale of Settlement. Antisemitism was part of the official Russian Empire for centuries until 1917, with the Russian Revolution. They were outlawed people. Nora Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917 shows that antisemitism didn't stop though. While they weren't outlawed, there was an attempt to wipe out the traditional life of the Jews, Zionism and the Hebrew culture as a whole.
So it wasn't isolated to Germany but really the opinion in Europe at that time.