In Part 3: The Struggler, Continued, Max travels to the Hubermanns' house with a copy of Mein Kampf that Hans has sent him as cover for the journey. Death comments on the situational irony:

Strangely, as he turned the pages and progressed through the chapters, it was only two words he ever tasted.

Mein Kampf. My struggle—

The title, over and over again, as the train prattled on, from one German town to the next.

Mein Kampf.

Of all the things to save him.

Mein Kampf is Hitler's manifesto, which brazenly laid out his anti-Semitic ideology and policies. Hans Hubermann has acquired this copy by joining the Nazi party. He has sent it to Max for this dangerous train ride because no one will suspect a reader of Mein Kampf to be Jewish. Death's comment, "Of all the things to save him," points out the irony that a Jewish man's survival depends on a piece of propaganda that instructs Germans in why and how Jewish people must be eradicated from society. The dark irony demonstrates that even in a totalitarian society, humans' compassion, creativity, and determination can never be fully stamped out. Hans, Max, and Walter Kugler have found a way to turn Hitler's horrible book against him.

Later on in the novel, Max further adapts Mein Kampf from a force for evil into a force for good. At first, he is afraid to let Liesel see the book. She has a young, impressionable mind, and the book is designed to turn people like her into Hitler's weapons. However, instead of keeping the book hidden from Liesel, Max tears it apart and paints over the pages so that he can turn it into a new book. This new book tells the story of "The Word Shaker," a girl who uses language not to manipulate people (as Hitler does) but to save them. The story roughly corresponds with the story of Liesel and Max's friendship. What Max creates is a palimpsest, or a book that is written on top of another book. In so doing, he takes the cruel world envisioned by Hitler and makes from the material something far more beautiful and compassionate. It inspires Liesel to write her own story in defiance of a government that aims to suppress free speech and dissenting viewpoints.