His desire for a European empire to compete with the US.

When did the idea that the US was Germany's main rival enter Hitler's head? Much of Mein Kampf and the history of Nazi Germany seem to treat the world outside of Europe as if it didn't exist...
What often gets thought is that Nazi = Incompetent Soldier. The truth of the matter is that yes, while many of Germany's best were not Nazis, a great many of them were and were either true ideological believers, or only disagreed with Hitler on military strategy. Some good examples of this are Walther Model, Ferdinand Schorner, Joachim Peiper, etc.
You're right about Model and Schorner. However...
AFAIK no flag officer in the SS ever covered themselves in glory, as they simply lacked the training and proper leadership experience in the upper echelons of higher military command. No War Staff College for the SS.
And Peiper was only a brigade commander with to be blunt IMO holding an exaggerated level of respect in WWII. Give him a less than full strength panzer brigade equipped with Panzer IVs and fair-to-middling quality panzer troops in the Heer and I doubt you'll see him accomplishing any more than any other German officer in a similar command.
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Had the Russians not demonstrated in Poland an ineptness in occupying half the country, (1) and an assessment that the Red Army was grossly overrated in ability, Hitler may well have hesitated to invade the USSR for the time being.
The invasion of the Balkans was driven solely because of Italy's debacle in Greece and the movement of British troops into that country. (2)<snip>
1) Actually you may be thinking of the Winter War. The USSR's occupation of Eastern Poland was poorly executed, but the Finns' humiliating the Soviet Army in the first rounds of the Winter War had to really expose to Hitler's eyes Stalin's weakness. After all, if Stalin in his paranoid mania had kept his purges of the military going nonstop right up to 6/22/41...
2) Nothing would have changed had not one British soldier stepped foot in Greece, one plane flown overhead, or one ship sailed into the Aegean. Hitler couldn't let his buddy Benny the Moose suffer such a humiliating defeat to the Greeks, regardless of whatever the British did. He could always say that he was acting to prevent British intervention.