Just as Christ died to save humanity, so does the soldier die to save his nation.

Arlie J. Hoover—"The God of Nationalism.” The “sacrificial soldier lay at the heart of religious nationalism.” The soldier, like Christ, was ready to “place his earthly life on the altar of love.” German pastors looked upon the warrior’s death as the “most beautiful of all deaths,” like the “free will offering of Christ himself."

J.W. Baird citing a poet writing on the "enduring meaning of Langemark and The Great War in To Die for Germany: “Christ’s passion found its parallel in the deeds of those soldiers, who had sacrificed themselves for the nation.”