"This much is true, that Nazism was not consciously based on Christianity. But it had some of its roots in Christianity. In Mein Kampf, Hitler praises Christian fanaticism as a model to be followed by the Nazis, particularly its thoroughness in eradicating paganism. The language he used in writing about races and nations was also very Biblical, far more than Darwinist. He had a Messiah complex and revelled in Richard Wagner’s messianic Parsifal myth. His followers saw him as a Messiah restoring the German Reich just as the Biblical Messiah was meant to restore King David’s kingdom. His attitude to martyrdom too, especially when the war was being lost, had a Christian element. Certain Christian thought forms persisted in Nazi doctrine even when it had rejected Christian belief at the conscious level, just as they persisted among many atheist socialists who secularised the Christian idea of saving the world and establishing the brotherhood of men. This way, Nazi anti-Semitism was doctrinally very distinct from Christian anti-Judaism yet undoubtedly tapped into the reservoir of lingering Christian anti-Jewish feelings. Hitler notoriously described his anti-Jewish policies as merely the completion of Jesus’ anti-Jewish struggle."