“Is it possible that we have not learned the lessons of history?” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked yesterday. November 9 was the anniversary of the proclamation of the Weimar Republic (1918), the pogroms against the Jews (1938), and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989).

“November 9 represents light and shadow, the deepest abysses and the happiest hours of our history,” Steinmeier said.

• The Weimar Republic ended with the rise of Adolf Hitler.
• The pogroms against the Jews led to the death of 6 million Jews.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall makes a repeat of history possible.

Steinmeier warned: “Nov. 9, 1918, will always remind us how precious peace and democracy are and that, once hard won, they are never guaranteed for all time.”

Germany’s democratic order is once again in deep peril, with centrist parties ineffectual and deadlocked, and extremist parties rising.

Eighty-seven years after the pogroms of Nov. 9, 1938, the abyss in German history, anti-Semitism has not returned, because it was always there. But since Oct. 7, 2023, it has risen sharply here in Germany as well. It comes from the right, from the left, from the center, and it exists among Muslim immigrants. Jews are afraid to show themselves openly; Jewish parents send their children to school with a queasy feeling; Jewish students are treated with hostility; men wearing kippahs are violently attacked in broad daylight. We, of all people, the descendants of those who were perpetrators or onlookers on Nov. 9, 1938, unable to show solidarity with our Jewish neighbors, or who looked away. We, of all people, are unable to put a stop to this anti-Semitism.
—Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Steinmeier believes that the fall of the Berlin Wall offers a glimmer of hope. However, if these troubles persist, a united and powerful Germany is not a cause for rejoicing, but for fear. According to the Bible, history will repeat itself: Germany’s democracy will fail, Germany will build a war machine, nations will fall, genocide will follow, and the world will plunge into war. That’s how dramatic Bible prophecy is. Read these prophecies in your own Bible alongside Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.