Yesterday marked an important anniversary we cannot afford to forget. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, uniting East and West Germany.

It was exactly 51 years after Nazi Germany’s infamous pogroms against the Jews in 1938, 66 years after Adolf Hitler was arrested for his famous Beer Hall Putsch on the same day in 1923, and 71 years after the proclamation of the disastrous Weimar Republic in 1918.

Look at Germany today, and you see all its postwar restraints lifted—and the historic evils associated with this day resurfacing.

What a dramatic turnaround for a nation that lay in rubble in 1945.

“[B]y the time of World War ii, all cities of over 50,000 population in Germany were left in a heap of ruins, and also a great many smaller towns. Every fourth house in all of Germany was smashed. Most of the cities were 80 percent destroyed,” the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in the August 1959 Plain Truth.

Western leaders assured our peoples that a demoralized Germany would never rise up to strike again. But while everyone focused on the ashes of German cities, Mr. Armstrong prophesied, based on various biblical passages, that Germany would rise again and lead a united European power bloc.

Germany’s reunification and the fall of the Soviet Union greatly accelerated the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Germany today is the third-largest economy in the world. An unrestrained Germany could turn this industrial success into a military powerhouse overnight. It is already happening.

From Economic to Military Powerhouse

The British Telegraph made a stunning observation last week. After listing some of Germany’s 2024 military purchases, it wrote: “Overall, Germany’s purchases last year added up to more than three times the combined amount spent by Britain, France and Poland in the same period.”

This is astonishing! The nation that was reduced to rubble 80 years ago for committing terrible atrocities against these three nations is now ordering three times as many weapons!

In 2022, then German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany would create a new €100 billion fund to rapidly improve the Army’s equipment. But this was just the beginning. This past March, Germany passed a historic constitutional change that allows it to borrow money and spend hundreds of billions more on infrastructure and weaponry.

Last month, Politico revealed the German government’s planned arms purchases for the 2026 budget, which has yet to be approved. The military wish list totals a stunning $434 billion!

Some of these items “are longer-term purchases for which there is no clear time frame,” Politico wrote. But that’s just a way to obscure Germany’s dramatic rise. For context, the United States spent roughly $150 billion on weapons systems in the fiscal year 2024.

These numbers are frightening if you consider what is smoldering beneath the surface.

A Nazi Spirit That Never Died

The chronology of events, coupled with some alarming statistics since the wall came down in November 1989, should serve as warning enough that Nazi Germany is storming back—and with a vengeance.

Right after the wall fell, from 1990 to 1991, the number of organized right-wing extremists jumped from 32,000 to 40,000. The number of violent racist incidents increased 10-fold, to 1,483! Even more frightening, surveys indicated that 50 to 60 percent of the police in some areas sympathized with the Nazi cause! Law enforcement in some areas was at best half-hearted in preventing racial hate crimes. German officials admitted they had seriously underestimated the Nazi movement.

The situation worsened in 1992, when the estimated number of organized, right-wing extremists exceeded 65,000 and over 2,100 violent racial incidents led to the killing of 17 people. Explosions and firebombings were up 33 percent over 1991.

Between 1993 and 1997, attacks against foreigners in Germany increased from 6,000 to 9,000 per year!

In 1998, I wrote an article on a pro-Nazi party that won seats in Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament in Germany. At the time, the news shocked the world. Today, another far-right party is the most popular in Germany!

In 1998, I warned: “Germany has already plunged the world into two world wars. How can we not be profoundly stunned by the pro-Nazi election win? Especially since the world is now glutted with nuclear weapons and Germany is the great economic superpower of Europe. Also their military is much stronger than most people realize.”

Then in 1999, Germany bombed and nato allies bombed Yugoslavia. “It was nato’s first intervention without a [United Nations] mandate and with German involvement,” Deutsche Welle wrote.

Many people were upset that these actions broke international law. As I write in my booklet Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans, this was a shameful time for the nato alliance. And if you look at the chronology of events, it was all orchestrated by Germany!

The Serbs fought with the Allies in two world wars, and Germany fought against us in both of those wars. How strange to see those alliances reversed today. We have failed to learn from this history, and we are going to pay a terrifying price!

The simple truth is, Serbia is no threat to Europe or America. But Germany has routinely been a dangerous threat to Europe and the world! And whether we realize it or not, it still is today—far more so than in the past.

The only real winners in 1999’s war in Yugoslavia were Germany and the Vatican. Time will show that America and Britain were the great losers. The Kosovo conflict made them weaker as Germany grew in power.

Rise of Jew Hatred

In 1990, just months after the wall came down, one survey revealed that more than a third of Germans from the east and west felt they “need not be ashamed of the legacy of German fascism.”

In 1991, a Der Spiegel poll found that 62 percent of Germans felt it was better not to “talk so much about the persecution of the Jews.” The following year, 36 percent of Germans surveyed agreed that “Jews have too much influence in the world.” Another survey found that one fourth of German schoolchildren felt that Jewish Holocaust stories were “greatly exaggerated.”

So soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany was ready to leave its past behind. But look at where it is today. In his speech yesterday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said:

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.

Nov. 9, 1938, was when Nazi Germany led a pogrom against the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust and the death of 6 million Jews.

Merriam-Webster defines pogrom as “an organized massacre and looting of helpless people …; specifically: such a massacre of Jews.” It is pogroms, plural, that have plagued the European continent for centuries. The Inquisition ended up killing 50 million people. That’s about the number killed during World War ii. Of course, Jews weren’t the only ones killed in the Inquisition.

Do we really think Europe has overcome its history?

Consider that Jew hatred is rising again today—just as Germany is developing the most frightening war machine ever seen. Can we afford to take our chances?

The Rise of an Evil Leader

On November 6 last year, the day after Americans voted, Germany’s coalition collapsed. Germany has since formed a new government, but people are already saying it too is about to collapse.

November 9 is also the anniversary of Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, when he illegally tried to usurp power. Adolf Hitler was one of the most evil leaders of history, and his reign was prophesied in Revelation 17. The same chapter prophesies of the rise of yet another evil strongman who will use this rising German military power and lead it once again to war.

Though Hitler was destructive, he never achieved world domination. This coming leader will lead 10 European nations to finish what Hitler started (verses 12-13) and cause the worst suffering this world has ever seen!

Mr. Armstrong proclaimed back in 1934 the appearance of a world dictator in charge of the Holy Roman Empire. That’s why he foretold that Germany would reunify.

Daniel 8:23 warns that “a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up,” referring to the coming leader of Germany. We know this by putting this prophecy together with others. A prophecy in Daniel 11:40-45 says “the king of the north” shall rise “at the time of the end,” referring to a German-led European superpower. Isaiah 10:5-19 give a similar prophecy, adding that this leader shall be “the king of Assyria.” The modern Germans are descendants of ancient Assyria. (For proof, read “The Remarkable Identity of the German People.”)

Based on these and other prophecies, Mr. Armstrong warned in 1945 after Germany surrendered:

The war is over, in Europe—or is it? We need to wake up and realize that right now is the most dangerous moment in United States’ national history, instead of assuming we now have peace! … We don’t understand German thoroughness. From the very start of World War ii, they have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned, in such eventuality, the third round—World War iii!

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany’s preparations to fulfill this prophecy have greatly accelerated. All it is waiting for is that prophesied strongman. Then you can be sure our world will once more be caught in a world war—only this time, with nuclear weapons.

The Most Tragic History

Mr. Armstrong died nearly four years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He never saw the prophetic fulfillment that he spent his whole life warning about.

But the real tragedy about this is that the church he founded, the Worldwide Church of God (wcg), failed to continue his warning even as these prophecies came to pass.

The wcg’s Pastor General’s Report said on Nov. 21, 1989 (emphasis mine):

News Station Asks Church About Prophecy: Following the spectacular news about the opening of the Berlin Wall, we unexpectedly received a call from a news station in Seattle. The news director was well aware of the World Tomorrow program and the fact that for more than 40 years the Church had been predicting the reunification of Europe in some form. He asked for on-air comments about whether the Church believed the opening of the Wall was the commencement of end-time prophetic events.

We responded that it was premature to make statements like that, but that the Bible was very clear about a 10-nation consortium in Europe. We also pointed out that history shows that past episodes of European unification have not proven positive for the rest of the world and that the Church would continue to watch events very closely.

The news director was disappointed that we would not proclaim this to be the absolute beginning of end-time events, but it was interesting that he did say that what the Church has predicted from the Bible was remarkably close to what appears to be happening.

As I wrote in my book on Malachi’s Message:

Shallow prophetic understanding like this will cause the wcg leaders to think events are “premature” right up to the time they are in the Tribulation, experiencing them! The wcg’s response to the newsman’s request was not a “watchman” talking. Those Church leaders didn’t learn that approach from Mr. Armstrong. Can you even imagine Mr. Armstrong talking like that? Because Mr. Armstrong wasn’t perfect in his prophetic understanding (just like Paul), these leaders go to an alarming extreme. As a result, they are not arousing people as the “master” is supposed to do.

I, like the news director, was “disappointed”—no, I was distressed—by that response! There are so many more major prophecies being fulfilled now than in the 15 years prior to Mr. Armstrong’s death—and the Worldwide Church of God is prophesying less and less!

The church Mr. Armstrong founded is no longer recognizable, but the Philadelphia Church of God (pcg) continues his legacy.

Our beginning is also tied to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The split in God’s Church occurred on Dec. 7, 1989. Just four weeks after the Berlin Wall came down, God raised another church, the pcg, to continue proclaiming His prophecies.

The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is thus linked to our work today and reminds us of our responsibility to warn about Germany’s dramatic rise.