With this headline, the Atlantic has joined the growing number of publications astonished by Germany’s drastic military transformation. Previous headlines include:

• “Germany’s Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong?” (Politico, August 29)
• “Germany Is Arming Itself to the Teeth to Transform Europe Again” (Telegraph, November 2)
• “Germany’s Rearmament Puts Britain to Shame” (Spectator, November 11)

Atlantic author Isaac Stanley-Becker wrote, “Listening to plans for rearmament in the old Wehrmacht headquarters, I wondered whether Germany could get power right this time.” Everywhere he looks, he is reminded of Germany’s past:

• The grandfather of new Inspector of the Army Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding served “in both world wars and was imprisoned by Allied forces in 1945.”
• Germany’s air force facility “was built by the Third Reich on the outskirts of Berlin.”
• Germany’s Defense Ministry facility was once the Wehrmacht headquarters.
• The West German military was “rebuilt from the ranks of former Nazis.”
• In 2020, a special forces unit was disbanded because it was infested with “right-wing fanaticism.”
• The last time Germany had a permanent armed presence in Lithuania was during the Nazi occupation. By the end of the war, Lithuania’s Jewish population had been slaughtered. Now German troops are back.

Yet this past appears forgotten:

I wondered how Lithuanians felt about the sight of German soldiers. … A young mother told me that her family had suffered under Soviet collectivization policies, and that she feels safer with German soldiers around. … The display panel on the front of city buses announced LTU❤️DEU. Lithuania loves Germany.

Germany plans to devote $538 billion to the Bundeswehr over the next four years and is advertising for recruitment everywhere, even on pizza boxes. This is because American diplomats and forces are leaving Europe to its own devices. Stanley-Becker writes:

Where were “the ‘good’ Germans?” my great-grandfather asked. In jails and concentration camps, he answered, and buried in the earth. … [H]e believed American influence would help secure peace and purge Europe of fascism. … For a time, it did. But that world is disappearing, and Germany’s pacifism belongs to another age.

A senior German official told the author that Germany’s chancellor is haunted by the question, “Will America serve its allies to the dogs?” This impetus caused him to authorize unlimited government borrowing for defense.

The author has concerns. He asked a German general about Winston Churchill’s assessment that the Germans are “always either at your throat or your feet.” The general’s answer: “Much has changed,” and there is nothing distinctive about the German capacity for evil. He said, “We have to be aware of human beings, in general, having a dark side.”

Yet the article warns that “oaths of soldiers can change as well, depending on shifting political tides.”

The Trumpet is not in the dark about whether “Germany could get power right this time.” The Bible prophesied this rising military power in Revelation 17 and many other Old Testament and New Testament passages. Based on this prophecy, the late Herbert W. Armstrong has warned since the end of World War II that Germany will start a third world war.