“The news media is presently focusing mainly on the Middle East and Russia. But that is not where the truly big news is occurring. It’s happening in Germany—which Herbert W. Armstrong prophesied for 50 years!” My father, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry, wrote these words in our December 1991 issue.

From the earliest issues of the Trumpet newsmagazine in the 1990s, we focused on Germany’s military rise, continuing the legacy of Plain Truth editor in chief Herbert W. Armstrong, who died in 1986.

Here is why: “God says when the watchman sees the sword come upon the land to warn Israel (Ezekiel 33:3). Today we can see the sword. We see Germany uniting—the rod of God’s anger (Isaiah 10:5). We see that rod or sword clearly now. [Mr. Armstrong] couldn’t see the sword or rod—we can and must warn …” (Trumpet, June 1990).

In the 1990s, we saw Germany unite. Then we saw it get strong. Now we see it militarizing.

From the end of World War ii until his death in 1986, Mr. Armstrong warned that Germany would rise again. For 36 years, the Trumpet has continued sounding the alarm that a German war machine will rise. This war machine is here now!

In our September 2025 issue, my father wrote the cover story: “Germany Is Arming for World War III.” Since then, we have seen more dramatic developments (infographic, page 8), and the media is slowly catching up.

• “Germany’s Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong?” (Politico, Aug. 29, 2025)
• “Germany Is Arming Itself to the Teeth to Transform Europe Again” (Telegraph, Nov. 2, 2025)
• “Germany’s Rearmament Puts Britain to Shame” (Spectator, Nov. 11, 2025)
• “The New German War Machine” (Atlantic, Dec. 1, 2025)

Recounting some of Germany’s recent military advances, Atlantic author Isaac Stanley-Becker wrote, “Not long ago, these plans would have set off international alarms.”

Why aren’t these plans setting off international alarms?

While President Donald Trump declares a golden age for peace talks, Germany is arming itself and deploying troops. It has even established a permanent military base in Lithuania, a country previously conquered by Adolf Hitler!

In a way, Germany has already conquered Europe without having to use weapons or troops. This is exactly what Mr. Armstrong said would happen. Based on a prophecy in Revelation 17 that foretells the rise of 10 kings in Europe, he prophesied that the Continent would unite militarily under Germany’s dictate.

That was Mr. Armstrong’s signature prophecy throughout his ministry. On May 9, 1945, just after World War ii ended, he said: “The third round is termed, in prophecy, an invasion by ‘Babylon’—a resurrected Roman Empire—a European Union. I have been proclaiming that since 1927. For a while I thought Hitler might organize it—especially when he tied up with the Roman Mussolini. It wasn’t done in this second world war. It will be done and provoke the third!”

The forecast of a European military machine has been one of the clearest, most consistent warnings that has come from God’s Church over the past century. Yet the world has failed to heed these biblical warnings.

When people say, “Peace and safety,” sudden destruction is coming (1 Thessalonians 5:3). And this “new German war machine” is going to bring about that destruction.

Ignored Warning

nato’s first secretary general, Lord Hastings Ismay, famously said that the alliance’s purpose was to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

Today, analysts quote these words as if they were meant as a joke. Germany is no longer being kept down. It is being encouraged to rise up!

In our August issue, my father wrote, “U.S. President Donald Trump keeps pushing Germany to rearm. It is as if he knows nothing about Germany’s history. World War ii ended only 80 years ago; that is rather recent history” (“Lithuania in Prophecy”).

Referencing Ismay, he wrote, “Those men knew that Germany had to be kept down or we would have another world war! They were right—and that is exactly where we are headed today.”

Western leaders today see the German war machine as a trustworthy ally even though this nation snuffed out millions of Jewish, British and American lives in two world wars.

After World War i, Britain made the mistake of letting Germany rearm. The leaders were unwilling to acknowledge the danger. And this blindness is far worse today. The United States, Britain and many European countries are cheering Germany’s militarization.

Our schools fail to teach history’s most important lessons, and we are repeating its greatest tragedies!

Germany has long been Europe’s industrial powerhouse. Now it is becoming a military powerhouse. This powerhouse will not be a friend of the United States.

America’s Withdrawal

Pax Americana is over. That is German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s assessment. On Dec. 13, 2025, he said the era of U.S.-led security guarantees was over, so Europe needed to strengthen its own defense capabilities.

Merz’s remarks highlight a major shift in European defense strategy. For 80 years, Germany has relied on the U.S. to protect Europe. Yet as cbs News expressed it, “Germany is racing right now to rearm and modernize its military after decades of embracing pacifism after the Cold War” (Dec. 16, 2025).

A 60 Minutes special on Dec. 15, 2025, noted, “Scarred by their country’s Nazi past, Germans embraced pacifism after the Cold War. Defense spending collapsed to the point some soldiers were buying their own gear. But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—combined with persistent pressure from President Donald Trump for Europe to shoulder more of its own defense—transformed the landscape. Today Germany is racing to rearm.”

With this in mind, consider what Mr. Armstrong said in a World Tomorrow broadcast in the 1980s: “[S]ome of us, my friends, know not only what we see when we’re over there, but we know also what is prophesied, and we know what is prophesied to rise up in Europe. And we know which is the one and the only nation in Europe that is capable of dominating, and which is the economic and the industrial heart of all Europe, without which there could be no stability and strength. A human body cannot live without its heart, and the economic and the military body that is to rise up and to restore the Roman Empire—the thing that we least suspect here in the United States—it cannot rise up without its heart. And its heart is in Germany!”

In 1982, Mr. Armstrong said that the catalyst for European unity is “their fear of what’s going on in the Kremlin and the Soviet Union.” He added: “They are losing confidence in the United States as having a military umbrella over them to protect them. And they want their own military force to protect themselves.”

Now, with Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Trump leaving Europe to itself, this desire for a European military is stronger than ever. A senior German official told Stanley-Becker that Merz is haunted by the question, “Will America serve its allies to the dogs?” This is apparently an important factor in his motivation to spend billions on weapons and help repurpose civilian industries for weapons production.

The German government has promised to transform its military into the strongest in Europe! This was exactly what led to World War ii.

Still, the world hears this and yawns!

For the first time since World War ii, Germany has permanently stationed troops in Lithuania, where it previously committed genocide against Jews. “But as the United States upends the global order it created,” Stanley-Becker wrote, “Germany may have no other choice.”

Poor Germany! Apparently, because Trump is so unpredictable, it has no choice but to revive the old Nazi empire.

Many people are excited by this development because they see Germany as a force of opposition against both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. But Europe’s history shows that Germany had militaristic ambitions long before Trump and Putin were in power. The Trump administration’s policy of pulling away from Europe and pacifying Russia is providing the perfect cover, but Germany has long sought to dominate the world.

Already in 1944—before the end of World War ii—Nazi officials met with industrialists to plan a Nazi revival in case of a German defeat, as a U.S. intelligence document declassified in 1996 revealed (request our booklet Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans to read a copy of this document). After the war, various politicians from West Germany advocated for an independent military and a joint European army. France at the time rejected this idea, and in 1955 West Germany joined nato.

But now that the postwar order has collapsed, Germany is exerting its will.

A United States of Europe

In a fiery speech at the European Parliament, Dutch mep Bas Eickhout warned, “A divided Europe is the biggest gift you can give Putin and Trump. This council is at a moment of truth after the U.S. National Security Strategy, where people are saying that this is a wake-up call for Europe. A wake-up call? The wake-up call was on the 14th of February when JD Vance was exactly laying out what is now in the National Security Strategy. So this is not a wake-up call—though not the first time we have been woken up. How many times do we need before Europe really wakes up? The U.S. strategy is clear. It’s the same like Putin’s. It wants to divide Europe; it wants to weaken Europe.”

This is how European leaders are thinking and speaking! They don’t want to build up their militaries to become stronger nato allies, as the Trump administration hopes. They want to build up their militaries to stand up to the United States.

You will not hear this from any other source, but according to Bible prophecy, what is happening here is nothing less than the rise of the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire!

“When is Europe finally going to learn?” Eickhout continued. “We need a strong, united, sovereign Europe.”

We are about to see a United States of Europe. Winston Churchill coined that phrase in 1946 to call for postwar European unity. And Mr. Armstrong vehemently warned that this project, when it materialized, would be hijacked and used for unspeakable evil! Mr. Armstrong specifically prophesied that Britain would not be part of this union. In 2016, 30 years after his death, Britain voted to leave the EU. Now America is withdrawing its military aid from the Continent.

And Germany is filling the void.

Frankenstein Monster

Mr. Armstrong wrote in the October 1951 Plain Truth: “[B]elieve it or not, the United States of Europe—a Winston Churchill dream, an idea sponsored, aided, abetted and financed by the United States, is the very idea the pope will seize on—all ready-made, wrapped and labeled ‘made in U.S.A.’—ready to hand over to him! And in promoting this utopian idea, gullible, trusting America and Britain are creating the Frankenstein that shall destroy them!”

Germany is prophesied to destroy many nations in the time just ahead! This end-time prophecy is found in Isaiah 10:5, where God says, “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger ….” Who is Assyria today? In his landmark book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Mr. Armstrong wrote, “The Assyrians—before 604 b.c.—left their land north of Babylon and migrated northwest—through the lands that are now Georgia, Ukraine, Poland and into the land that is called Germany today.”

Notice what God prophesies will happen: “I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few” (verses 6-7).

The German war machine we see rising is going to “destroy and cut off nations”!

Nobody is telling you about these facts, but everything else you see in the news cycle is comparatively inconsequential compared to what is happening right now in Germany. People are talking about peace and unity while Germany is building a war machine!

Everyone who reads this message needs to sit up, pay attention, and act on the seriousness of the times! Much of the world is rejoicing at the prospect of a German military powerhouse, yet the Bible tells us this major geopolitical development is actually a sobering sign of the darkest times to come. This is a matter of life-and-death importance!

New Type of Warfare

The Atlantic article highlights Stark, one of Germany’s many military start-up companies that manufactures suicide drones: “On the ground floor is a showroom with an elegant minimalist aesthetic, a space so airy and bright that it could be an art gallery—except that military payloads fill the glass display cases. In one corner stands a drone. It’s tall, like a Giacometti sculpture.”

Think about this: Deathware is being portrayed as artwork. This drone, called Virtus, is a loitering munition with four rectangular wings. It can take off vertically, tilt in the air, and fly like a plane at 75 miles an hour. Guided by artificial intelligence, it navigates to its target, hovers overhead, then strikes, exploding its warhead. This is a new form of horrifying warfare!

And this is exactly what we should expect, based on Bible prophecy.

Daniel 8:23 reads: “And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” This “kingdom” is the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire prophesied in Revelation 17.

The Hebrew word for “dark sentences” comes from a word that means riddle or difficult question or parable. Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon defines dark sentences as “twisted, involved, … subtlety, fraud … an enigma.”

“To many today, AI is such an enigma,” my father wrote in “The Unknown Future of Artificial Intelligence.” “… Future wars most certainly will include nuclear bombs and biological weapons. These deadly weapons can be mounted on aircraft and drones and sent all over the world. Imagine what they could do! covid-19 was a mild biological weapon compared to something they might send in one of those drones. Some analysts are warning that artificial intelligence can be used to develop bioweapons that target only specific ethnicities. We know only a fraction of the weaponry being developed in secret” (Trumpet, March 2024, theTrumpet​.com/28925).

He cited a prophecy in Ezekiel 7:14 revealing that when this attack comes, America won’t even be able to respond.

Scoff if you will, but the German war machine is prophesied to use these new technologies, these “dark sentences”!

When it started the last world war, Germany was marching across Europe. It wasn’t until German soldiers invaded France that Britain finally woke up and started to act. The U.S. didn’t join until it was bombed into the war. In other words, we had time to prevent the war from escalating, but we failed to do so.

Today, we will not have that luxury! Europe has already been taken over by Germany! This means that Germany’s next strike can be directly against the U.S. and the British people.

Will It Happen Again?

Stanley-Becker wrote, “Listening to plans for rearmament in the old Wehrmacht headquarters, I wondered whether Germans could get power right this time.” He concluded: “Where were ‘the “good” Germans?’ my great-grandfather asked. In jails and concentration camps, he answered, and buried in the earth. But as a refugee, ‘rescued here on the foot of the Statue of Liberty,’ he 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.”

In the Atlantic’s telling, this is a heartwarming story of Germany rebuilding the war machine. We are living in a different age, when we no longer need to keep Germans down. After all, that was just a joke.

The world is not paying attention.

But notice Jesus Christ’s warning in Matthew 24:21-22: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

If you believe Christ’s words, you know that a suffering far greater than the Holocaust will precede His Second Coming.

The Bible also reveals who will start this war.

Revelation 17 prophesies of a union of 10 nations combining their forces, led by Germany. “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (verses 12-13).

These 10 kings will support Germany for “one hour.” Today, the EU has 27 member states, but this will be pared down to 10 kings ruling over 10 nations or nation-groups, and they will ally with the German war machine.

This prophesied beast power will war against the English-speaking people and the Jewish people—and almost completely destroy them. Notice what happens next: “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (verse 14). Jesus Christ will return to destroy this “new German war machine” and bring true peace to the German people and the whole world!

Christ warned in Luke 21:34-36: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”

An unimaginable future of violence and war awaits this world. Thankfully it is prophesied to last only a few years. But heed Christ’s warning, and you can escape what is coming! Realize what is happening and, more importantly, understand why. Take heed to yourself—watch, pray and repent.