The German Industrial Heart Is Becoming a ‘War Factory’

The German economy is struggling. On April 22, the government halved its economic growth forecast to just 0.5 percent for 2026. Meanwhile, the United States’ economy is expected to grow by over 2 percent. There’s only one sector truly booming in Germany: weapons making.

“As autos and heavy manufacturing falter, Berlin is steering factories, workers and capital toward rearming Europe,” the Wall Street Journal wrote on April 19 in “Germany Is Reinventing Itself as a Weapons Factory.”

Germany’s once great industries have been battered by foreign competition and strangled by rising costs at home. Its solution “isn’t to revive the old economy, but to replace it” (ibid).

Germany’s economy—centered around civilian manufacturing—is being systematically replaced by arms manufacturing. This isn’t anything new. Its old arms manufacturers, which switched to civil manufacturing after World War ii ended, are returning to their previous purposes.

Germany is “recasting its industrial base as the West’s arsenal” in response to economic worries, the article stated.

There is a lot of appetite for it. Europe is increasingly resentful of the U.S. and even prepared to fight it economically and militarily over Greenland.

For many Europeans, it’s logical not to buy U.S. weapons to defend themselves. However, it is illogical to turn to the country that started two world wars.

The German weapons industry has caused the slaughter of tens of millions of people and inflicted a nightmare on hundreds of millions. The horrors of which are still being discussed today. Yet the matter-of-fact article is missing any sort of alarm about the development! If anything, the article lulls its readers to sleep!

This kind of news should cause our grandparents to sit down with their grandchildren to warn them that the horrors that their fathers suffered are coming back.

But in our sophisticated world today, one isn’t allowed such conversations when talking about Germany. People say Germany’s history is just history, even as that history is repeating itself in front of their eyes!

In 1996, the U.S. declassified an intelligence document that revealed a clandestine meeting where key Nazi leaders instructed industrial leaders to go underground. This declassification received little attention. Some warned about these plans before they were declassified, but their warning was dismissed or ignored.

But nobody gave a thunderous, Bible-based warning like the late Herbert W. Armstrong, who warned about Germany’s remilitarization while it was yet burying its dead in 1945. The Trumpet today continues to thunder this same warning. Yet even as these events are coming to pass and Germany is literally reviving its deadly arms industry, people continue to ignore God’s message!

Back to Making Cannons

“Across Germany’s industrial belt, factory lines that once powered the country’s export miracle are being rewired into the machinery of Europe’s rearmament,” the article explained.

Two problems can be solved with that strategy: slow military production and automotive unemployment.

Last month, André Wüstner, chairman of the German Armed Forces Association, stated that “the defense industry needs to increase its efforts to reach a higher production capacity, including by introducing round-the-clock operations.” Rheinmetall, Europe’s largest defense company, has a backlog of over $75 billion in orders. It can’t keep up with demand.

At the same time, Germany’s auto industry has also been hit hard. Since 2019, over 112,000 automotive jobs have been cut. That trend is continuing as Volkswagen plans to cut 50,000 jobs in the next four years. Other auto manufacturers, such as Mercedes-Benz, are also struggling financially, reporting a nearly 50 percent profit drop last year. On top of that, in November the number of German automotive jobs reached its lowest point in 15 years. This is a big problem for Germany, because the automotive industry has long been the heart of its economy.

The defense industry is taking its place.

Investors invest in what they believe has future value, and people believe the future lies in German arms manufacturers.

As German industrial giants struggle, Europe is undergoing a massive armament push driven by disillusionment with nato sparked by January’s Greenland crisis and the Russian threat. Why wouldn’t automotive companies struggling with demand repurpose toward the defense industry, which is in high demand?

On top of that, Germany plans to spend more than $500 billion on defense in the coming years. Imagine the contracts open to companies willing to make the transition to defense production. Up to 90 percent of venture capital funds in European defense start-ups are going to German companies, the Wall Street Journal reported.

German Economics Minister Katherina Reiche believes that “repurposing existing production sites from other industries can reduce the hurdles to scaling up domestic capacity.” Earlier this year, she stated that “Germany needs to get its will to win back.” Her ministry is funding a “matchmaking platform” to connect defense companies with other manufacturers.

Klaus Rosenfeld, ceo of auto supplies producer Schaeffler, said, “A great trend in the German economy is that people are asking much more than before, ‘How can we contribute to what has not been done over the last many years—to regain the ability to defend ourselves?’ And this is what we are doing.” In other words, he also wants the economy to revolve around defense.

The automotive companies see the demand and want to step in with the supply. Many of them did this in World War ii. But in postwar Germany, death-ware was looked down on as a bloody business. The memories of the blood spilled in German streets were too fresh. But today, arms manufacturers are seen as the heroes who defend the country, not just against Russia but also, increasingly, against the U.S.

Already Happening

Schaeffler which is making a name for itself in the defense industry, is now making drone engines, armored vehicle systems and military aviation components.

Volkswagen is considering producing components for the Israeli Iron Dome system. If Volkswagen, with its 10 factories across Germany, converted some of those factories to produce weaponry, it could save tens of thousands of jobs.

Rheinmetall announced last year its plans to repurpose its automotive factories to produce weaponry. (We saw a similar trend in the 1930s.)

Deutz took advantage of the weak economy to transition from making engines to weapons. “What works for engines and mining equipment will work for the defense industry,” ceo Sebastian Schulte said. He also said automakers can scale production quickly compared to “traditional defense companies.”

“Deutz, a nimbler business used to the fast-shifting whims of car buyers, moved so quickly that it now supplies power-generation engines for Patriot systems used by Saudi Arabia, as well as various unmanned systems and armored vehicles,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

But the article doesn’t harken back to what happened when Germany did this before. Our media is failing to sound the alarm just before the greatest catastrophe of all plagues our world. It’s exactly as Bible prophecy said it would be. Our world lacks a watchman.

In his booklet Winston S. Churchill: The Watchman, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains that Ezekiel 33 prophesied of the people choosing Winston Churchill, who warned about Germany. That same chapter shows that God Himself will appoint a watchman in this end time as the world in general lacks such leaders.

Look around: No major publications are even remotely close to warning about Germany’s militarization.

More Than an Economic Plan

For decades, the United States has been known as the Arsenal of Democracy; now, Germany is putting itself forward to take that title. The last time its economy transitioned to focus on rearmament, the worst war in man’s history followed. This time will be the same.

The Trumpet and its predecessor, the Plain Truth, have warned of Germany’s war machine for eight decades, based on several Bible prophesies. Mr. Flurry wrote in “Germany Is Arming for World War III”:

Revelation 17 prophesies of the rise of a military alliance of 10 kings leading 10 nations or groups of nations in Europe. This alliance will be dominated and led by Germany, biblical Assyria. Assyria had a history of starting many wars, over and over again. Isaiah 10 shows that it will soon start another war, the most destructive in history! It says God will allow this—because He is going to use the modern-day Assyrians to punish the modern descendants of biblical Israel. Our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy explains this and gives you the history to understand it.

Read that prophecy in Isaiah 10:5-7: “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. 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.” This is a prophecy that Germany will destroy many nations!

Right now, we are witnessing Germany begin its final preparations to start this war!

We are watching as Germany enters the final preparations before starting World War iii—yet our media is asleep!

To learn more, read Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.