Germany Will Rise Again

He was right that Germany would rise again through a European Union

Throughout the 52-year lifespan of the Plain Truth under Mr. Armstrong, the Editorial staff pointed to events that were leading to the inevitable rise of a European federation. Before World War ii, Mr. Armstrong foretold it. During the heat of the Battle of Britain, he continued to forecast it. And when Germany lay defeated, crushed to smoldering dust by the onslaught of the Allies, he kept proclaiming the future resurrection of Germany—never wavering from his warning that it was destined to lead a European combine.

Mr. Armstrong delivered his forecast for Europe for decades, consistently and in detail. He continued sending out that warning message over the airwaves and in print until his death in January 1986.

As Germany lay in ruins in 1945, Mr. Armstrong took to the airwaves to warn that the defeated power would “come back” as part of “a European Union.”

European nations are becoming “distrustful of America and thinking more and more about uniting themselves into a united states of Europe,” he wrote in March 1950. “Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe,” he wrote in May 1953. “Without Germany such a federation of nations is impossible. Yet the other nations of Europe will not trust Germany or a German leader. Still, in spite of this, it is probable that none but a German can provide the dynamic, inspired leadership required to organize such a political military federation.”

The next year, his Plain Truth magazine reminded readers of the promise the Allies had made to “destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.”

“And now, a short nine years later, behold the spectacle of Washington and London making every possible diplomatic effort, backed by American dollars, to do two things: Create a united states of Europe, and to rearm Germany. … Germany inevitably [will] emerge as the leader of a united Europe.”

That was written less than 10 years after World War ii, when Germany was divided and still crushed from defeat. Europe was almost rebuilt (thanks to the massive aid of the United States Marshall Plan) but was still disunited. Despite all appearances of the German nation at that time, Mr. Armstrong reiterated his prewar claims that a German revival would lead to a united Europe.

By the mid-1960s, signs of a reemerging Germany were more frequent, but Europe’s only noticeable moves toward unification remained solely in the realms of trade and commerce. Yet the Plain Truth said political unity would not be far behind. “[I]f 300 million Europeans were united and could speak with one voice, this would excel any might in the world today. … One thing you can count on. In fact it is so sure you can bank on it: The cry of a political union in Europe will get louder, and before long we will see the Common Market develop into a United States of Europe” (September 1967; emphasis added throughout).

Mr. Armstrong continued to warn that the rising economic power in Europe would soon develop a military focus. “Europeans want their own united military power!” he wrote in August 1978. “They know that a political union of Europe would produce a third major world power, as strong as either the U.S. or the ussr—possibly stronger!”

As time went on and this empire did not rise as fast as Mr. Armstrong initially expected, he held fast this forecast.

In a letter to Plain Truth readers on July 24, 1983, he said that since the magazine’s beginnings nearly 50 years before, it had “warned of a coming sudden appearance of a resurrected ‘Holy Roman Empire’ in Europe—a union of 10 nations in Europe under one government, with one united military force. For 50 years I have been crying out to the world the Bible prophecies of this coming ‘United States of Europe’—a new united superpower perhaps more powerful than either the Soviet Union or the United States!”

His final book, Mystery of the Ages, published in 1985, described “a sort of soon-coming ‘United States of Europe’—a union of 10 nations to rise up out of or following the Common Market of today (Revelation 17). Britain will not be in that empire soon to come.”

Across these decades of warning, Mr. Armstrong emphasized three important points:

1) Germany would lead this united economic—then military—power.

2) It would need a “spiritual binding force.”

3) It would follow a strong German leader.

Germany’s rise to power as the leader of a united Europe has already happened. Events are swiftly moving toward the fulfillment of the other two forecasts.

A New Method of Domination

In World Wars i and ii, Germany and its allies had attempted to achieve global dominion by first conquering their European neighbors. After forecasting Germany’s rise as part of a “European union” in 1945, Mr. Armstrong closely watched the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s.

In 1956, Mr. Armstrong described Germany’s new approach toward Europe: “[T]his time the [Germans] plan to sidestep the causes of past defeats. Instead of exhausting their own strength by holding European nations as captives at the expense of vital Gestapo manpower, they plan to head and dominate a united states of Europe—and add the manpower of those nations to their own military divisions” (June 1956).

In 1951, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany came together to form the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1957 the Treaty of Rome transformed them into the European Economic Community, with a common market and a customs union.

“I want you to notice, it was an economic combine—not a political or military union,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in 1959. He later said, “It is the beginning of the uniting of the nations of Europe.”

These nations, he explained, would work to share a common currency. Citing prophecies about the wealth of this rising European empire in Revelation 18, he wrote: “So you see, one of the outstanding phases of this coming revived Roman Empire, the modern Babylon, is to be great economic prosperity, in world trade, by ships. These nations could never fulfill that prophecy until they united to bring about uniform currency reform.”

Over the next three decades, the European Economic Community gradually brought in new members and expanded its scope. The next major milestone was the 1992 Maastricht Treaty extending the Common Market into a political and monetary union, exactly as Mr. Armstrong had prophesied. In 1993, the European Economic Community—then comprised of 12 nations— was given a new title: the European Union.

The EU has a permanent presidency, its own currency, its own diplomatic corps, a border force, a parliament, a central bank, a flag and an anthem.

Germany was, and remains, the primary force behind the EU, which acts as a convenient spokesperson for German ambitions. The Plain Truth of October 1976 explained this subterfuge: “West Germany has tried so hard for so long to bring about common community positions on one front after another. In addition, by always espousing the common European cause, she is less suspect of nationalistic motivations. After all, Word War ii is not that far in the past.”

In recent years, that history has faded so far from men’s minds, the smokescreen is hardly necessary.

Germany is, by a wide margin, the EU’s largest economy. It is the busiest transit hub for maritime cargo and road freight for the union. Frankfurt is home to the European Central Bank. Germany has used this economic control to establish a clear dominance over the EU.

In 1995, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned, “You have not anchored Germany to Europe. You have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.”

The 2008 financial crisis made this obvious. Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Ireland and others all needed bailouts. Germany would provide them, but German taxpayers didn’t want to hand over their cash to bailout profligate foreigners, as they saw it. They must have control in the countries they bailed out. It was a well-laid trap, designed by the architects of the EU to force the Continent together (see “Our Financial 9/11 Was Prophesied!” page 29).

In late 2011, after Berlin and Brussels brought down the governments of Greece and Italy, Simon Heffer wrote in the Daily Mail that the world was witnessing “the economic colonization of Europe by stealth by the Germans.” He observed that, in the past, it would have “taken an invading military force to topple the leadership of a European nation. Today, it can be done through sheer economic pressure” (Nov. 8, 2011).

British politician Nigel Farage also recognized that Germany had used Europe’s economic crisis—itself engineered by German elites—to reshape Europe into a distinctly Germanic edifice. In a blistering speech before the European Parliament in November 2011, he said, “[W]e are now living in a German-dominated Europe—something that the European project was actually supposed to stop—something that those that went before us actually paid a heavy price in blood to prevent.”

In March 2013, after Germany’s bailout of Cyprus, Charles Moore, the official biographer of Margaret Thatcher and former editor of the Daily Telegraph, wrote: “After victory in 1945, Churchill broadcast that Germany ‘lies prostrate before us.’ Today, most of southern Europe lies prostrate before Germany.”

That same month, Heffer said, “The Fourth Reich is here without a shot being fired: and the rest of Europe, and the world, had better get used to it.”

Gotten used to it, Europe has. Besides occasional complaints of “too many Germans in top jobs” (Politico, Feb. 21, 2018), the people of Europe have grown quite accepting of German dominance.

From all this, it is clear that the power over Europe that Germany twice sought in the 20th century by armed aggression has, in this 21st century, become a reality. And besides the Kosovo War, it has happened almost bloodlessly!

The Germans did, indeed, “sidestep the causes of past defeats,” just as Mr. Armstrong predicted back in 1956! They have, indeed, come to “head and dominate a united states of Europe—and add the manpower of those nations to their own,” just as he prophesied! Germany is working toward the final resurrection by exactly the method Mr. Armstrong said it would. How accurate Mr. Armstrong’s forecast was of Germany being the “heart and core of the united Europe”!

This is living prophecy—unbreakable, unchangeable prophecy of inevitable events that are now coming to pass before your eyes. The EU is already a literal European empire—the final resurrection of the old Holy Roman Empire—with Germany as its “heart and core”!

A United Military Force

The united military power Herbert W. Armstrong warned of is also taking shape behind the scenes. For decades, Germany and Europe’s war-fighting power has lagged behind its economic power. It has relied on and largely submitted to the United States in this realm. This is changing, and there is no going back.

The old German High Command—which the World War ii Allies swore would remain forever dismantled—has been assembled once again, wearing new clothes and sporting a new name: the Command Staff of the Armed Forces. It is the brains behind the development of a powerful, nuclear-armed European defense force.

Germany has also quietly built the foundation of a united European military force. Under the Lisbon Treaty, or EU constitution, the EU is empowered to develop a united military force supported by a consolidated European armaments industry.

And here is the vital detail of that arrangement: Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has maneuvered to ensure that German law overrides EU law. Berlin has the final word on whether the German Army participates in any EU military operation. The remarkable upshot of this is that, now, Germany must give the “go” on any deployment of any EU battle group. Thus, the deployment of EU battle groups is essentially at the direction of the German High Command under German parliamentary approval!

The EU also has its own border agency. EU representatives in Brussels can now legally deploy armed soldiers within EU territory even against that nation’s wishes. This represents a genuine erosion of one of the most fundamental aspects of national sovereignty: a state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Encyclopedia Britannica calls this “a defining characteristic of the modern state.”

Alongside these grand European gestures, Germany has been making rapid progress on another front. In 2013, then German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière grew impatient with efforts to create an EU military through a long-imagined grand treaty of some sort. So he announced a different approach: Germany would build an EU military one nation at a time. It would work with its neighbors, integrating their forces into the German Army one by one. Once a handful or so of nations had signed up, the multinational force could form the core of a larger EU military.

The Dutch were the first to sign up, integrating two thirds of their Army’s command structures into the German Army. In 2023 they finished the job, subordinating all brigades of the Dutch Army into the Germany Army.

In 2017, Romania agreed to have its 81st Mechanized Brigade work closely with Germany’s Rapid Response Forces Division. This division is now in charge of a Dutch and Romanian brigade. The Czech Republic agreed to have its elite 4th Rapid Deployment Brigade work with Germany’s 10th Armored Division—one of only two mechanized brigades that the Czech Republic has.

Germany has also taken on important positions of leadership in nato:

• In 2018, nato accepted Germany’s offer to establish a nato command center to facilitate rapid troop movement.
• Germany is building a new naval headquarters in Rostock. The headquarters will command operations for the United Nations, nato, the German Navy and the European Union.
• Ramstein Air Base is the headquarters of nato’s air command. nato also established a space center at Allied Air Command in Ramstein in 2020. This is controlled by the U.S., but Germany is also working on its own independent Space Command.
• American nuclear bombs are deployed in six European bases, including Germany’s Buchel Air Base. They can be carried by German and Italian Tornado warplanes.
• In 2025, Germany set up its first permanent foreign base, which will host 5,000 soldiers, in Lithuania.

The gradual process of removing restrictions on the German Army is nearly complete.

Now Germany is also emerging as Europe’s military leader. Traditional Britain or France were the EU’s biggest military spenders, and therefore took the lead on military matters. Germany has more than doubled its military spending since 2015, and plans to double it again by 2029. This year, Germany is close to doubling France’s military spending, by 2029 they’re projected to spend 2.5 times as much. One EU diplomat called this turnaround “telluric”—or earthshaking. “It’s the most important thing happening right now at [the] EU level,” said another. Germany is not only Europe’s economic leader; it now leads on the military front too.

A Confidence-Inspiring Leader

Bible prophecy makes clear that the final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire will be led by a confidence-inspiring individual. Passages such as Daniel 8:23 make this clear. In the Good News magazine of May 1953, Mr. Armstrong wrote about this man: “Without Germany, such a federation of nations is impossible. … [I]t is probable that none but a German can provide the dynamic, inspired leadership required to organize such a political military federation.”

In 1956, Mr. Armstrong wrote that the Europeans were “thinking more and more about the coming United States of Europe! [Europe is] going to unite against us! And now Europe is about ready for it! The stage is all set! All that’s lacking now is the strong leader—the coming führer! The Germans are coming back from the destruction of World War ii in breathtaking manner. Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe. Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe.”

Just as Mr. Armstrong did, we at the Trumpet have long watched for a German strongman to enter the scene who will fulfill this pivotal prophetic role.

In 2009, a German with “dynamic, inspired” leadership qualities suddenly leaped into view. He appeared on the front line of German politics in February 2009 when he was appointed as the nation’s minister of economics. Then, just after Germany’s national election that September, Chancellor Angela Merkel instantaneously quintupled his political stature by making him defense minister in her new coalition cabinet. This man is Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

We have watched his political progress with keen interest because of how closely his biography matches the Bible’s prophetic description, which Herbert Armstrong powerfully explained. Particularly noteworthy are Guttenberg’s family and his political connections.

His early development in political life was guided by Edmund Stoiber, a Catholic conservative who himself was groomed by Franz Josef Strauss, the famous German strongman who had grand designs for a united Europe led by a dominant Germany.

Guttenberg is also connected through part of his family line to the house of Habsburg. Strauss and Otto von Habsburg shared a common dream of a united Catholic Europe. Both personally shared details of that vision with Mr. Armstrong during visits they made to the campus of Ambassador College in Pasadena, California. Otto von Habsburg dreamed of reviving the Holy Roman Empire. Mr. Armstrong knew that dream was destined to become reality.

Take the aristocratic Guttenberg’s impeccable Frankish-Bavarian Roman Catholic connections into mind and add them to the thread of political thought that has pervaded Bavarian politics for decades under Strauss and Stoiber: the dream of a united Catholic Europe under German leadership. Add to that something that neither Strauss nor Stoiber ever possessed: a striking family title that cements all these connections together. The sum of all this is a German man to watch.

What is that family title? Guttenberg’s official title—granted to his forebears during the 18th century—is Reichsfreiherr. The English translation is “Baron of the Holy Roman Empire.” That’s a fascinating title when you consider what is happening in Europe!

During his brief and controversial appointment as Germany’s defense minister, Guttenberg quickly enacted policies making it easier for the Bundeswehr to engage in combat in Afghanistan. He was the first German politician to officially use the formerly taboo word “war” when describing the conflict in that country. He was also instrumental in convincing the German public of the need for a more assertive and aggressive German military.

Guttenberg’s shooting political star seemed to crash in March 2011, when he resigned from all political offices in the wake of a plagiarism scandal. Though he is avoiding public office for now, Guttenberg maintains a public image. He promotes his personality and politics widely but subtly, through diligent effort, meaningful projects and quality works. He writes thoughtful, articulate articles on key issues—articles that expose the weaknesses of opponents and sell himself as an intelligent politician with real solutions. Guttenberg weighs in on such issues as Germany’s national elections, the Syrian crisis and the need for greater German leadership in the world. In every case, his thoughts are insightful and infused with strength of opinion and leadership rare in today’s world. Out of political office, he remains shielded from hard decisions and the worst criticisms and is able to promote what he sees as the solution.

During his political exile, Guttenberg has also maintained intimate relations with political friends and allies in Germany and beyond. The baron has often hinted at a return to politics, and we continue to watch to see whether this man fulfills Mr. Armstrong’s Bible-based prophecy of a rising powerful political leader destined to rule over a resurrected Holy Roman Empire.

Why the Forecast

How could Mr. Armstrong have made such startlingly accurate forecasts? They are all based on revealed truth from your Bible.

Since antiquity, the topography of the city of Rome has been famous for its seven hills. In an allegory associating these hills with seven successive revivals of the Roman Empire, the biblical book of Revelation speaks of “seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (Revelation 17:9-10).

Up to the early 1930s, when the Plain Truth was born, many were confused about the true meaning of this prophecy. But Mr. Armstrong knew that God has delivered the message of Revelation not to hide, but rather “to shew … things which must shortly come to pass” (Revelation 1:1). God showed Mr. Armstrong that the five fallen “kings” in Revelation 17:10 symbolized the five revivals of the Roman Empire that had occurred up to that time under the guidance of the Roman Catholic Church. God also revealed to him that the last resurrection of this empire would be on the scene during Jesus Christ’s return and would once again rise in Europe and consist of 10 European nations.

In the November-December 1940 Plain Truth, Mr. Armstrong identified the five fallen kings as:

• Justinian, who conquered Rome in a.d. 554
• Charlemagne, crowned in a.d. 800
• Otto the Great in a.d. 962
• Charles v (commencing the Habsburg dynasty) in 1530
• Napoleon Bonaparte, who crowned himself emperor in 1804

He then wrote, “The one that is, is the present Italian dynasty.”

He was referencing the words in Revelation 17:10 “and one is.” This implies that the sixth revival of the Roman Empire would exist at the very time this mysterious vision in Revelation would first be understood.

God began to reveal Revelation 17 to Mr. Armstrong in the late 1920s and early ’30s, which caused him to closely watch Benito Mussolini. In one of his final articles, which appeared in the Plain Truth magazine after his death, Mr. Armstrong reflected: “In 1929, Mussolini arranged a concordat with the papacy. Then about 1935, Mussolini, having united Ethiopia, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland to Italy, proclaimed it to be the reestablishment of the Roman Empire. I announced the news of this … restoration myself on radio at the time” (March 1986).

Mussolini ended up allying with Hitler, who went on to lead the empire. Starting in 1940, Mr. Armstrong thought Hitler might lead this final resurrection. He wrote: “At present, Hitler looms up as the most likely candidate. But we repeat, the time is not yet! Hitler, too, may sink to oblivion and an altogether different man step suddenly on the stage to become the dread ‘beast’” (Plain Truth, November-December 1940).

Only after the war did Mr. Armstrong realize that both Hitler and Mussolini were part of the sixth head. In 1948, he wrote: “[T]he sixth was Mussolini’s Roman Empire, and it was finally really taken over by Hitler during the war.” Later, he referred to the “one [that] is” as the Hitler-Mussolini axis (Plain Truth, October 1962). (This prophecy is thoroughly explained in our free booklet Daniel—Unsealed at Last!)

In 1945, Allied forces defeated this sixth revival of the Holy Roman Empire. That left just one final resurrection to come: Revelation 17:10 calls it “the other is not yet come.” On May 9, 1945, just after Germany surrendered in World War ii, Mr. Armstrong told listeners of The World Tomorrow: “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!”

Keep in mind that Mr. Armstrong began to warn about the rise of this brutal empire in 1927. Then he started writing about it in the Plain Truth five years before hostilities broke out between the Axis powers and the Western Allies in 1939! All along he knew that the final resurrection would be a united empire of 10 kings—something Mussolini and Hitler never achieved.

Live the Drama!

In a sermon delivered on November 27, 1982, Herbert Armstrong referred to that first issue of the Plain Truth published in 1934. “I was rather astonished when I once again read what I had written there, very close to 50 years ago,” he said. “The heading is ‘Is a World Dictator About to Appear?’”

He then quoted from the article: “Everybody senses that something is wrong with the world, that some mighty event is about to occur. What is it? Bible prophecy tells! Here is a solemn warning and it is the plain truth!

“We live today in the most strenuous, anxious, momentous hours of the Earth’s history. Today we stand on the very threshold of colossal events that will stagger the mind of mortal man. Just now it is like the lull before a great and devastating storm. Everyone senses it! …

“It is commonly known today that Mussolini’s whole aim is to restore the ancient Roman Empire (that is, the resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire).”

In that sermon, Mr. Armstrong then commented, “He had conquered Ethiopia. He added that to Italian Somaliland (which he already had) and Eritrea and Italy; and had made a concordat with the Vatican. So once again there’s the union of church and state, although it wasn’t a real union; but he proclaimed he had renewed the Roman Empire. … It was ‘the beast that was, and is not, and yet is’ at that time,” quoting Revelation 17:8.

That 1934 article continued, “[T]he nations prepare even more feverishly for war!

“Three or four short years ago many laughed and scoffed when we said that there would be another world war in five to seven years. They do not laugh and scoff today. Everyone knows the next world war is coming, and soon.”

That war did come five years later—when World War ii began in 1939. Mr. Armstrong commented in that 1982 sermon: “So once again the Plain Truth, even in its first issue, was way ahead of its time. It was predicting what was going to happen. People scoffed and said, ‘That’s a crackpot. He doesn’t know what he is talking about.’ But World War ii did happen. It did come.”

Herbert Armstrong spoke those words back in 1982. Since his death on January 16, 1986, many who followed and supported him to that point have turned away, calling him, as some did over 70 years ago before World War ii, “a crackpot.”

But the prophecies Mr. Armstrong published and broadcast to multiple millions over his 57-year ministry are smacking the gainsayers square in the face! Just as he prophesied World War ii ahead of its time, so he prophesied World War iii way ahead of its time, giving cogent detail of the conditions that would prevail in Europe just before that war explodes on the world scene.

He prophesied that Europe would unite under a resurgent German nation. It has.

He prophesied that a confidence-inspiring leader would arise to lead the seventh resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire on its final crusade. Europe is crying out for such a leader, and we may well have pinpointed his identity.

Mr. Armstrong prophesied that a spiritual binding force would draw Eastern Europe out of Soviet communism back into its spiritual fold and weld a united European economic, monetary, political and military force together as the final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire. That prophecy was largely fulfilled as we entered the second decade of the 21st century with the EU constitutionally united as an imperialist power.

Even as you read this, the final elements of those great prophecies contained in the books of Daniel and Revelation are rapidly coming together. Not long ago, Europe’s unification was given little publicity by global press. Now, daily headlines speak of a dominant Germany and its influence over the global financial system. Soon the world will feel that power extended onto the global scene—politically and militarily!

We at the Trumpet have the privileged job of publishing the great prophecies revealed through Herbert Armstrong and demonstrating their fulfillment through daily world events.

The delay in fulfillment of end-time biblical prophecies was arrested at the death of Herbert Armstrong. His task was to declare them in advance. Ours is to warn of the present-day and immediate future reality of their actual, dramatic fulfillment! As our editor in chief notes in his booklet Prophesy Again, “This is living drama. God has given us many revelations about this commission to prophesy again.”

Now is the time to be tuned in to these many revelations and to really live this great prophetic drama!