Stoking the Furnace of the War Machine

He was right that the German military machine would return

The industries that equipped Germany for world war are back in business.

German industrialists played a vital role in bringing Hitler to power. Mr. Armstrong explained that the primary tool Germany was using to revive the nation’s empire was its cutting edge, world-class industry.

In 1953, Mr. Armstrong even identified one company that he believed would one day be resurrected to work in cahoots with the German empire. At the end of World War ii, the factories and facilities of German industrial giant Friedrich Krupp AG lay in ruins. After the war, its owner, a staunch Nazi supporter named Alfried Krupp, was convicted at Nuremberg. He was imprisoned for war crimes.

“Alfried Krupp, who once provided Germany with most of her munitions that plunged the world into the holocaust of the last war, can no longer manufacture crude steel or own coal mines in Germany,” wrote Mr. Armstrong. “But Alfried Krupp is not giving up on his plans! No indeed. Latest reports reveal that Krupp has made contracts with foreign governments to build up his vast empire abroad” (Plain Truth, November 1953).

History has proved these forecasts startlingly accurate. Today, Germany’s military industry, including that of the Krupp company, is thriving.

Plans to Rebuild the Nazi Empire

The 1944 document that showed the Nazis planned to go underground also revealed that industrialists were to play a major role in bringing it back up.

On August 10, 1944, German corporate leaders representing several of the nation’s most powerful companies at the time met with German military and political personnel in Strasbourg, France. The purpose of this meeting, and a follow-up meeting the same year, was to launch the industrialists into “a postwar commercial campaign.”

This campaign was to “finance the Nazi Party, which would be forced to go underground” and to ensure that “a strong German empire [could] be created after the defeat.” These industrialists were specifically told to “make contacts and alliances with foreign firms” and to strengthen Germany “through their exports.”

According to that 1944 document, representatives from Friedrich Krupp AG, Volkswagenwerk, Messerschmitt, Rheinmetall, Rochling and Büssing were among those who met with top Nazi leaders to prepare to rebound after the eventual German defeat.

German industrialists must, the document said, “through their exports increase the strength of Germany.” These companies were instructed to place existing financial reserves at the disposal of the Nazi Party “so that a strong German empire can be created after the defeat.”

Now, decades later, these companies are returning to military production.

A man named “Dr. Kaspar” represented Friedrich Krupp AG at the meeting.

Despite his undeniable connection to Nazi Germany, Alfried Krupp was released from prison in 1951. He reassumed control of Friedrich Krupp AG in 1953. Krupp died in 1967 with his personal copy of Mein Kampf on his nightstand, and his company continued to flourish on the path he had set for it.

In 1999, the corporation merged its steel operation with Thyssen AG. Today, Essen remains the headquarters for ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG. In 2009, it sold stakes and entire production sites of its civil shipbuilding operations in Germany. It also struck an agreement to jointly produce naval surface ships with the Abu Dhabi mar Group. Essentially, the company took strides in the direction of military production, moving back toward its historic focus: manufacturing military equipment. ThyssenKrupp is ranked 66 on Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (sipri) list of the world’s largest weapons-producing companies.

Though the Krupp name is above reproach in Germany today, the indisputable facts of history show that Mr. Armstrong’s forecasts about this powerful company were well founded and uncannily accurate.

Rheinmetall

Rheinmetall has been at the forefront of German military manufacturing for over 100 years. Despite the Allies’ initial ban on arms production, Rheinmetall was again mass-producing machine guns by 1956. By 1972, Rheinmetall was selling the Leopard 2 battle tank. After a series of corporate acquisitions, Rheinmetall became Europe’s leading military supplier of systems and equipment for ground forces, providing everything from artillery and munitions to communications, surveillance technology and guided missile systems. Rheinmetall subsidiaries, which also include significant automotive component manufacturers, are located throughout Europe, the Americas and China.

Rheinmetall is secretive about the location of its factories. As a German company, Rheinmetall is subject to German government restrictions on what it can export. In 2008, it began a “firmly calculated” plan to evade these restrictions, according to Investigate Europe (Dec. 19, 2024).

In 2008, Rheinmetall bought a majority stake in the South African defense company Denel Munitions. Why? “Rheinmetall was investing in a financially bankrupt company, but technically, Denel Munitions had tremendous potential,” a former manager of Rheinmetall Denel Munition told Investigate Europe. Rheinmetall was buying the ability to sell weapons overseas via a South African subsidiary exempt from its export restrictions. When it sold one of Denel’s factories in 2017, a Rheinmetall manager said it was one of 39 “similar facilities” worldwide.

Helping other countries build their own ammunition plants is good business for Rheinmetall. Not only does it get the initial buyout, it “lock[s] the customers into their product range,” according to the Rheinmetall Denel Munition former manager. Recipients of the factories allegedly have to sign an exclusive deal to buy only Rheinmetall products.

In January 2010, Rheinmetall partnered with another top German firm, man Group, to produce a new national champion and leading supplier for wheeled military vehicles in Europe. man (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg) has its own impressive 250-year history and now builds trucks, buses, diesel engines and turbo-machinery.

It’s not the first time these two have cooperated. In World War ii, the two produced the hugely successful Panther tank.

It appears some are finally waking up to the transformation occurring within Germany’s military industry. But Herbert Armstrong warned about this “long-held German desire” to rebuild the nation’s military industry for decades!

The Other German Titans

Volkswagen, another German corporation documented for its collusion with the Nazis, has become the world’s third-largest automotive company by revenue. Volkswagen owns the Bentley brand, international vehicle manufacturer Audi, Seat and Skoda, which manufacture and sell cars in Spain and in Southern and Eastern Europe, and Lamborghini, which makes sports cars in Italy.

Messerschmitt, Germany’s famous World War ii manufacturer that built much of the fighting aircraft in the Luftwaffe, is also prospering today, though under a different name. Like Krupp, much of Messerschmitt’s infrastructure was destroyed in the war; the company was even forbidden from producing aircraft. Yet it too has risen from the rubble of World War ii to become part of a world-leading corporation. Messerschmitt was eventually allowed to build aircraft again under the name Airbus. In 1989, after several postwar mergers, it became part of Daimler-Benz Aerospace (another German industrial giant). Daimler-Benz Aerospace then later helped found the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (eads), becoming a 30 percent owner. In January 2014, eads renamed itself as Airbus Group, taking the name of its commercial aircraft-building subsidiary, which became its largest revenue generator.

Airbus Group today is one of the world’s leading players in aerospace and defense technology. The multinational group includes the world’s largest helicopter supplier and is also a major shareholder in mbda, the international leader in missile systems. Airbus Group produces the Eurofighter and other military aircraft. Galileo, the European satellite navigation system being constructed to rival the U.S.’s gps, is being built in large part by Airbus Group.

Ukraine War

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turbocharged this German return to arms.

All this is fueled by record levels of German defense spending. After the invasion, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a €100 billion fund to boost defense spending. In 2025 Germany’s incoming government announced an extra €400 billion.

Before the war, Rheinmetall was selling 70,000 artillery shells per year. Its target for 2025 is 1.1 million. Rheinmetall’s share price exploded from a little under €100 a share before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to over €1,600.

Yet the war has proved a major obstacle for another sector of the German economy.

For decades, Germany has been a manufacturing powerhouse—its auto industry in particular is a national success story. Yet it now faces serious obstacles. Germany’s status as a manufacturing hub depends on access to cheap raw materials from Russia. The Ukraine war has put a stop to that. Meanwhile tariffs and competition from China have eaten into demand for U.S. vehicles. Volkswagen saw its earnings plummet by 64 percent in the third quarter of 2024, compared to the previous year. The president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry warned the nation could see 140,000 job losses in his industry over the next decade.

Yet the same Ukraine war has caused weapons manufacturing to boom. The solution is obvious: Switch from making cars to making tanks.

Rheinmetall and man are working with Volkswagen to switch some of its auto plants to making military vehicles. Rheinmetall announced it would convert two plants that currently make civilian auto parts into plants for making ammunition. Hensoldt, which makes radar systems used on Ukrainian battlefields, announced plans on March 5, 2025, to take on 200 workers from auto parts suppliers Bosch and Continental.

The month before, the Franco-German arms manufacturer knds acquired the Alstom train factory in Görlitz, Germany—which it will repurpose. Much more is in the works. The Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera published leaked details of a plan to shift Italy’s auto industry to making arms. Subcontractors in Italy currently make parts for the German car industry; they could shift to supply the German arms industry.

Through corporate mergers and acquisitions, German corporations are reaching out beyond their nation’s borders to gain control of vital strategic industry. Even Germany’s most notorious World War ii companies, which were systematically disassembled and banned from future arms production by the Allies, have emerged as European and global powerhouses.

Few people see it, but Germany’s industrial war machines have been revamped and rebuilt, and they are back in fighting order—exactly as Herbert Armstrong predicted would happen!