Germany sent shock waves through the gold markets on Jan. 16, 2013, when it announced plans to ensure that the majority of German gold would be held on German soil by 2020. Intrigue has swirled around the decision ever since. Germany has the world’s second-largest gold reserve, so many wondered, Why is it bringing so much of it home?

The decision meant moving 374 tons of gold from Paris and 300 tons from the Federal Reserve in New York. Germany has now brought all of that gold (worth about $30 billion) back within its borders—and it did it well ahead of schedule. On August 23, the Bundesbank announced that it had completed this process, three years early. Now speculation is swirling once again: What is going on with Germany and its massive gold reserves?

Germany Does Not Trust the United States

The Bundesbank says it stores gold overseas for two reasons: It’s easier to use in an economic crisis, and it is safer than it would be in the event of a Soviet invasion. But, as Robert Morley pointed out in 2013, “there is a third, unmentioned—and far more important—reason Germany doesn’t keep its gold at home.”

“It goes back to World War ii,” he wrote. “When the Allies finally stopped the German death machine in 1945—for the second time in 27 years—they purposed to ensure that Germany could never again destroy world peace. Forcing Germany to store its gold overseas was the primary financial mechanism preventing Germany from ever starting another war.”

“As long as the Allies controlled Germany’s gold, the Allies had a conqueror’s insurance policy that ensured Berlin would not again disturb the peace,” he continued. “Without its gold, Germany’s currency, and thus its economy, could be destroyed virtually overnight. But now America, Britain and France appear to think that they no longer need that insurance policy.”

But Germany does not return this trust. At the time, the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said that the move represented “an extraordinary breakdown in trust between leading central banks.” Earlier this year, Robert Morley and Andrew Miiller noted, “The fact that Germany is repatriating so much gold from America at all, however, shows that the level of trust between the two nations is at a postwar low.”

The decision to bring back the gold was a very public declaration that the United States is not to be trusted. Some in Germany were even worried that America no longer had the gold—German officials had been denied permission to inspect it. So Germany was showing the world it didn’t trust America to keep its gold reserve without stealing some of it.

Preparing for a Disaster

When times are good, central banks don’t do much with their gold. But it is in times of crisis, when people lose confidence in their paper money, that gold becomes a crucial asset. Backing a currency with gold helps convince a panicked public that their money is worth working for, saving and accepting as payment.

If Germany has gone through the political and logistical effort to successfully demand that its gold be returned to German soil, this could be an indication that the Germans are preparing for a crisis. During an economic crisis in 1933, the American government actually confiscated the gold of its own private citizens. If another catastrophe hit, would it not help itself to Germany’s stockpile?

Beyond that, Germany could be preparing for a specific crisis. Back in February, when the German government first announced that the gold transfers would be completed ahead of schedule, Reuters wrote: “Some even argue the world’s second-biggest bullion reserve may be needed to back a new Deutsche mark, should the eurozone break up.”

University of Angers economist Jörg Guido Hülsmann made similar comments. “In a major crisis or a breakdown of the monetary system, the demand for gold, and therefore its price, would shoot up,” he said. “The Bundesbank’s gold would then be worth so much that it could save the euro solely based upon the confidence the markets place in it” (Handelsblatt, June 11).

As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry noted, the Germans could have had this in mind from the start:

During the first quarter of 1999, at the same time the euro was launched, Germany bought up huge reserves of gold. Enough, according to the Economic Intelligence Review, to back an entire currency (March 2000). In addition, when the 11 nations joined the euro, they signed over their gold reserves to the European Central Bank, in Frankfurt, Germany. …

The ecb is domiciled in Germany. Its gold reserves are held in Germany.

By bringing its gold home, is Germany getting ready for a crisis—or even preparing for a solution to the euro crisis: a new gold-backed currency.

Why the Hurry?

The fact that Germany was going to take seven years to bring its gold home raised a lot of eyebrows among gold enthusiasts. “Interestingly, the German central bank says it will take seven years to get its gold from America,” wrote Robert Morley. “Is America still hesitating at relinquishing control over Germany?”

The long timescale led to furious rumors that America had actually sold Germany’s gold and needed time to gradually buy replacements. Since the transfer was first announced in 2013, gold prices have fallen dramatically. The theory is that the lower gold price allowed the U.S. to buy up the gold more quickly than expected.

This is all speculation. But here’s more—perhaps Germany is now more urgent about getting this gold under its control.

The gold helps Germany break its reliance on the United States and could help it lay the foundation for a new economic system in a time of crisis. With relations between Germany and the U.S. plummeting, is Germany getting impatient to get moving?

Such a move from Germany would mean massive upheaval for the world. The Bible is full of prophecies of the fall of America and the rise of a new economic power. Deuteronomy 28:52 prophesies of an economic siege coming upon the United States.

The Bible says that Europe will seize global economic leadership. Revelation 18:3 states that “the merchants of the earth are waxed rich” through this economic power.

In moving their gold back to Frankfurt, the Germans are signaling their lack of trust in America and making arrangements for what could be their own economic system. In 2008, as the euro crisis was first beginning, Mr. Flurry wrote:

Watch Germany. Watch for Germany to be at the helm in a restructuring not only of EU member nations’ economies, but of the entire European Union itself! That union will be united and then guided by the Vatican.

So who is now the real super economic power in this world? Germany.

That too was carefully planned. The Germany-Vatican combine is gaining power that this world can’t even imagine!

The crisis in Greece is a forerunner of a whole rash of similar crises set to soon break out across Europe. They will provide the catalyst for the EU’s leading nation, Germany, to rise to the fore with solutions of its own making. Biblical prophecy declares that the result will be a European superstate with Germany at the helm. And that is not good news for America, Britain and the little nation called Israel.

With all its gold back, Germany is now a significant step closer to that solution. Where is that solution leading? Read Chapter 8 of our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy to find out.