The following is from the Trumpet Brief sent out yesterday. These daily e-mails contain personal messages from the Trumpet staff. Click here to join the over 20,000 members of our mailing list, so you don’t miss another message.

On Sunday, the German state of Bavaria will go to the polls. This vote is far more important than your average German state election.

The state has an independent streak—you could call it Germany’s Texas. It has its own unique traditions, its own dialect, its own style of police uniforms, and its own conservative political party—the Christian Social Union (csu).

The csu exists only in Bavaria. Germany’s other 15 states have the Christian Democratic Union (cdu). In national politics, the two parties work together.

A party that operates in only one state would seem insignificant. It is not. The csu dominates Bavaria, having governed it since World War ii ended in 1945, except from 1954 to 1958. Since 1966, it has won an absolute majority in the Bavarian parliament, except in 2008.

This steady dominance at the state level has won the csu power at the national level far beyond what would typically be expected for a regional party with only 140,000 members.

Until now. Polls forecast that the Christian Social Union may win only 33 percent of the vote, its worst result since 1950.

The ramifications of this event could be far reaching. Chancellor Angela Merkel, of the cdu, has been struggling, and a couple of weeks ago, one of her close supporters was unexpectedly defeated in his reelection bid to lead the cdu’s parliamentary group. The defeat was seen as a rebellion against Merkel’s leadership from within her own party. Trumpet writer Josué Michels covered the crisis in his article “Merkel’s Leadership Wanes.” If her coalition partner takes a beating in Bavaria on Sunday, Merkel is going to have a very bad day.

It will also be a crisis for the csu. “If the polls are accurate (and last time around they were spot on for the csu), there will be blood,” wrote Politico. Top party leaders will resign.

Which brings us to the big reason to watch Sunday’s vote and its aftermath.

Many prophecies throughout the Bible talk about the rise of a strong leader in Germany. Daniel 8:23-24 describe the rise of “a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences.” Verse 25 says that he will be defeated after he stands up “against the Prince of princes,” revealing the time frame for this fierce king’s reign. He will come to power in the very end time, right before Jesus Christ’s Second Coming.

As Trumpet staff members watch for this leader, our attention has been drawn to politicians from the Christian Social Union. Herbert W. Armstrong thought that perhaps the late chairman of the csu, Franz Josef Strauss, could fulfill this role. Strauss died in 1988, but he is still revered today. (On the 30th anniversary of his death last week, all the top csu leaders attended a ceremony in honor of their political “father figure.”) Our attention was next drawn to former chairman Edmund Stoiber, a Strauss protégé. Then we focused on Stoiber’s protégé: csu rising-star Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

Guttenberg was forced out of politics in 2011. But a major shake-up in the csu and a crisis in German politics could help persuade him to return.

In this brief e-mail, there isn’t space to present the full proof from the Bible of why these scriptures apply to modern Germany—and why we think Guttenberg fulfills this role prophesied in Daniel 8. But we have a free booklet on exactly this subject—titled A Strong German Leader Is Imminent. Order your free copy, and while you’re waiting, have a look at our 90-second video “Who Is Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg?”