Russia seems on the brink of invading Ukraine. The United States and United Kingdom are evacuating their embassy staff. Over 100,000 troops stand poised, surrounding Ukraine on almost all its borders. Countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are rushing to send in weapons that could help Ukraine fend off Russia. Or rather, most nato countries—with one big exception.

Although nato is unwilling to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, most of its members are ready to do all they can short of that. But not Germany. Instead, Germany is actively working to thwart these attempts to help Ukraine.

If Russia invades, this could be the biggest conflict Europe has seen since the end of World War ii. We will have to wait to find out if Russian President Vladimir Putin really invades or finds a way to get what he wants without it. But one thing is already clear: Germany is no longer on America’s side.

From obstructing nato to blocking arms flights and vetoing sanctions, Germany is single-handedly preventing nato from responding to Ukraine and fatally undermining the alliance. The German chancellor is even reportedly refusing to meet with Joe Biden—claiming to be too busy.

This could be the biggest, most important conflict Europe has seen for generations, and Germany is fighting against America.

Germany has not publicly made this break. It still talks like a nato ally. But its actions speak far louder.

No Weapons for Ukraine

Germany has not only denied Ukraine’s requests to buy arms, it has also used the small print of an arms deals to block other nato members from selling Ukraine weapons.

Estonia, for example, wanted to send Soviet-era D-30 howitzers to Ukraine. But it had bought the weapons from Germany and a condition of the deal was that Estonia could not pass the weapons on to anyone else without Germany’s permission.

nato’s terms and conditions provide another way to block weapons. Any weapons purchased through a nato agency must be approved by all nato members. When the U.S. was ready to send rifles and Lithuania was eager to send anti-drone systems, Germany blocked them both.

Germany claims it is blocking weapons because of a long-standing policy to avoid selling weapons to participants in conflicts. It’s a flimsy excuse. Germany quite happily sells weapons to parties involved in conflicts across the Middle East. But in Ukraine, it won’t even allow other countries to send weapons.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba complained on Saturday that Germany’s refusal was “encouraging Vladimir Putin.” The mayor of Kyiv and former boxer, Vitali Klitschko, has close ties to Germany. He lived there for several years and was once Germany’s preferred candidate for Ukrainian president. Yet he was perhaps the most outspoken: “This is failure to provide assistance and betrayal of friends.”

No Planes to Ukraine

Ukraine has found ways around Germany’s arms blockade: buying weapons directly from individual countries rather than through nato. The UK, for example, has sent antitank weapons, as well as soldiers to train the Ukrainians in their use. But still, Germany stands, quite literally, in the way.

Britain’s planes flew a circuitous route, avoiding German airspace, to get the weapons there.

British officials say Germany did not block the flights. They said that, instead, they didn’t bother asking Germany for permission to fly because that took too much paperwork.

That’s plainly a cop-out. To avoid Germany, the planes had to travel over Denmark. Why is flying over Germany so much harder than flying over Denmark? Officially or not, Germany somehow made clear that British planes carrying weapons to Ukraine were not welcome in German airspace.

No Punishment for Russia

America’s big hope in preventing Russia from invading Ukraine lies in promising major punishments for Russia. It’s unlikely Russia would be deterred by economic sanctions. But even so, Germany has been working to prevent the U.S. from threatening meaningful retribution.

The United States wants to block Russia from the swift international payment system if Russia invades. But the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote that Germany “effectively vetoed use of the financial ‘nuclear option’” by telegraphing their opposition. With that off the table, any other remaining sanctions are toothless. “I don’t see anything on the economic front that would seriously frighten Putin,” said Ian Bond of the Centre for European Reform.

Politico also complained that “Germany has sought to placate Russia by taking some of the West’s most powerful deterrents off the table.”

Germany is signaling that if Putin invades, the West will respond with merely a slap on the wrist. No wonder so many Ukrainian leaders feel betrayed.

No Meetings With America

With Germany obviously pulling in another direction, the Biden administration was reportedly anxious to get Germany on the same page. Spiegel reported that Joe Biden offered to host a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House over the next few days—the type of invitation world leaders usually fall over themselves to accept. But apparently Scholz declined, saying his schedule was already full.

“It’s rather difficult to fathom,” wrote Spiegel. “Russia is building up the biggest threat since the end of the Cold War, deploying around 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, stationing tanks, artillery and rocket launchers, and the German chancellor is unable to clear his schedule to accept an invitation from the American president.”

Quite. A full schedule is not the real reason Scholz does not want to meet with the leader of the free world at such a crucial juncture. Instead, it’s another clear signal he has no interest in being on the same page.

No Public Break

The head of Germany’s navy, Adm. Kay-Achim Schönbach, recently called for Germany to more publicly back Putin. “On eye level, he wants respect,” he said. “And … giving him respect is low cost, even no cost. It is easy to give him the respect he demands, and probably deserves.”

Russia, he said, is a “Christian country, even if Putin is an atheist, it doesn’t matter.” The two should be partners.

Schönbach had to resign for those comments this weekend. The fact that he felt bold enough to make such statements in public shows that many in high office hold similar views. But Germany isn’t publicizing its new stance yet. It’s siding with Russia while paying lip service to nato.

“To outward appearances, Berlin is far from awol on Ukraine,” wrote Politco. However, “when the cameras are turned off, Germany’s tone changes.” Schönbach exposed the real intentions behind the facade, so he had to go.

No Accident

A wide range of news outlets are waking up to Germany’s betrayal. Put the evidence together and it’s clear Germany has turned against the West, is helping Putin invade Ukraine, and is destroying nato in the process. But few see the full reason why. They note that Germany’s economy is thoroughly dependent on Russian gas. Germany gets 60 percent of its natural gas from Russia and is on the brink of closing its remaining nuclear power plants. Germany cannot defy Russia without risking massive disruption to its industry.

The Daily Mail’s headline “How Germany’s Greed for Gas, and Another Grubby Deal With Moscow, Could Plunge Europe Into an Abyss” is a good example of this kind of coverage. “Reckless Germany Is Making War in Ukraine More Likely,” the Telegraph wrote. The general narrative is that Germany got greedy or careless and woke up one day to find itself in bed with Russia. Now it has no choice but to appease Moscow.

But Germany did not wake up one day to find someone had mysteriously built pipelines under the Baltic Sea connecting Germany and Russia. Germany went into this with eyes wide open. It knew that creating a series of natural gas pipelines would tie it to Russia. U.S. President Donald Trump spent four years warning loudly about exactly this. This aspect of the pipeline was well known and much debated when the project was first established in 2005.

Instead, the pipelines were part of a deliberate policy to bring Germany closer to Russia. That is the whole purpose of the pipeline: to create a physical, tangible bond between the two countries that would be hard for any leader to sever.

No Love for America

Politico comes closer to identifying the real source of Germany’s foreign policy in its article “Germany’s Pivot From America.” It notes that pipeline politics are “insufficient to explain why Germany increasingly does not consider its interests to be in sync with those of the U.S. and the wider trans-Atlantic alliance.” Instead, Germany is undergoing a “deeper shift.”

“Under the influence of a potent cocktail of energy and commercial interests, and a political culture laced with good old-fashioned anti-Americanism, Germany has strayed from the Western fold,” wrote Politico (emphasis added).

This is more than energy. There is a growing hatred for the United States boiling in Germany. Politico lists some of the popular books on sale in Germany about the U.S.:

• Crazed—The American Catastrophe
• America’s Holy Warriors
• What the U.S. Has Perpetrated Since 1945
• America on Fire.

Politico delves into one of these, America’s Holy Warriors, by Annika Brockschmidt. According to Politico, Brockschmidt “portrays the country as a kind of dystopian hellscape, a notion that is gaining currency in Germany in Trump’s wake.”

She tries to make it sound like America is being taken over by religious extremists, in the form of Trump supporters. “Their God is not soft or forgiving, but rather revengeful and militant,” it states.

Brockschmidt has never visited the United States. But her views resonate strongly enough that she’s a popular guest on talk shows and podcasts across the country.

The covers of Der Spiegel, Europe’s largest newsmagazine, have portrayed U.S. President Donald Trump as:

• A middle finger to Europe
• A terrorist beheading Lady Liberty
• A subhuman ape
• A baby riding a nuclear bomb
• A meteor poised to destroy the planet
• A tsunami destroying Washington, D.C.
• A golfer striking a flaming planet Earth.

One of its award-winning reporters, Claas Relotius, had to be fired for fabricating entire stories. One portrayed small-town America as racist, bigoted and narrow-minded. He gave completely false descriptions of American life, but it was what many in Germany wanted to hear, and they lapped it up.

And it’s not just one magazine. In a Stern magazine cover, Mr. Trump is depicted as a Nazi. On the front of Berliner Kurier, the world is swearing at him. One study found that Germany’s public broadcaster, ard, covered the American president more negatively than any other news source they surveyed anywhere in the world.

This is not just some fluke due to a pipeline. There’s a clear separation between Germany and the United States that is increasingly coming out into the open.

No Good History

Perhaps the most worrying part of this whole story is that Germany and Russia have worked together before—and it didn’t work out well for the rest of Europe or the world. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin famously signed a secret deal to divide Eastern Europe between them. Less well known is that Germany and Russia worked together in the 1920s: Russia helping Germany escape the restrictions placed on it after World War i, and Germany helping Russia advance its technology, military and industry.

In our November-December 2008 issue, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote: “[D]id you know that Germany and Russia have probably already dealt with their most urgent differences? … I believe that Germany’s leaders may have already agreed to a deal with Russia, a modern Hitler-Stalin pact where Germany and Russia divide countries and assets between themselves. This agreement would allow each to turn its sights on other targets. Any such deal that may have been struck between Germany and Russia is a precursor to war!”

This year, Germany and Russia finished their Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Almost immediately, Russia went to work conquering Ukraine and attempting to destroy nato—all with Germany’s help. They had clearly worked out something ahead of time. The evidence of a deal is now clear for all to see.

Mr. Flurry followed up on that article with “Germany and Russia’s Secret War Against America” in 2018, warning:

History shows that Germany and Russia are not actually partners. When they enter into peace deals and economic partnerships, it is a signal that either or both are preparing for some kind of imperialistic exploit.

This makes the Nord Stream 2 deal extremely concerning.

Not the End

In that article, Mr. Flurry warned:

Jeremiah 1:13 records God showing the prophet a vision of “a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.” This symbolic language is describing modern Germany. Beneath the surface, that nation is full of simmering dissatisfaction with the current world order. Germans are angry at the U.S., and especially furious with President Trump. The imperialistic ambition that prompted Germany to start both world wars is alive and well. It is “seething”!

That seething is clearer than ever. But so few really see it. As shown in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong, the Bible reveals that Britain and America are modern-day descendants of ancient Israel. And biblical prophecy warns that Israel will trust in lovers—foreign allies—that will destroy it.

These prophecies indicate many in America will not wake up to Germany’s betrayal. They’ll trust in the nice-sounding words and not look at the reality behind them.

The Biden administration is doing exactly that. Politico noted, “Joe Biden made courting Germany an early priority.” He canceled Trump policies that Germany opposed. He ended Mr. Trump’s sanctions that had stopped Germany from completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “He even appointed several Germanophiles to key positions in his administration,” wrote Politico.

Ezekiel 23 describes this “lovers” relationship—and the subsequent betrayal. Verse 12 describes the modern people of Israel and Judah, saying, “She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.” Verse 17 states that “her mind was alienated from them.”

These powers don’t think alike. Germany may still talk like America’s ally for now, but it has fundamentally different views and goals.

Ukraine is not the end of Germany’s betrayal. It is going to get much worse.

But even this is not the end of the story.

God says He is the one ultimately behind this trend. “All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy,” God reveals in Jeremiah 30:14. In Ezekiel 16:37, God says, “I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure … I will even gather them round about against thee ….”

Why? God explains in Ezekiel 23:35 that Israel “hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back.” We have rejected God. We have not trusted Him for protection, and we try to make up for that lack of protection by looking to foreign powers.

God says that in the long run, it will not work.

God’s problem with American foreign policy is that America trusts in foreign nations and not in Him.

This is the full picture that no news organization sees. But this picture is critical. It shows us exactly what is going on in Germany, and it also gives us fantastic hope. A loving God is behind all of this, allowing all of this to happen to cause our nations to return to Him and receive His blessings.

For more on how God is using Germany and Europe to correct His people, read our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy.