I have believed for many years that Germany and Russia may have secretly signed a modern-day Hitler-Stalin pact. Germany’s reaction to Russia’s attack on Ukraine has exposed the existence of this deal. It also shows how far the Germans are willing to go to keep this deal intact.

Why is it worth so much to the Germans to continue siding with the Russians against Ukraine and most of the West?

Here is what I wrote in the November-December 2008 Trumpet: “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!”

Russia’s open invasion and military strikes against heavily populated areas in Ukraine have been horrific. The world has seen mass graves and evidence of torture and war crimes committed by Russian troops in ravaged towns like Bucha. Some 8 million people have fled their homes.

The United States, United Kingdom and much of Eastern Europe have rushed weapons to Ukraine. But Germany, despite some sympathetic rhetoric toward the Ukrainians, has stood in the way. When the West tries to impose sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin and those close to him, Germany weakens those sanctions.

The whole world can now clearly see that Germany is siding with Putin. Sadly, few understand why.

Empowering Putin

As Vladimir Putin prepared for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Germany thwarted all efforts to dissuade him. When Ukraine asked for weapons, Germany sent a few thousand helmets instead. When other nations wanted to send weapons to help force Putin to back down, Germany used nato weapons-sales restrictions to stop them. When Britain found a way to send its own weapons to Ukraine, it flew them around German airspace rather than officially asking Germany to help even in this small way.

If not for Germany, Putin likely wouldn’t have even invaded. Germany cracked what would have otherwise been fairly united opposition from the West. This gave Putin the confidence that the consequences for attacking wouldn’t be severe, and that war was worth it.

In January, as Russian forces prepared to assault Ukraine, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko summarized Germany’s actions this way: “This is failure to provide assistance and betrayal of friends.”

Once Putin actually launched the full-scale invasion, Germany changed its rhetoric. But it changed little else.

If Germany supports Russia too openly, it risks losing the support of half of Europe. Poland, the Baltic states and many others could break with Germany permanently. Even many German citizens are demanding that their government stand up to Russia.

So the German government talked tough. It took the opportunity to dramatically boost its own military spending. After resisting immense pressure, it finally suspended opening the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is designed to strengthen Germany and Russia at the expense of the rest of Europe.

Germany’s promises of great help for Ukraine have little substance. Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, said, “We, as Ukrainians, hardly feel a thing. No help that would do justice to the level of brutality and despair in my homeland.”

Germany has expended great effort to weaken even economic sanctions against Russia. Britain and America have promised to stop buying oil and gas from Russia. Germany has repeatedly prevented the European Union from making a similar pledge. Europe has continued buying more than $600 million in Russian energy every day, more than a third of which goes to Germany. Putin’s war machine could not function without this steady flow of money.

Melnyk called this “a knife in the back of Ukraine.”

Germany also blocked effective sanctions against Russia’s financial sector. The U.S. wanted to cut off Russia entirely from the swift interbank payment system. Led by Germany, the EU refused. It agreed to cut off 70 percent of Russia’s financial system from swift. Then, when the punishment was implemented, the actual figure was 30 percent.

EuroIntelligence called this “sanctions in name only” and wrote, “The EU is cheering on the Ukrainian side from a safe distance, watching from warm living rooms, heated by Russian gas” (March 3).

nato members trying to send weapons to Ukraine have encountered Germany working, successfully, to delay and block those shipments.

“Dear Mr. Scholz, tear down this wall,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an impassioned plea directly to the German chancellor and government on March 17. Zelenskyy said that many German firms continue to do business in Russia, “which is simply using you and your companies to finance the war. You are again with a wall. It’s not a Berlin Wall: It is a wall in Central Europe between freedom and bondage ….”

This speech was shown on live video inside the Bundestag chamber, with hundreds of German leaders present and listening. But after he finished, they did not even debate his speech. They went on with their regular business. One member wrote, “That was the most undignified moment in the Bundestag today that I have ever experienced!”

Germany continued to act as though it supports Ukraine. It planned to send a representative to its embattled capital city, Kyiv. Zelenskyy told the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, that he was not welcome. In doing so, he shined a spotlight on Germany’s cozy relationship with Russia for the world to see.

As the world scrutinized Germany’s rhetoric versus its actions, the German government further changed its approach. But it was only for show.

In April, the German government was again caught double-dealing. It had requested a list of armaments that its weapons industry could quickly provide. It passed the list on to the Ukrainians and said they could select $1.1 billion from the list, free of charge.

But the German government had edited the list. It had removed the weapons that could really hurt Russian forces and left the weapons that Ukraine didn’t need. The Ukrainian government said there was little on the list it could use, and the German government essentially said, Sorry, this is all our weapons industry says that they have available. But they got caught in their lie.

“Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine,” wrote the Spectator. “Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression” (April 21).

Many see the truth of what is happening. Welt published an article with a condemning title: “The German Government Is Now Partly to Blame for the Massacres in Bucha and Mariupol.” “Ukraine was lied to, and behind the scenes, the closeness to Russia remained,” Klaus Geiger wrote. “This was another reason why the Bucha massacre was possible” (April 5).

After all this came out, Germany changed course further and finally promised to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. But again, it was a sham. Soon it was revealed that Germany planned to send fighting vehicles but no ammunition.

A Business Empire

The power behind this ongoing betrayal of Ukraine and the West is not just the German government but German industry.

“If you want to understand why Germany acts the way it does, listen to the best advice ever given to any journalist: Follow the money,” Wolfgang Münchau wrote. “Germany’s foreign policy is a function of its industrial-corporatist model” (EuroIntelligence, May 1). He wrote that Germany’s relationship with Russia is driven by “a deep network of German and Russian industrial contacts.”

“The main driver of that relationship is not Gerhard Schröder [former German chancellor and Russian state-owned energy company executive] or any other politician, but German industry,” Münchau continued. “Its main representative is the German Eastern Business Association, one of Europe’s most influential lobbying groups. It plays a comparably important role in Germany to the National Rifle Association in the U.S. It bought off politicians and entire political parties. It is the only lobbying group I know of with the power to determine the foreign policy of an advanced Western country.”

With Germany dominated by its industrialists, this association and the executives themselves likely have far more power in German foreign policy than the National Rifle Association has in America.

Opinion polls show that the German people generally favor more sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine. But Germany’s big businesses have worked hard to thwart these.

Martin Brudermüller, ceo of the world’s largest chemical company, basf, called boycotting Russian energy foolish and said that it would “force the German economy into its worst crisis since the end of the Second World War.” Werner Baumann, ceo of the global pharmaceutical and agricultural giant Bayer, said that “a gas supply freeze would have catastrophic consequences for industry in Germany and for the people in our country.” Aeronautics conglomerate Airbus has also lobbied against sanctions. Siemens Energy ceo Christian Bruch warned that “the repercussions will be dramatic.” Siemens has announced that it is shutting down business with Russia, but others, including Germany’s largest company, software giant sap, continue doing business there.

Many of Germany’s top economists believe sanctions on Russia would be much less destructive than these business leaders claim. But these leaders are determined to keep Germany close to Russia. For all the conflict the Germans have had with that nation, and for as much as they fear it, their wealth and power currently depend on Russia.

Deutsche Welle asked, “Are German Companies in Russia War Collaborators?” (February 4). The New York Times published “For German Firms, Ties to Russia Are Personal, Not Just Financial” (March 6). In “Germans Steel Themselves to Sever Links With Russia,” the Financial Times stated, “Business, academic and cultural ties run deep, making the rupture deeply personal for many” (March 13).

You can read about the disturbing history of German industrialists’ power in my March cover article, “Rising From the German Underground” (theTrumpet
.com/25143). That article was prompted by Polish politician Donald Tusk revealing that the outgoing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had told him privately that she had been forced to support the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and all its ramifications because she was “helpless” against the overwhelming pressure of the German industrialists.

“If you know German history and Bible prophecy, few statements from a German leader could be more revealing—and frightening!” that article says. It explains how German empires have been empowered by German businesses for centuries. In recent times alone, the Pan-German League powered the rise of the German Empire prior to World War i, and business leaders helped bring Adolf Hitler to power in the 1930s. Before World War ii ended, it was business leaders who conspired to help the Nazis go underground and return years later.

“This is why Ms. Merkel’s disclosure should shake the world,” I wrote. “The real power in Germany lies with the same people who pushed Germany to world war twice before!” Again, it is the industrialists who continue to push Germany into this close relationship with Russia, even as its war on Ukraine rages.

What is in it for them to do this?

A Dark History of Cooperation

Too few are asking that question, and even fewer understand the answer. EuroIntelligence speculated that Putin may be blackmailing the German chancellor with compromising propaganda. But that would not explain why German business leaders have invested years of valuable effort to build this alliance with Russia.

Many elite Germans feel that their nation has now extracted all the benefit it can from the United States, and they are now ready for a new phase in German strategy. Some want modern Germany to use its impressive industrial and economic power to multiply its political and military power. They want to establish Europe as a new superpower, a modern Holy Roman Empire!

These Germans know that nato has protected Europe from Russia for a lifetime. After World War ii, Hastings Ismay, the first nato secretary general, summarized the purpose of the alliance this way: “Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

That alliance has kept Germany’s military down, but it has also helped its economy become one of the best in the world and helped it reunite and exert unquestioned political power over Europe! And German elites still feel “kept down” compared to what they know their economy, politics and military could be.

This is why Germany is working with Russia. These two nations are working to empower themselves and each other at the expense of Europe and the U.S.-led world order. Both want to tear down that order and build themselves into great empires! Those empires will inevitably clash, but for now it is in both Germany’s and Russia’s interest to weaken everyone else and strengthen themselves and each other. With this in mind, Germany’s duplicitous behavior is easy to understand.

And history makes it even easier to understand. Between wars, Germany and Russia often work together. Most infamously, just before World War ii, Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Russia basically agreed to allow each other to gobble up other nations and split them between themselves.

That infamous agreement, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, set the stage for the most devastating war in history!

Stalin thought he could trust Hitler. But after Hitler realized he could not conquer Britain, he decided to break the deal and attack Russia. This shattered Stalin’s worldview. Stalin didn’t expect it. But if he had read what Hitler had written in Mein Kampf years before, he would have known Hitler planned to conquer Russia as well.

In 2008, Russia shocked the world by invading the former Soviet nation of Georgia and taking control of two of its regions. Germany said little about that and did nothing. That is why I thought these two nations had already worked out a modern “Molotov-Ribbentrop” agreement. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and supported rebels in eastern Ukraine, plunging that region into an ongoing war. Germany once again said little and did nothing! Ukraine had been on track to join the European Union. You would think the Germans would have been extremely angry at Russia! But not if they had previously made an agreement with Russia about what it could do in Ukraine.

Could it be that Germany agreed to let Russia take over these areas in exchange for Russia letting Germany take over the Balkans in the 1990s?

What else might these two have agreed to that they have not yet acted on?

If and when nato fails and the U.S. is pushed out of Europe, the countries of Eastern Europe will need a new champion. They cannot stand up to Russia alone, especially if it uses its more powerful weapons. They would rather look to the U.S., but with America gone, Germany remains the only real option.

Removing America will put Germany on top of a Europe scrambling to ensure it has the firepower to defend itself. This military force would not fight for nato and the American-led world order, but it will fight for a European-led world order.

The Germans distrust and even fear Russia and Vladimir Putin. But they also see how his boldness can help them build and dominate a new Holy Roman Empire. That is why they are working with him, even through dire circumstances that would otherwise cause them to oppose Russia. Russia may gain control of some of Eastern Europe, like Ukraine, Belarus and possibly more. But the rest will be forced to turn to Germany!

The current Ukraine crisis could quickly result in Eastern Europe being divided between these two power blocs. What we see today is only the beginning.

A Seething Pot

The biblical book of Jeremiah is full of prophecy focused on the end time. Historically, Jeremiah gave his warning message directly to the nation of Judah only. Yet so many of the prophecies in his book are directed to Israel, which was already in captivity at the time. That is because these prophecies were aimed mainly at the modern descendants of Israel, which, we can prove to you, are America and Britain today. (Request our free booklet Jeremiah and the Greatest Vision in the Bible for a full explanation.)

Today these nations are deeply divided. Their peoples are divided among themselves; their leaders are splintered by bitter disagreement and political warfare. Don’t you think Russian and German leaders are going to exploit this division? They will do what they have almost always done throughout history when they have power over weak, divided enemies and take full advantage of the situation.

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. The imperialistic ambition that prompted Germany to start both world wars is alive and well. It is “seething”!

Verses 14-15 continue: “Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.”

Cooperation between Germany and Russia is setting the scene for a huge “seething pot” to spill over! This boiling cauldron will scald everybody in America and Britain. This is prophesied to be the worst suffering ever known to man. And it will occur by God’s hand because of His extreme wrath over the sins of these peoples.

Repeatedly God asked Jeremiah, “What do you see?” God is asking people today: What do you see? Do you really see what is happening in Europe? Do you see the stage being set for a world war like never before? Do you understand it?

God spells it out for us, and we can see events lining up with His prophecies. And anyone who sees it—and heeds the warning and obeys God—can be protected and lead a happy, stable and fulfilled life.

Great Cause for Hope

On the surface, this news about Germany and Russia may seem depressing. But if you view it through the lens of Bible prophecy, you clearly see that it is closely tied to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ!

Christ said in Matthew 24:21-22 that if He didn’t return, “there should no flesh be saved [alive]”! Do you really think men can solve all of these problems you see multiplying in this world today, many of which involve nuclear-
armed nations?

Russia and America possess 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. France and Britain have nuclear bombs, too, and other nations of Europe have American nuclear bombs deployed on their territory. Germany could rapidly become a great nuclear power if it wanted to—practically overnight.

There is no way mankind is going to solve these problems. As Isaiah 59:8 says, “The way of peace they know not ….”

Men are going to continue in their futile attempts at forging peace. They will have to suffer until Jesus Christ returns. The suffering will get far more intense just before He returns. But His return is tied to this German rising power and this Russian rising power. He promises that He will return before war has ended all human life! (Matthew 24:22). The rising military powers in Russia and Europe are a significant part of what will make it necessary for Christ to return.

God wants us to respond to Him. He says He will help us in any way we need if we will just obey Him. “[W]hy will ye die, O house of Israel?” God asks in Ezekiel 18:31. He doesn’t want any of us to have to suffer! He is eager to spare us from the coming cataclysmic violence and to bless us.

We need to understand these Bible prophecies. They are preparing the way for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Earth. That means all the bad news is about to end. He is going to bring peace, joy and happiness to this world forever.