The careers of 18 police officers in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, are ending after they allegedly participated in a chat with National Socialist, anti-Semitic, racist and violence-glorifying content. The chat occurred during their time as police students from September 2017 to December 2021 and was brought to light by a fellow officer.

When the police exalt crime: More than 5,000 individual messages were examined and at least 50 were flagged. One from October 2017 showed a picture of Adolf Hitler with an anti-Jewish inscription. Another from February 2020 showed a photo depicting an apparently dismembered female corpse.

• The recent incident is just the latest example of a broad problem in Germany.
• It shows that Germans who are two or more generations removed from active participation in the Nazi movement continue to hold the same basic sympathies. (Learn about related cases in “Why Does Germany Have So Many Neo-Nazi Conspiracies?”)

A divided Germany: Many in Germany abhor these incidents and demand a thorough examination of the cases. Others, however, see migrant crimes as the bigger issue and believe that an inward focus undermines the police officers’ ability to act. This conflict makes it extremely difficult to address the root of the problem. The more these cases are examined, the more concerns spread that Germany is fighting its own people more than foreign threats.

A lesson from history: History reveals that these signs of societal poison should not be overlooked. While every nation needs a functioning police force that can enforce law, Germany has historically leaned toward authoritarianism, suppression and despicable evils. If these problems remain unchecked, even greater evils will arise.

Sickness at the heart: Jeremiah 17:9 calls the human heart “desperately wicked.” Unless a human being allows God to reign in and heal that heart, incredible atrocities will abound. That is exactly what the Bible prophesies will happen with modern Germany.

Isaiah 10:5; Habakkuk 1:6; Daniel 8:24; Revelation 17 and many other prophecies speak of the rise an empire that has historically served as the world’s greatest war-making machine. As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains in Nahum—An End-Time Prophecy for Germany, the German people will once again be led into a terrifying war. Only after the German people suffer great horrors themselves will they finally learn how to allow God to cleanse their hearts. This is a lesson that the whole world must learn.