Some in Germany believe conditions are so bad that another National Socialist Party (nsdap) is needed. The reminder of the Holocaust is followed by shoulder-shrugging, as seen in a recently published Spiegel tv documentary. A June 17 article published in Spiegel magazine said citizens fear the revival of the 1930s; yet the focus was not right-wing extremism in Germany but the United States. Spiegel appears to indicate that one is just as bad as the other. This biased, bogus reporting is trivializing the Holocaust with potentially dangerous consequences.

Notice the following exchange from the Spiegel tv documentary:

Citizen: “If the nsdap leads again in the elections, then I’ll come back.”

Reporter: “Well, you can’t say that.”

Citizen: “Yes, you can.”

Reporter: “The nsdap … killed 6 million Jews.”

Citizen: (shoulder-shrugging)

Reporter: Do you really think it would be good to have fascists again in parliament?

Citizen: Well, do you think it’s better in today’s parliament? Look, [they] just talk and don’t do anything.

There are some serious issues with Germany’s government today. But this dialogue shows something remarkable: a citizen who is not afraid to shrug off the death of 6 million Jews if it would mean Germany regain some prosperity.

The documentary was filmed in Germany’s state of Thuringia, where the far-right party, the Alternative für Deutschland, is the strongest party. On the national level, the party polls at around 20 percent. That is shocking considering its politicians have made light of the Holocaust, suggested gassing refugees, and repeatedly employed Nazi terminology.

Citizen’s dissatisfaction also translates into acts of right-wing crimes. Compared to 2021, the total number of right-wing extremist criminal and violent offenses increased by 3.8 percent in 2022 to 22,357 offenses—that’s 61 offenses a day. Assault crimes with a xenophobic motive increased by 16.3 percent in 2022. A right-wing extremist even shot a liberal politician in 2019.

Just like Germany, the United States is currently run by a liberal government that opened its borders to immigrants and is pushing policies that most citizens oppose. While there is a distinct difference in the political views, Spiegel condemned the U.S. more strongly than Germany. It even insinuated that supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump are Nazis.

Spiegel’s article opens by talking about a father in Missouri who has a daughter who claims to be a boy. “For the first time, he says, he can understand how Jews in Germany must have felt in the 1930s,” stated the article.

Spiegel has made up stories before—but in this case, it is quoting a Jewish rabbi who made this comparison in all seriousness. To report the case fairly, Spiegel should have, as the German media often does, clarified that such statements are trivializing the Holocaust. Instead, the article appeared to support the allegations.

Notice who Spiegel pinpointed as the originator of these allegedly Nazi-like conditions:

When Donald Trump lost his reelection bid on Nov. 3, 2020, it seemed for a brief moment as though America was waking up from a bad dream. …

The shards left behind by this maga revolt [January 6 protest] have been swept up, but on that day, it became clear that Trump had changed the country to a far greater degree than had first been apparent.

Europe’s most popular newsmagazine informed its readers that “many Democrats are afraid of the maga movement, which has become increasingly aggressive and increasingly irrational.”

Notice what this apparent Adolf Hitler-like leader, who appears to create these Nazi-like conditions, demanded, as quoted by the magazine: “In a video released in late January, Donald Trump pledged that he would stop the ‘chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth.’” Read that again and ask yourself if that’s the equivalent of Hitler’s speeches that declared Jews and others subhuman.

Forbidding gender mutilation is not the same as forcing Jews out of business, banning their paths to education, and excluding them from society. And it is certainly not the same as experimenting on them, putting them into forced labor camps, and gassing them. To insinuate that stopping the medical mutilation of children may lead to Holocaust-like conditions is absolute insane reasoning.

Portraying the Holocaust as an escalated culture war between conservatives and liberals is a complete misrepresentation. This kind of bogus reporting is part of the reason so many in Germany are drawn to far-right ideologies. One could say: If supporting Nazis means stopping gender mutilation, I will support the Nazis. Of course, that’s not what nazism was about—but if you read today’s media outlets, that’s the impression you get.

What we see in Germany today is a toxic mixture of left- and right-wing extremist ideologies and a growing hatred for the United States. Sadly, Germany has not learned from history.

The Bible reveals a more profound reason for the rise of extremism and Germany’s revived hatred for the U.S.: the sins of Israel. As the later educator Herbert W. Armstrong explained in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, the Bible’s prophecies about Israel primarily refer to the U.S. and Britain, as well as the Jewish state in the Middle East. These nations have indulged in unprecedented sin, and God reveals that He will punish them for it.

Numerous prophecies show that God is full of wrath toward the nations of Israel—that’s why He raises Germany, ancient Assyria, to punish them. Increased animosity is a sign that this prophecy is about to be fulfilled. “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets” (Isaiah 10:5-6).

To learn the key to understanding these prophesies, request a free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.