America’s moral decay is rapidly spreading around the world. But some in Germany see America as the cause of much more than global moral decline. They blame America for climate change, financial instability and even the war in Ukraine. Others accuse America of committing war crimes in the last world war and instilling a feeling of guilt in Germany.

Germany has taken on a new role in fringe-right magazines like Compact and books like Fremdbestimmt (Directed by Others). Instead of being the perpetrator, Germany is portrayed as the victim of American cruelty. America’s positive effect on the world is rapidly declining, but the rewriting of German history and its changing view on America is an equally dangerous trend.

Take Compact’s most recent history issue: “The Death Camps of the Americans.” While everyone has focused on Germany’s death camps during the war, the magazine claims the cruelty of the Americans has been overlooked:

The mass death of German prisoners of war on the Rhine meadows was not so-called collateral damage but was deliberately brought about. Responsible for the camps was the commander-in-chief of the United States and Allied forces, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who despised our people beyond measure.

The message cannot be missed: America hates us and has suppressed us with malicious intent.

Forgotten are America’s generosities. Also forgotten is the fact that many German war criminals went unpunished, that many industrialists continued their businesses, that Germany’s army was revived just years after the war ended, and that the U.S. protected West Germany from the crimes committed by Soviet Russia in East Germany.

Compact is what the German mainstream media calls “far right.” Nonetheless, it has a readership in the tens of thousands, and the party it supports is currently the second-most popular party in Germany—the Alternative für Deutschland. The leader of this party recently expressed similar sentiments: “I find it fundamentally problematic to always link commemoration with the question of [German] guilt.”

The mainstream shuns such sentiments. But anti-Americanism is not just a problem among German fringe parties. More and more from the mainstream are switching sides.

Thorsten Schulte used to work as an investment banker and was a member of the mainstream Christian Democratic Union for 26 years. In 2017, his book Kontrollverlust (Loss of Control) was number one on Spiegel’s bestseller list. Just as he reached the peak of his popularity, the mainstream shunned him because his book criticized the handling of Germany’s migration crisis.

Schulte quickly switched from bemoaning Germany’s domestic decisions to blaming America for Germany’s problems. Two years later, he wrote Fremdbestimmt (Directed by Others). “In this book, Thorsten Schulte unmasks the historiography of the victors, exposes untruths, half-truths and the omission of important facts in our media,” the Amazon description reads. “He exposes the distorted view of history that still leads to a guilt complex among Germans with devastating consequences.”

This is not exclusive to the right-wing scene. Hatred for America is so strong in Germany that it unites the extremes of the political spectrum. A headline on Tagesspiegel in March called anti-Americanism “the glue that holds the [right and left] together.”

In a June 2022 article, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper highlighted how Germany’s left blamed the Ukraine War on “U.S. imperialism” and the cooperation between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union and Ukraine. In other words: The U.S. is worse than Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s the cause for enmity with Russia!

This is a growing sentiment in all of Europe. The times when German and Russian cooperation caused the death of millions in Eastern Europe are forgotten. America is blamed. History is being rewritten.

America is certainly not blameless; God Himself is holding America accountable for the evil it propagates. But His perspective on America is quite different.

As the late Herbert W. Armstrong explained in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, America descends from ancient Israel and is the focus of numerous Bible prophecies. (Request your free copy.)

One such prophecy is in Isaiah 10, where God calls end-time Israel a “hypocritical nation” and “the people of my wrath.” God raises up the Assyrians—modern Germany—to punish Israel because He wants His people to repent and lead the world to prosperity and peace.

But this chapter in Isaiah, along with the book of Nahum and Revelation 17, shows that Germany’s anger and God’s wrath are not the same. Germany may recognize some of America’s flaws, but it resents God’s great purpose for this nation. This stirs God’s anger and causes Him to ask, “Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith?” (Isaiah 10:15).

In other words, Who are you to question your Creator’s decision? If I can use you to punish my people, can I not decide the purpose of that punishment?

God has a plan for all mankind to live in harmony, and only He can bring it about. God is holding America responsible for their sin. But He is also holding Germany accountable for not seeing and submitting to His grand plan. However, the Bible also reveals that God’s method of teaching will bear fruit. Germany and America are prophesied to live in harmony.