There is a man in Germany whom we have monitored since 2009. I have believed that he could become the ruler of a new European superpower. His heritage is unique. He has risen to the top of German politics before. He is sharp, even cunning. His name is Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

Most people are not watching him closely. Even though he has largely stayed out of the headlines, I believe more and more that this is a man to watch. Why? Because of Bible prophecy (and how God used Herbert W. Armstrong in particular to explain prophecy; sidebar: “‘May Be of God’s Designing’”).

Prophecy is certain that Europe will unite under Catholicism into a modern Holy Roman Empire, that it will wage unimaginably destructive wars, and that it will be led by 10 powerful leaders, who themselves are under one “king of fierce countenance.” This king must be on the scene today.

Watching Guttenberg closely, you see several details that line up with important prophecies that we will look at. He has been flattering the Catholic Church recently and seems to be seeking a relationship with it. Some of his statements show an underlying hatred for America. He understands technology and finance, fields that are certain to factor heavily into the global conflicts to come. He also knows some of the inner workings of America, his potential enemy.

The role that this end-time “king” fulfills in biblical prophecy is also fulfilled in type by two other men in this end time—one in the true Church of God, the other in the United States. God has exposed both of these men. The first of them, in our lifetimes, almost completely destroyed the one true Church that was delivering to America and the world the dynamic warning message of Bible prophecy. The second, over the past 15 years, has sabotaged the few biblical principles and institutions America had left and worked to destroy the nation from within.

Guttenberg shares some characteristics and underlying attitudes with both of these men, and is well poised to become this prophesied “king.” The clues come from Bible prophecy; from Mr. Armstrong’s explanation of prophecy and contacts with world leaders; and from understanding who ultimately motivates this destruction and how he thinks.

Hatred for Donald Trump

One thing that has caught my attention about Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg since 2016 is that he uses so many of his public speaking opportunities to attack and insult former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In the first year of the Trump presidency, Guttenberg called him “den blonden Wüterich in Washington.” If you watch his 2017 Gillamoos speech in German, you can see the anger in his face. Wüterich translates to “maniac,” “ruthless tyrant” or “violent madman.” What a condemnation! What motivates an attitude like that?

Such an insult sounds like the ones from Barack Obama.

Guttenberg said on national television on Nov. 14, 2023, that Mr. Trump’s chances of returning to the White House “are anything but slim. Am I delighted about it? No. With this background in mind, I think we are not preparing ourselves enough for the possibility that the blond bully may once again be taking the reins into his hands. German politicians should start dealing with the U.S. Republicans again now and not wait until they stand there in shock and say, This guy has won again.”

FRANK HOENSCH/GETTY IMAGES

He added, “Trump is not a friend of the Germans.” He claimed that Americans, including Republicans, have told him personally that Mr. Trump is “likely the greatest scumbag that we have ever had in U.S. politics.” That is quite nasty!

Why is this man putting himself out there so strongly against Donald Trump? What is he trying to accomplish? Why is he so violent and passionate in his hatred?

This hatred is almost a mirror image of what we see in America. It’s the same fundamental attitude of the radical leftists and their leader, Barack Obama. Many of these people have even encouraged the assassination of Mr. Trump!

Radical leftists in America are planning to steal the 2024 presidential election just as they stole the 2020 election. But if they somehow fail and Mr. Trump returns to the presidency, they have insinuated that they will cause violent riots and destruction and rip this country apart from within!

Why do these people hate Mr. Trump so much? They will not admit this in so many words, but the real reason is that they want to destroy America. This has been Barack Obama’s goal all along and is what he has been directing his agents to do! Why would he do this? And why would people go along?

An Evil Spiritual Force

Most people do not realize that a powerful spiritual force is at work. It got control of one leader and used him to destroy God’s Church. (This dramatic history is explained in our free book Raising the Ruins.) It got control of another leader to attack the strength of America, which also has a history with God. (Request your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong.) This same powerful force is prophesied to gain control over another leader who will have a “mind change” (Habakkuk 1:11) and destroy not only the strength of America but also the people—with weapons of mass destruction!

You may not be familiar with what happened in God’s Church, but you have witnessed the disaster that has happened in America. An astonishing array of troubles all trace back to one man in power. Studying his words and actions reveals a great deal about the evil spiritual force behind him. I explain this in detail in my book America Under Attack (request your free copy; see also our article on page 20).

These attacks were prophesied in your Bible. You can read about them in passages like Daniel 8:9-12, 23-24 and 11:21-39. These prophecies were fulfilled, in type, anciently by the Seleucid king Antiochus iv Epiphanes. His attack was specifically, violently directed against what God is doing. They were clearly inspired by Satan the devil.

Yes, evil exists, and it has a very real, specific source. You can see how strategic the devil is by how he uses these destructive men.

Antiochus iv tried to destroy the very beliefs of the Jewish people who have had a role in preserving much of the truth about God. The modern Antiochus in God’s Church actively and deceitfully destroyed an enormous amount of restored truth about God. The modern Antiochus in American politics has destroyed and is destroying the strength of the nation—targeting race relations, police authority, military leadership, intelligence agencies, media bias, election integrity, constitutional law, history, traditions, sexuality, family, childhood—especially strengths that trace back to God! This is a war between God and Satan, but men are involved.

Over the past 15 years, Satan has mainly been using Barack Obama. This man has destroyed so much and is in a position to destroy much more—unless Donald Trump returns to the White House.

In America Under Attack, I identify Donald Trump as a modern type of King Jeroboam ii of 2 Kings 14 and Barack Obama as the hidden “Antiochus” of Daniel 8. Based on biblical prophecy, I am certain that God is going to restore Mr. Trump to the presidency for a time and revive a measure of stability to the nation. However, the strength of forces arrayed against this man right now—directed most prominently by Obama—is so fierce that God will have to draw the line to curb Obama’s influence. Somehow, that man will lose his power. This will help President Trump temporarily. For example, it could cause the justices of the Supreme Court to be less fearful. It is getting to the point where it seems God will have to do something rather dramatic!

The flow of prophetically significant world events suggests that sometime soon, Satan is going to move on from using Obama to using the “king of fierce countenance” of Daniel 8:23. The bigger threat to America is going to come from abroad. Satan will pass on to another leader to prepare him to destroy mightily (verse 24). Just look at the damage Barack Obama has done to America, and you realize how concerned you should be about what the devil will inspire this European strongman to do!

The European ‘King’

The main fulfillment of this prophecy in Daniel 8 is the king who will lead the resurrected Holy Roman Empire. He will think and act like the devil! Prophecy shows that this coming strongman and his forces appear peaceful and then destroy nations that trust and receive them. He will be responsible for killing great numbers of people within the populations of America, Britain, Israel and the other physical nations that descended from ancient Israel. He will also go after those in the Church of God who were attacked and weakened by the spiritual Antiochus and followed him in turning away from God to “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6-7; Revelation 3:14-22).

I could be wrong, but I believe Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is the man whose mind and life is being conditioned to rise as the strongman of Europe. He wants to weaken the United States and empower Europe. He has made statements like, “Let’s learn how to deal with our neighborhood without the U.S.” This despite the fact that the U.S. rebuilt Germany after World War ii and strengthened it to the point of including it in its nato program of sharing nuclear bombs! Yes, German pilots have been trained to strike using American nuclear weapons. This man says Germany should not even be working with the United States. But I’m sure he is quite happy to have America’s most powerful weapons.

Whoever this prophesied “king” turns out to be, he will be controlled by the same evil force that motivated the man who attempted to destroy God’s warning message, the same force motivating Barack Obama to divide, pollute and weaken America.

The same spirit motivates all three destroyers. Look at one example.

Today, Bible prophecy has been fulfilled and the descendants of the Jews that Antiochus iv tried to blot out of existence have their own nation (“The Jewish State’s Deadly Wound,” page 8). They are from the tribe of Judah, and their nation is named after all 12 tribes: Israel. These are people Satan has attacked around the world and throughout history, most recently in the demonic massacre of Oct. 7, 2023.

This was enabled by Barack Obama, who used the presidency to prevent Israel from invading Gaza and destroying the Hamas terrorists in 2014. Then, after the unspeakable things Hamas did this past October, he moved to protect these terrorists through his influence on the Biden regime and with public statements against Israel, such as, “The world is watching closely as events in the region unfold and any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human cost could ultimately backfire” (Oct. 24, 2023).

Obama repeated the Hamas claim that the Israelis were killing thousands of Palestinians, many of them children. He said Israel was guilty of besiegement and cutting off resources. Why would he believe Hamas? The world knows that Hamas leaders are horrible to their own people, use them as human shields, steal humanitarian resources to make terrorist weapons, break international laws with impunity, and lie repeatedly to “infidels.”

He said very little against Hamas! And that seemed calculated to appear to support Israel so he could then pressure it to restrain its counterattack!

Satan hates Judah (the modern Jews) and the other nations of Israel. He hates God and everything He is doing with mankind. Men who are under Satan’s influence take on these same attitudes, and they are perfectly willing to lie and say anything to present themselves as “angels of light” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Guttenberg condemned the Hamas attack and its “perfidious ideology” and said some positive things about Israel. Germany has used this opportunity to come to Israel’s aid, even threatening Hezbollah and Iran. (Read my cover story from last issue, “As You Watch Gaza—Watch Germany,” at theTrumpet​.com/28621.) But notice: Guttenberg is careful to make clear that he dislikes Israel’s strong leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and wants him gone! In an Oct. 13, 2023, podcast, Guttenberg strongly criticized Israel’s handling of Palestinians and portrayed Netanyahu’s government as “far right.”

Men like this want to appear as “moderate” or even supportive of Israelis. Yet they want the Israeli leader to be weak. And they want Hamas, the perpetrator of the October 7 massacre, to survive to continue terrorizing and weakening Israel. This is operating in the spirit of Antiochus.

Another aspect of Guttenberg worth scrutiny is his support for the Vatican.

Guttenberg and the Church

Europe is not heavily Catholic today as it has been in the past, but that will change soon, and rapidly. The Bible prophesies that the coming European superpower will be guided by the Roman Catholic Church just as it has been in the previous six resurrections of the Holy Roman Empire over the past 1,500 years.

Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Buhl-Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg is a Roman Catholic. Freiherr stands for Reichsfreiherr, which means baron of the Holy Roman Empire. This title was given to the family in the 19th century by Emperor Leopold i, who was described by Eduard Habsburg as the “pinnacle of the Catholic faith in Habsburg lands.” Since 2009, we have watched Guttenberg’s connection with the Catholic Church, and he has recently made several statements about it.

In December, Guttenberg published his documentary about the “power of the churches” with the main focus on the Catholic Church. He discussed Catholic scandals with Vatican expert Andreas Englisch on his podcast. Guttenberg also talked about the church’s “miracles.” He has a strong belief in the Catholic Church.

Englisch said Germany’s attempts to reform the Catholic Church without the pope’s blessings are useless, words the Vatican certainly loves to hear. In various interviews and podcasts, Guttenberg has told the German people that “the tail cannot wag the dog,” meaning Germany cannot dictate to the church since the Vatican and the pope are the head.

These statements strengthen the Catholic Church and the pope! And at the same time, Guttenberg wants the leadership of America and Israel to be weak. He passionately hates the strength with which Trump and Netanyahu lead!

Englisch and Guttenberg acknowledged that the church and the Vatican helped Nazis escape. They talked about the involvement of a lower-ranking bishop in Rome who was not officially part of the Vatican. But they said nothing about the pope! Englisch called it a “very serious crime” and said the German people had forgiven the church for it. The pope was involved throughout, yet they pretend he had nothing to do with it.

Who is talking about the Catholic Church like this? Guttenberg understands that it is this church that will lead the Holy Roman Empire. Only the Vatican can unite that empire. I believe Guttenberg is close to getting a very strong office in this church-led political power. And he is good friends with Sebastian Kurz, the former Austrian chancellor who openly said that the Catholic Church guides his politics.

The Catholic Church is currently in crisis in Germany. Scandals are coming to light, and it is losing hundreds of thousands of members. In this major crisis, Guttenberg is playing their advocate, supporting the church like nobody else.

Daniel 11’s prophecy about this destructive king emphasizes his deceptive power and his flatteries (verses 21-23, 32, 34). Guttenberg is flattering the Catholic Church like I have never heard anybody of his stature doing, working to rehabilitate it and elevate its stature.

The idea of uniting Europe is not inherently evil. But the man in these prophecies is going to hijack that union! He will not have people’s best interests at heart: His heart will be vile!

This passionate, Catholic-supporting leader over all of Europe could well be Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. He could lead Europe as the leader of Germany. But Herbert W. Armstrong thought, and I think, that there will be a separate leader of Germany and a man above even him who rules Germany and the rest of the 10 kings of Europe. Whoever the overall leader is of this powerful, deadly, beastly superpower, the Catholic Church will be largely responsible for installing him in power and guiding him.

Guttenberg and Disinformation

In last month’s Trumpet, our article “Who Is Defining ‘Disinformation’?”) reveals what Guttenberg is thinking by examining his role as a board member of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

This institute says it is fighting against “polarization, extremism and disinformation worldwide.” It is defining “far-right extremism,” “Islamist extremism,” “women extremism,” “Islamophobia,” “anti-Semitism,” “misognyny” and “anti-lgbtq” views. It has received funding from the U.S. government but is most strongly influenced by Germany. Look at what this organization involves itself in: It wants to affect what publishers, broadcasters and tech companies allow to be shared, especially regarding the U.S. election or conservative views. It “fact checks” those and labels them misinformation, conspiracies and extremism.

Like the censors in U.S. tech companies and government agencies, this institute wants to tell people what is good and what is bad. There is something satanic about such thinking: issuing decrees on what is right and wrong, good and evil. And they routinely portray truth as misinformation or disinformation—and terrible evils as good, forbidding questions or criticism.

Censors like these partly control what you think. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue is part of the YouTube flagger program for deciding what gets blocked. (YouTube has flagged our Trumpet Daily show.) It also selectively and powerfully boosts other messages. Controlling media and technology like this comes with substantial power, and look how it is being used! Sexual perversions are clearly harming a great many people today. Radical leftists are clearly destroying America. America’s election was clearly stolen. But the directors of organizations like the Institute for Strategic Dialogue don’t curb these problems: They actively using their power to bury the truth about them!

Guttenberg has spoken often about the “need to regulate speech online.” This reveals how he thinks. He wants to be the one regulating—which means controlling—what people can say. And he doesn’t want people saying that global warming or climate change are unscientific, or that transsexuals are not what they pretend to be.

Guttenberg served as senior adviser to the European Commission leadership on global Internet freedom. He has praised the 2019 European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, a big step toward European control over the Internet. Its subsequent Digital Services Act, supported by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, bans “disinformation,” “hate speech” and anything it classifies as illegal content, services or activities.

Seizing the ability to define and silence “hate” and “disinformation” online is a tremendous power! As I wrote in a 2019 article titled “Germany Is Taking Control of the Internet”), it is doing that because it recognizes the power there!

Guttenberg has had an interest in the United States for many years. When he was young, he spent a year in the U.S. with fellow students and visited Henry Kissinger, who was a friend of his grandfather and supporter of Germany. Guttenberg joined the American-German Young Leaders nonprofit in 2003 and was a director of the American Council on Germany from 2006 to 2022. The nature of this council, like most organizations, can be seen by examining its sponsors. Many of them are megacorporations that have some history with the Nazis! When Germany does something controversial, these councils and think tanks mediate and try to shape what people can find out, what they think of it, and how they react to it.

In 2011, Guttenberg was forced to resign from Germany’s Defense Ministry because people discovered that he had plagiarized his 2007 doctoral thesis—a form of disinformation. He moved to the U.S. and was employed as a distinguished statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis), headquartered in Washington, D.C., to look for ways improve “reinvigorate the trans-Atlantic relationship.”

Guttenberg is extremely well connected. He has ties to Axel Springer se, a massive media company in Germany that has acquired Politico and is, in the words of its chief executive, “developing the U.S. into our most important market.” Politico worked with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue to influence coverage of the 2020 election.

Guttenberg is involved in organizations that cover up truth about subjects like the draconian government response to coronavirus and the 2020 election theft. He expresses open hatred for America’s freedoms and for the leader trying to protect those freedoms and strengthen this country. Whether people realize it or not, these views are strongly satanic.

Very Close

This man is in a firm position to rule the Holy Roman Empire. Daniel 8 and many other prophecies about Germany, the Vatican, Israel, Britain, America and other major powers show that terrifying events across this Earth are imminent!

Prophecy shows that Germany will soon be ruled by a man more deceptive and powerful than Adolf Hitler. “There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counseller” (Nahum 1:11). This is a man motivated by evil—in fact, by Satan himself!

Soon we will know who is this “fierce king” and “wicked counsellor.” Daniel 8:23-24 prophesy that this strong leader will stand up and use fearsome power to destroy and kill. The church he allies with has had more people killed than any church on Earth! Its history is available to anybody who wants to study it.

But the prophecy does not end there. It reveals that this man, who is used so powerfully by Satan to attack truth and principles, peoples, nations, a church and anything to do with God—to the point of killing millions—is the same man Satan will use to fight Jesus Christ Himself.

“And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand” (verse 25).

Whoever this European leader is, he will destroy many—but his destructive reign will end. It will be smashed at the return of the “Prince of princes,” Jesus Christ! The same Bible that prophesies so many of the events we are now seeing in Germany, Europe, Israel, the United States, Britain and beyond prophesies that Christ is about to return in great power for the purpose of forcefully taking over rule of the Earth and establishing the Kingdom of God, a literal government that will supersede the Holy Roman Empire and every other government of men—a government based not on flatteries, deceit or dark sentences, but on the truth of God! As Isaiah 9:7 says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”