United States President Donald Trump is playing with fire in Germany. After the center-right Christian Democratic Union won Germany’s election on Sunday, President Trump congratulated cdu chairman Friedrich Merz. “Looks like the conservative party in Germany has won the very big and highly anticipated election,” President Trump posted on Truth Social. “Much like the U.S.A., the people of Germany got tired of the no common sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration, that has prevailed for so many years. This is a great day for Germany, and for the United States of America under the leadership of a gentlemen named Donald J. Trump. Congratulations to all—many more victories to follow!!!”

Despite President Trump’s endorsement, however, Merz does not view his party’s victory as a great day for the United States. Instead, he views it as a chance for Germany to achieve “independence” from the United States.

Before the official results of the election were in, Merz accused the Trump administration of turning its back on Europe so it could ally with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. He then urged European nations to build up their defense capabilities.

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the U.S.A.,” Merz said in a post-election debate on Sunday. “I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump’s statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

That is quite the statement! The man likely to be Germany’s next chancellor is saying that Europe needs to break away from the U.S. and develop its own independent defense force. After World War ii, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill wrote, “It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world” (emphasis added). Today, U.S policymakers are encouraging Germany to remilitarize.

President Trump is calling on North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense even though such a high level of defense spending would make Europe’s defense budget greater than America’s defense budget. Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President JD Vance is suggesting that nationalist parties like the Alternative für Deutschland should not be shut out of Germany’s coalition talks. The AfD has downplayed many of the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler’s regime, yet it gained control of 24 percent of the seats in the German Bundestag on Sunday. Merz wants to form a coalition with some of Germany’s left-wing parties to keep the AfD in the opposition, but it seems like many people in the Trump administration would love to see this party included in Germany’s governing coalition. Why do you think this is?

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is a senior adviser to President Trump, recently told a crowd of around 4,500 AfD supporters that “[t]here is too much focus on past guilt” and that “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents.” He obviously is not concerned about a Fourth Reich rising in Germany. Like President Trump and Vice President Vance, he wants the Christian Democratic Union and the Alternative für Deutschland to work together to forge Europe into a military superpower capable of helping America secure peace and prosperity around the world. He wants Germany to forget the past and remilitarize.

My father, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry, commented on Musk’s support for the AfD in his Key of David broadcast last week. “They have a party now in Germany,” he said. “I think they have about 17 percent of the vote, the AfD party, which is really the neo-Nazis, or new Nazis. And Elon Musk is encouraging them to keep growing! But he doesn’t understand Bible prophecy or I don’t think he would be making such a statement.”

This is a profound point! Donald Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk want Germany to rise to the challenge of protecting Europe so that the U.S. military does not have to defend Europe itself. They are naively overlooking pro-Nazi sentiments in the AfD, yet the Bible prophesies that neo-Nazis are going to hijack the European Union and use it against the United States. When this happens, Americans will no longer want European nations spending 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. They will long for a demilitarized Germany.

Musk is right that “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents,” yet in the case of the AfD, many of the children are praising their Nazi great-grandparents as heroes. This fact should greatly concern anyone with even a passing familiarity with Bible prophecies about Germany.

The late Herbert W. Armstrong taught that the Nazis went underground, into the bottomless pit (Revelation 17:8). This means the Third Reich never died. It developed a plan to become the Fourth Reich. Consider what one neo-Nazi in Madrid wrote to a colleague in Buenos Aires in the 1950s: “The struggle against American bossing of Europe will become Germany’s main task in the future. We must not merely strive to shake off the shackles with which Washington has bound us, and labor to regain our freedom of action in the East, but we must also prepare the whole of Europe for our future mission in the world. A well-filled breadbasket, sufficient sources of raw materials and the necessary geopolitical space for strategic maneuverings prove more than ever before to be the most important factor in deciding Europe’s struggle for world mastery” (translated and reprinted in T.H. Tetens’s book Germany Plots With the Kremlin).

This man, identified only as Dr. M v. T, showed no gratitude for the millions of dollars America spent rebuilding Germany after World War ii. Instead, he looked forward to the day when Germany could throw off Washington’s shackles. He almost sounds like Frederick Merz, whose “absolute priority” is achieving “independence” from the United States.

Of course, Merz makes it sound like he has to achieve independence from the U.S. to protect Ukraine, conveniently forgetting that it was the Nord Stream pipeline deal between Germany and Russia that empowered Putin to invade Ukraine in the first place. But make no mistake, German elites have been looking for a way to break free from America for decades. The fact that Donald Trump does not recognize this fact is an enormous blind spot in his worldview.

In the lead-up to World War ii, U.S. leaders were alarmed by Hitler’s rise, even though many of them chose to do nothing about it. But it is different today. The Fourth Reich is a lot more subtle than the Third Reich, so American leaders are actively encouraging Germany to rearm. President Trump says, “This is a great day for Germany, and for the United States of America ….” But it is really a tragic day.

Mr. Armstrong wrote in the October 1951 Plain Truth: “For, believe it or not, the United States of Europe—a Winston Churchill dream, an idea sponsored, aided, abetted and financed by the United States, is the very idea the pope will seize on—all ready-made, wrapped and labeled ‘made in U.S.A.’—ready to hand over to him! And in promoting this utopian idea, gullible, trusting America and Britain are creating the Frankenstein that shall destroy them!”

Today, gullible men like Donald Trump and Elon Musk are still trying to empower a United States of Europe. Yet we are already starting to see an anti-America spirit take root in Germany, a spirit that will soon hijack the whole continent.