While numerous pundits see the risk posed to world security by a volatile Middle East, a resurgent Russia, an aggressively expanding China, a destabilized nuclear-powered Pakistan, a looming nuclear-armed India, and competition within Asia for regional dominance, few there be who focus attention on the greatest of all threats to world peace, the seemingly benign colossus of the European Union.

A chief task of the Key of David television program and the Trumpet magazine is simply to warn—to sound an increasingly powerful warning of the tremendous dislocation to world civilization that looms even now so threateningly on the horizon. It is a commission we are given from a higher authority than that of any earthly government or any global institution. It is part of a commission received from the very Creator of mankind. You don’t have to believe that, yet we hold it as a burning conviction born of substantial proof of fulfilled biblical prophecies, dating back to the attempt to impose the first world empire at Babylon and beyond to our day in this present world of geopolitical disorder.

A theme that has threaded its way throughout history is the tendency for those same motivations, and even institutions, that led to the rise of Babylon to repeat themselves. The most obvious example is the history of the Roman Empire—particularly in its form, since the 14th century, as “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.”

In the tradition of Herbert W. Armstrong, the Trumpet has tenaciously continued to warn of the grave danger posed to this world by the unification of Germany, and its consequence, the unification of Europe under the domination of a united Germany. It’s a theme that dates back to the first edition of the Plain Truth magazine at its establishment by Herbert Armstrong in February 1934 (visit our magazine archive section to see our special February 2000 issue, titled “He Was Right!”).

The history of this continually resurrecting empire in its current form, as the European Union dominated by a united Germany, has been well documented in the Trumpet—a newsmagazine cast in the mold of the Plain Truth—since its inception in 1990.

In the same vein, five years ago we pointed to an alarming trend in Europe. Germany was quietly moving to establish itself as the controller of both land and water transport routes within Europe. In our July 2003 edition we pointed out,

Germany’s singular advantage, which has historically proven also to be its downfall, is its location at the very center of Europe.This central location gives Germany a unique geostrategic benefit: It stands to gain much by dominating the very crossroads between east and west when the EU opens its doors to what the pope has termed Europe’s “eastern lung.” In June next year [2004], the EU gains that eastern lung with the accession of 10 nations to membership of the Union. The strategic control that Germany will then wield can hardly be underestimated.The problem that then arises is a historic one. In the past, when Germany has perceived the strength of its position in Europe, it has sought to stretch itself beyond its borders. The Germans call it lebensraum—simply put, a desire for more space for Germans to live in. While Germany remained divided, that desire was contained. Since German unification, it has started to raise its head once again.

In that article we showed how Germany had cleverly maneuvered to position itself as the controller of traffic from Eastern to Western Europe via the continent’s extensive network of rivers and canals. In addition to this, we also pointed out:

Complementing the interlocking of Europe’s great waterways transit system is an EU plan to complete the networking of the continent’s whole transport infrastructure by 2010. This includes road and rail systems. The German Ministry of Transport refers to this, in military terms, as a “pan-European infrastructure offensive.” The goal is the complete re-orientation of Germany’s pre-unification north-south transit network to a post-unification, pre-EU orientation east-west.Plans include a 23,000-kilometer high-speed rail network, an additional 50,000 kilometers of conventional rail routes, and a trans-European road network totaling 58,000 kilometers, primarily consisting of autobahns and dual carriageways. All this will link with the primary means of shifting goods in Europe, the inland waterway network.

By “pre-EU orientation” we had in mind the European transit network overseen, developed and administered by the Third Reich in Germany under the Reich’s transport authority, the Reichverkehrsministerium, which in the Nazi era was supervised by Hitler’s Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller.

After World War ii, the German railroad system was renamed from the wartime Reichsbahn to the current Deutsche Bahn AG, co-owned by the German government through its Transport Ministry. This German government authority is currently “wallowing in wealth and is supervising billions in acquisitions of foreign railway companies” (German-Foreign-Policy.com, Nov. 27, 2007).

Now, here’s the problem. While the victors in World War ii are blinded to the reality of the cycle of history and ready to forget the risks posed to the world in the past by a unified Germany, certain forces within the German nation have worked to preserve, and memorialize, parts of Deutschland’s history that one would think they would want most readily to bury. Part of that history very directly involves Germany’s government transport authority.

“The German Bundesbahn cherished Dorpmüller’s memory and paid for the maintenance of his grave. The railway company has provided several railway stations with ‘Dorpmüller Halls.’ Even streets have been named after the former Nazi minister. A study ordered by the acting Minister of Transport Tiefensee was recently published on this continuity. This publication, costing tens of thousands of euros, is only being circulated among specialists and kept away from the public. It serves an alibi function and was ordered only after years of public protest in the railway stations that attracted particularly the attention of foreign media. Today, the media is once again interested—this time in the expansionist activities of the Bahn AG. Through buying up complete foreign railway companies, the Bahn AG has become the most important European logistician and, stemming from its history, is once again arousing fears” (ibid.).

Why the fears?

Unfortunately, this transportation network, which relied heavily on European railroads, was the means of transporting millions of Jews to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps when Dorpmüller was its overseer under Hitler!

Railroads have been traditionally regarded as one of a nation’s most strategic assets. They, together with a nation’s road systems, waterways, airways, seaports and airports, are part of the logistical assets that enable free passage of goods and services to maintain a national economy. Thus the takeover of such assets by any foreign nation should be cause for great concern to the victim of the takeover.

The Bahn AG has aggressively launched takeover initiatives in countries that 60 years ago fought to push back foreign incursion on their soil! Yet now these nations, it appears, are literally inviting Germany’s takeover of vital strategic assets.

This takeover merchant has a long history as a collectivist, imperialist nation, and it now is the leading economic power in Europe!

Consider the following.

“Already today, the German company is dominating the European market in rail transport for both passenger and freight. It is increasingly transporting passengers to other European countries. Last June it inaugurated its ice-Paris connection and is planning to expand its cross-border passenger transport. In a few days the ice-Denmark connection will be inaugurated, and others will follow. To further enhance its position in the European freight transport, last summer the Bahn AG bought the majority of its Spanish competitor Transfesa ‘to optimize the freight transport to Southern Europe,’ as the company explains. A few days ago, the EU Commission approved the take-over of the English Welsh and Scottish Railway (ews). With ews being the largest British freight train company, the Deutsche Bahn AG will control two thirds of all British rail freight transport. As was announced on November 26, this new Bahn AG subsidiary will triple the Channel transit beginning in January, thereby ‘optimizing Great Britain’s link-up with the German rail network’” (ibid.).

So much for Britain’s historic reliance on the English Channel as the buffer between its traditional continental enemies and the security of its island home.

But that’s not all.

We have regularly pointed to the prophecy that predicts a predominant European power strategically extending its influence toward the south and the east (Daniel 8:9). That is exactly where Bahn AG is now setting its sights!

“The Deutsche Bahn AG is using its enormous profits (83642.5 billion in 2006) to expand beyond Europe. Last summer the world’s second-largest logistic company could announce a ‘breakthrough’ for its project to expand its rail transport via Russia to China through a joint-venture with the Russian Railway (rzd). The head of the German rail company Hartmut Mehdorn intends to move into the state-owned railway in the People’s Republic of China. ‘Of all the EU railway companies and logisticians, the Deutsche Bahn AG has the most advantageous position in the booming Eurasian economic sector,’ estimates Mehdorn. The company’s plans not only include East-Asian rail communication but also a ‘link-up’ with the Arabian Peninsula. Since some time, the Bahn AG has been active in Turkey and is trying to get a rail network straight through Saudi Arabia to the Persian Gulf. Accompanied by the German chancellor, Mehdorn held negotiations in India, just a few weeks ago. Already last year, his company concluded a contract enabling him to move onto the Indian market” (ibid.).

We have no ax to grind against the German people. But we do know history. And we certainly know Bible prophecy for these times. For that reason, we sound a warning! Especially to the British people! Those who treat history so lightly, who invite foreign nations onto their home turf and hand over their most strategic, logistically valuable national assets to a nation that is so readily reviving pride in its imperial past—even memorializing those who provided vital services for transporting masses of European Jewry to the Nazi gas chambers—risk a repetition of that sad phase of history, this time putting their own populations in jeopardy!

Note that in this article, we have limited our quotations to a most reliable, verifiable German source! If German journalists, writing for a German enterprise, based in the German heartland, can see this grave danger of history repeating itself, then why can’t we?

You say this is all just part of the global market at play? Just a component of the trend toward the globalism of the 21st century, which is all about businessmen going peacefully about their trade, making the world a better place for us?

Think again!

How come Bahn AG is so cashed up that it can expand its global reach with such aggression?

“The Deutsche Bahn AG has in the meantime directly profited from the growing German military activities. Schenker, the Deutsche Bahn AG subsidiary, is managing Bundeswehr depots and taking over transport. The growing privatization of Bundeswehr logistics involves huge sums of money: 83643 billion, as a by-product of German military expansion” (ibid.; emphasis mine).

Get the drift?

The rest of the world needs to wake up to the grave dangers posed by a united Europe, dominated by a united Germany, intent on becoming the gateway for global trade. What we are seeing is the progressive enactment of economic imperialism on a grand scale, an increasingly global scale, by a historically militaristic nation, already flexing its military muscles in many theaters from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, from Afghanistan to the Balkans, from East Africa to the Gulf—all extremely strategic locations.

But you don’t have to believe us. Go read the history, and remember that old adage about those who refuse to listen to its lessons being destined to be victims of its repetition.

If you really want to know more on this vital subject, read our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. It’s designed to jolt the reader into awakening to the reality of the final resurrection of that old empire that is taking place before our very eyes!