In February 1934, Herbert W. Armstrong launched a magazine, using biblical prophecy as his guide, and history and current world events as his frame of reference. It was to become the most widely circulated of all periodic publications during the 20th century. Called the Plain Truth, the first edition of that fledgling publication carried a cover article headlined dramatically, “Is a World Dictator About to Appear?”

By August of that year, Adolf Hitler, whose declared goal was global rule, became the führer of Germany.

Yet Hitler, in alliance with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, was not destined to realize his dream of global rule. He was but a link in the chain of events leading to one final attempt by one powerful individual to become a “world dictator” before Almighty God intervenes to impose His own royal rule on this Earth (Revelation 19:16).

In a letter Mr. Armstrong wrote on July 24, 1983, he spoke about that first Plain Truth issue. “The article starting on the cover page warned of a coming sudden appearance of a resurrected ‘Holy Roman Empire’ in Europe—a union of 10 nations in Europe under one government, with one united military force. For 50 years I have been crying out to the world the Bible prophecies of this coming ‘United States of Europe’—a new united superpower perhaps more powerful than either the Soviet Union or the United States!“

There is one core message, one key, unfolding world event that the Trumpet has continued to monitor from the time that Germany united, east and west, back in 1990, coincident with this magazine’s birth. That is the same event headlined in the first issue of the Plain Truth: the rise of a European superpower. In reality this is none other than the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, which, due to its historic dominance by a succession of Germanic emperors, became know as the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation!

Seventy-five years on from Herbert Armstrong’s cover story in that first edition of the Plain Truth, concerned observers of the rise of the European Union are noticing that certain elites within Germany and the Vatican, in addition to banking and corporate moguls, are coming out of the closet. These elites are united in their vision for the revival of an imperialist Europe.

This is a story to which the press and mass media are largely blinded. Yet it is the most powerfully imminent event of global importance. It is even now so advanced in its development that it will suddenly, very soon, literally burst upon the world scene with an impact that will take our breath away!

As history demonstrates, there exist two prime entities that, when they operate in concert with each other, have created great havoc and resulted in the shedding of the blood of countless millions: the Vatican and Germany.

Revisionists would have us believe that these particular leopards have changed their spots, the one becoming an embattled spiritual institution of little effect in a secular world, the other having miraculously morphed into a genuinely capitalistic, freedom-loving democracy of the highest order.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We have written much on Vatican involvement in the successive seven resurrections of the Holy Roman Empire prophesied in your Bible (Revelation 12, 13, 17). It is not our intention to dwell on that aspect of the equation in this article. Our purpose here is to highlight the very advanced state that German elites have reached in fulfilling the old imperial Teutonic dream of global conquest.

The German Elites

In instructions to his generals, Frederick the Great declared, “In war, the skin of a fox is at times as necessary as that of a lion, for cunning may succeed when force fails.”

During the last century, Germany failed twice, within just 30 years, in its bid for world rule. Those losses taught the German elites a lesson. These Nazis went underground to develop their plan for a third attempt at global rule. They emerged from their foxholes during the Cold War period clad in the skin of Reynard, the fabled red fox trickster.

After witnessing the 1945 meeting in San Francisco that inaugurated the United Nations, Herbert Armstrong observed: “We don’t understand German thoroughness. From the very start of World War ii, they have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned, in such eventuality, the third round—World War iii! … [T]he Nazis have now gone underground. … They plan to come back and to win on the third try.

“The Bible foretells that third round ….The third round is termed, in prophecy, an invasion by ‘Babylon’—a resurrected Roman Empire—a European Union. I have been proclaiming that since 1927” (Autobiography, Volume 2).

Sigrid Schultz, who reported for the Chicago Tribune from within Germany after World War i through the early years of World War ii, wrote, “[T]he Germans have brought chaos and agony to every country within their long reach. They will cry chaos again, and still again … at the first sign of weakness on our part, they’ll try it again” (Germany Will Try It Again; emphasis mine throughout).

On May 9 this year, the Mail Online reported on a previously discovered secret World War ii document. “The paper is aged and fragile, the typewritten letters slowly fading. But U.S. Military Intelligence report ew-Pa 128 is as chilling now as the day it was written in November 1944.

“The document, also known as the Red House Report, is a detailed account of a secret meeting at the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg on Aug. 10, 1944. There, Nazi officials ordered an elite group of German industrialists to plan for Germany’s postwar recovery, prepare for the Nazis’ return to power and work for a ‘strong German empire.’ In other words: the Fourth Reich.” (This intelligence report is reprinted in full in our free booklet The Rising Beast.)

Sigrid Schultz described how the Nazi organization was set up as far back as 1940 to continue to pursue the Nazi dream of world conquest underground in the event of German defeat in World War ii. “The broad outline of the campaign aims at a ‘scientifically provoked and directed chaos,’ with which they feel certain to win ultimate victory,” Schultz wrote.

Most integral to the ultimate fulfillment of the Nazi vision, Schultz noted, was control of the global banking system!

How They Gained Control

In 1982, Herbert Armstrong could foresee the very financial and economic chaos that is now a fact of daily life in the global economy. Speaking from Vienna in a message to his supporters, he declared that the failure of any major bank in the U.S. “will affect the banks in Britain, in Paris, in Tokyo, and in the capitals of the world. And the heads of the governments in those countries know it. The banking system is so interlocked between nations that if one goes under they will all go under, and that’s going to mean chaos—economic chaos all over the world for many nations and millions and billions of people.”

Well, that prophesied economic chaos is now affecting the daily lives of so many, and the best of the pundits predict even greater financial chaos ahead.

In the light of Herbert Armstrong’s prophecy and Sigrid Schultz’s observations, it is interesting to note the timely manner in which certain German, Italian and Swiss banking elites have maneuvered into a position to gain control, via the EU, of the regulation of the whole global economy!

Here is how it came about.

Sept. 29, 2008: Coming hard on the heels of the failure of subprime lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, stock markets crash in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy.

October 10: Finance ministers from the G-7 (the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and Italy) meet in Washington to agree on a strategy to stabilize the global economy. The EU member nations propose a plan for centralized regulation of the world economy.

October 18: EU President Nicolas Sarkozy and EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso fly to Washington for an emergency meeting with President George W. Bush concerning the global economic meltdown.

November 14-15: Leaders of the world’s top 20 economies, known as the G-20, meet in Washington to consider global financial and economic regulation. The EU plan is submitted to the leaders of these 20 leading world nations. Commentator Dick Morris observes, “The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. … Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. … [M]erging with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.”

April 2, 2009: The G-20 meet in London and agree to adopt the EU plan for centralized regulation of the global economy. Dick Morris declares, “I’ve had a long experience in dealing with the European Union, and this is how they operate. … [T]hey slip this in under the radar, which is absolutely creating an international economic union. … Literally from April 2 of this year … it’s a whole new world of financial regulation in which, essentially, all of the U.S. regulatory bodies and all U.S. companies are put under international regulation, international supervision. It really amounts to a global economic government.”

Out of the chaos a beast arises, a regulatory authority ruled by a banking cabal significantly hailing from Rome, Berlin and Berne, with the innocuous name of the Financial Stability Board. Its work is done in secret, behind closed doors. The outcome is prophesied in your Bible in Revelation 13. Deeply involved in lobbying the central bankers of Europe are the powerful global merchants (Revelation 18)—many of whom head the very corporations, on both sides of the Atlantic, that aided Hitler in his drive for global power. Coincidence?

Men in Gray Suits

In his book The Grand Design, Bavarian statesman Franz Josef Strauss openly admitted that the only hope Germany had of returning to world power status was to hide behind the facade of “being good Europeans.” The fact that Germans had never in the entire history of Europe been “good Europeans” was beside the point. As Dr. Strauss viewed it, for Germany to make a comeback as a global power, it would have to be seen as being “a member of an international family, a member of a European Federation, [rather] than as a German Reich, a single national state. … We must understand that our European attitude was the only escape hatch that we had, the only approach that made comeback possible.”

Over the 44 years since Strauss penned those words, Germany has effectively used the cloak of being a “member of a European Federation” to unify and develop the “single national state” of Germany into a political, economic and increasingly military powerhouse energizing the entire federation of 27 nation-states that comprise the European Union. Much of this has been achieved not by armies in military uniform as in the past, but via the penetration of German institutions and business entities into foreign nations by armies in gray flannel suits.

Consider just two examples.

First, note that the official EU map of Britain contains no country, nor county, boundaries. On that map, England does not exist. The British Isles are divided into EU-designated regions.

Within the largest county in England, Yorkshire, Brussels/Berlin is conducting a highly strategic experiment.

Four years ago, some of the most astute observers of the German condition, the team at German-Foreign-Policy.com, reported that “Europe’s largest media company, the German firm Bertelsmann ag, is taking over official tasks normally performed by public authority in Great Britain. From July 2005 a Bertelsmann subsidiary will undertake the majority of public administration in a British local authority. The plan is regarded by the German firm as a ‘pilot project of strategic importance.’ … Across Europe, Bertelsmann aims to expand within the framework of the so-called ‘Public/Private Partnership’ into areas which are presently under the control of nation-states and to carry out activities … normally reserved [for] publicly responsible local authorities” (translation by Edward Spalton; April 5, 2005).

In an introduction to that piece, British political economist Rodney Atkinson commented that this very same Bertelsmann was “both a loyal propagandist for the Nazis in their rampage across Europe in the 1940s and [is] a loyal propagandist for the European Union, the European Constitution and the euro today. In the 1940s they published propaganda for the German armed services.” Now, they have taken over “administration of 350,000 Britons in Yorkshire” (Free Nations, April 14, 2005).

Our second example involves the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, which is affiliated with the German Free Democratic Party (fdp). German-Foreign-Policy.com reported in July that this foundation “is directing the creation of a worldwide lobbying network” and is “coordinating the fdp’s local lobbying. The Naumann networks are already spanning all continents and include several thousand executives, including government officials. … The target groups include … ‘eminent leaders and multipliers from politics, the economy, science, the media and the security sector.’ The academy is particularly courting ‘young leaders from liberal parties’ all around the world” (July 13).

Proof exists that operatives from the Naumann Foundation were actively involved in recent political turmoil in Honduras and in western China, as they are in various other South American and African political developments.

It is interesting to note that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s choice for a coalition partner, should she succeed in regaining the chancellorship in September, is the Naumann Foundation’s affiliate, the fdp.

Few have noted the fact, as reported by analyst Christopher Story, that “Angela Merkel was an activist in the East German Communist Party, and while she was attending Karl Marx University in East Berlin, she was the secretary for agitation and propaganda in the Communist Youth Wing operating in that establishment.

“The East German secret police, the Stasi, operated throughout the Cold War period as a foil and substitute for the pan-German Nazi Abwehr (military counterintelligence), today’s dvd [Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst—German Defense Service]. Merkel is almost certainly a ‘former’ Stasi operative” (Global Analysis, Dec. 2, 2007).

After Germany’s reunification, Stasi operatives, Story observed, “poured into the German political structures,” including the fdp. One of the most infamous was West German parliamentarian and chairman emeritus of the fdp William Bomm.

Given these facts, it ought not be surprising that Chancellor Merkel would seek out such bedfellows as a replacement for her present coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, which is the political partner of her election opponent, Germany’s Vice Chancellor Frank Walter-Steinmeier.

The above are but two examples of the methods that Brussels/Berlin has used to penetrate EU institutions, as well as all continents, with emissaries of influence, to prepare for the takeover of whole national economies by the monolithic European Union.

Political Developments

During the past 12 months, German elites have moved rapidly, before all EU states ratify the Lisbon Treaty (which is, in reality, the EU constitution originally envisioned by the EU’s founding fathers), to consolidate Germany’s position at the head of a European superpower. This, at the very time when their old Anglo-Saxon enemies, Britain and America, are facing the total collapse of their national economies.

Space precludes us from going into detail. Again, two examples of German empowerment within the European Union will suffice to demonstrate the point.

German parliamentary members have been elected to three of the most powerful legislative committees in the new European Parliament: the influential industry, research and energy committee; the environment committee; and the new legal affairs committee. In addition, a German member of the European Parliament now heads a special committee investigating the financial crisis. Industry, energy, environment, legal affairs and the financial crisis—about the sum total of all major EU business—are now under German leadership in the European Parliament!

With such powerful influences in the formulation of EU law—even without the Lisbon Treaty’s ratification—Germany has jumped to the lead as the most dominant political and legislative power in Europe!

If Germany ratifies the Lisbon Treaty, and the remaining dissenting nations—Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic—also sign up to it, the political power Germany will then gain will be significantly greater, even above and beyond what it won in the European Parliament in June.

European Voice commented, “If and when the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, Germany stands to be the big winner. The introduction of a system of voting in the Council of Ministers by double majority, taking into account the population represented by the member states as well as their allocation of votes, will favor Germany” (July 9).

Our second example of Germanic politicking designed to ensure Germany’s dominance of the developing European superpower is more intriguing. It involves Germany’s own Constitutional Court having ruled, in effect, that the Lisbon Treaty, a German creation from the beginning, is not legal under Germany’s own national constitution.

That court ruled in June that Germany could only ratify the European Constitution (Lisbon Treaty) given certain changes to its own sovereign law. This involves applying certain conditions to Germany’s pending ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. These conditions, for Germany, would assert the primacy of German law over EU law. In effect, they would overturn the present situation where EU law trumps any member nation’s sovereign law. This is the very reverse of the situation Germany has forced on other EU member nations to ensure that they toe the EU line.

The first reading in German parliament of the rushed legislation to conform to the Constitutional Court’s ruling is on August 26 (after this magazine goes to press). The bill’s final reading is set for September 8. The Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house of parliament, is then due to pass the final bill on September 18, just before German elections on September 27.

But whichever way you slice the cake in Europe’s constitutional challenge, Germany wins. If Lisbon fails, Germany wins by virtue of its dominance of the EU Parliament. If Lisbon is ratified, Germany’s own sovereign law would trump EU law should a conflict develop between the two.

Crucial Election

This all makes for a nail-biting run-up to the German federal election. Should any part of the German or EU constitutional process falter, the whole political process in Germany and the EU could descend into chaos.

Until Germany’s challenge to the EU legal powers is settled, the very future of the European Union hangs in the balance. Chancellor Angela Merkel can ill afford a constitutional crisis at home as Germany’s federal election looms.

What will be the outcome of this current political and legal crisis in Germany and the EU? The effects will be enormous for the future direction of both.

What will be the outcome of Germany’s September elections? Who will lead Germany into the next crucial decade?

Of the importance of this election, our editor in chief has warned, “You need to watch the September 27 election this year in Germany. It could very well produce the political leader of the Holy Roman Empire—and through devious means. The Bible prophesies that this man will come to power with deceit and flatteries” (theTrumpet.com, April 6).

There’s the real key to the upcoming German elections. The one destined to lead the final revival of the Holy Roman Empire will be one who gains office “through devious means … with deceit and flatteries” (Daniel 11:21).

The final quarter of 2009 is crucial to EU elites in finalizing their dream of forcing an overarching constitution on the 27-nation EU bloc. If Lisbon is ratified, two powerful positions will be created to be filled by officials unelected by EU constituents: the powerful EU foreign minister, and the president of the European Union. Technically, each will sit above the presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministries of all EU member nations. Under Lisbon, the EU would then proceed to institutionalize its vision of a revival of former “Holy” Roman greatness in an orderly fashion.

If Lisbon fails, this could prove to be a catalyst for the elites of Brussels/Berlin to move in aggressively and carve up the EU into major regions, and subservient minor regions. Out of the resulting chaos could well emerge, even more rapidly, the final prophesied order of 10 leaders over 10 regional groupings, all yielding to one ruling authority (Revelation 17:12-13).

It should be obvious to all that the economic, financial, commercial and political components of the resurrecting Holy Roman Empire are now extremely well developed. It remains now for its military power to be consolidated, and finally for the “holy” element to be enforced. The year 2010 could see both these final elements of power rapidly instituted.

The Great Hope

There exists the greatest of hope in the vision of the final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire: It is the most powerful of indicators as to the very closeness of the return of the Savior of mankind to overcome all earthly powers and impose the ultimate government on Earth (Isaiah 9:6-7).

That’s the great hope that exists in the prophecies of the rise of this beastly power, even now resurrecting on the European continent, as revealed in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and in many other prophecies in your Bible.

You need to realize how close it is to suddenly bursting upon the whole world!

Remember, Jesus Christ said, “when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors” (Matthew 24:33).

Watch events in Europe! Dramatic, prophesied world events will increasingly swirl around this region, right on up to the doorstep of Jerusalem!

Remember the words of your Savior. His repeated admonition to His disciples was, “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36).

Request a free copy of our booklet Daniel Unlocks Revelation for a more thorough understanding of the dramatic prophesied events that are leading to the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation.