“The contempt in Germany for U.S. monetary policy is almost visceral,” wrote Carl Mortished at the Globe and Mail earlier this week. Other nations like China, Japan and Brazil have joined Germany in heaping scorn on the United States after the Federal Reserve decided to inject $600 billion of new money into America’s ailing economy.

Much of the media attention over the past week has focused on the sharp divide between the U.S. and China, particularly in the lead-up to the much-anticipated meeting yesterday between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

But from a prophetic standpoint, the U.S.-German collision course is of much greater significance.

Consider the two opposing mindsets currently driving monetary policy in Washington and Berlin. Mortished wrote, “What nation would set out to trash its currency in the vague hope that citizens who are almost insolvent might be encouraged to borrow and spend more money? What kind of politician encourages such behavior? The rationale behind the Federal Reserve’s new round of money-printing does not compute in Germany, where sound money is seen as a moral principle, not just a target on a monetary index” (emphasis mine throughout).

His analysis is spot on. Last year, for example, Vice President Joe Biden told a group of senior citizens that the only way to avoid bankruptcy is to “spend money.” That message might win praise from aarp members who depend on government spending for their entitlement benefits, but it scores zero points in Berlin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently stated, “It is our duty, both legally and morally, to first reduce our massive debt.” And ever since the financial earthquake rocked the world economy two years ago, Germany has been practicing what it preaches: making short-term sacrifices in order to ensure long-term gain. Many of Germany’s European partners, on the other hand—and especially the United States—have mortgaged away long-term stability in search of a temporary, quick-fix stimulus.

And what have we learned after accumulating two years’ worth of data? That Germany’s fiscally disciplined, export-driven economy is now booming. In June, for example, German exports increased by 28.5 percent compared to the same month in 2009. Overall, Germany’s gross domestic product is on track for 3.5 percent growth this year, higher than many analysts had predicted. And unemployment has dropped to 7.5 percent, lower than it’s been in 18 years.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and much of the rest of the industrialized world continues to languish in massive debt, sky-high unemployment and civil unrest. This harsh reality, however, hasn’t stopped the United States from constantly complaining about Germany’s trade surplus with America ($19.9 billion last year) or from criticizing Berlin for its austerity measures during economic distress.

This past week, the constant bickering between Washington and Berlin erupted into a full-scale war of words.

Outspoken German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the Fed’s $600 billion stimulus plan was “clueless” and the results of money printing would be “horrendous.” He warned that the United States had “lived on borrowed money for too long” and that its growth model was in a “deep crisis.” He then scolded the U.S. for its hypocritical stance on currency manipulation. “It’s inconsistent for the Americans to accuse the Chinese of manipulating exchange rates and then to artificially depress the dollar exchange rate by printing money.”

The Financial Times described Schäuble’s outburst as “an extraordinary attack on policies being pursued in Washington.” According to Reuters, one German newspaper concluded that “never before has the Merkel government had such a direct confrontation with the United States.”

In the lead-up to the G-20 summit, which started yesterday in Seoul, South Korea, President Obama and his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were arguing for fixed limits on trade ratios with Germany and China. At a press conference in India this week, Obama said, “We can’t continue to sustain a situation in which some countries are maintaining massive surpluses, others massive deficits, and there never is the kind of adjustments with respect to currency that would lead to a more balanced growth pattern.”

Yesterday, Chancellor Merkel slammed the door shut on any such deal that would curb Germany’s trade surplus. “To set political limits on trade surpluses and deficits is neither economically justified nor politically appropriate,” Merkel said at the summit.

Who could have imagined, even five years ago, Germany standing up to the United States with such bold defiance? As our regular readers know, the prophetic implications of this German resurgence are profound—for America and for the rest of Europe.

Mortished believes the German attack on U.S. monetary policy may tell us more about the future of the eurozone than it does about transatlantic relations or the strength of the dollar. Germany’s fiscal rectitude, he believes, could lead to economic separation of the more financially stable northern members of the eurozone from the debt-laden Club Med states, like Greece, Spain and Portugal.

As we reported in June, Germany and France have already discussed a two-tiered euro system that would allow for the German-led “super-euro” zone to enjoy the benefits of a stronger currency. With the eurozone currently made up of 16 members, this might be an indication of how the biblically prophesied “king of the north” will be whittled down to a core of 10 nations or groups as the Bible says it will be.

At present, the European Union is an oversized conglomerate of disparate parts struggling to dig itself out of a worldwide economic crisis. Look for Germany, as the undisputed strongman of Europe, to downsize the European Union into a much stronger, more manageable consortium of “ten kings.”

Ultimately, as the Bible also prophesies, this German-led superpower will be responsible for starting the next world war!

Yes—today’s cold wars, trade wars and currency wars are tomorrow’s nuclear wars.

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be,” Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:21.

As unimaginable as this might seem to a first-time visitor to this website, think about how preposterous it would have sounded in 1945, when German cities were lying prostrate beneath the rubble and ashes of a devastating defeat—after the Allies divvied up the shattered remains of the once proud nation—after President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill guaranteed that Germany would “never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.”

At that very same time, Herbert W. Armstrong made this bold proclamation: “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! Hitler has lost. This round of war, in Europe, is over. And the Nazis have now gone underground. … They plan to come back and to win on the third try” (Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong, Volume 2).

That’s what Mr. Armstrong said in 1945.

Today, as Stratfor reported on Wednesday, Germany “is beginning to see itself as one of the world powers again—with grand strategies, pawns to sacrifice and everything else that goes along with the title of a chess grand master.”

If this is the way Germany is now beginning to see itself, the question is, where will it lead?