Taking Charge
“We beat the Germans twice, and now they’re back.” British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher allegedly declared these words to an assemblage of European leaders on Dec. 8, 1989, one month after the Berlin Wall fell.
Three months later, Mrs. Thatcher invited historians and politicians to a discussion at her country residence to address the question, “How dangerous are the Germans?” After the seminar, Thatcher’s adviser Charles Powell said that the attendees agreed unanimously that “we should be nice to the Germans.”
Well, it’s not just since the reunification of Germany, but actually for the past 65 years we have been “nice to the Germans.” Nice enough to hand over the denazification process to the Germans within a few years of the end of the world war the Nazis started. Nice enough to the Germans to revive their smashed economy through the Marshall Fund and supply starting fuel for its growth into a postwar miracle. And we have certainly been nice enough to the Germans since reunification to allow them free rein to develop their dream of a United States of Europe.
In fact, France is right now being so nice to the Germans that for the first time since German troops were banished from its soil following the Nazi invasion of World War ii, a battalion of German combat troops is now formally stationed on the eastern border of that nation. This is being touted as “a gesture that showed the two European powers would never clash with guns and bullets” (Xinhua, Dec. 11, 2010).
Well, we’ll see.
But right now, amid a raging crisis for Europe’s currency, the euro, and the ongoing decline of American power, it is the Germans’ turn to be nice to all those who have been nice to them.
But, really, how nice are the Germans being right now?
Stratfor’s Peter Zeihan, in a keen piece of analysis, observed, “What most people haven’t realized in dealing with the European crisis is that in many ways this is a little intentional. … Now, in modern Europe, the Germans are back on the scene.
“They have a foreign policy, they have opinions, and they’re acting upon them. And so their goal is to actually restructure the rules, the laws, the institutions that create the eurozone and make the common currency possible to their own end. And that end does not necessarily mean preventing bailouts, it does not even necessarily mean economic austerity. It’s about making sure Berlin is large and in charge on the Continent” (Dec. 10, 2010; emphasis mine throughout).
The EU in its present form has obviously had its day as far as Germany is concerned. Germany is reasserting its own national sovereignty over and above the collective of the European Union.
In a classic Germanic way, German elites are using Europe’s sovereign debt crisis to bring EU member nations to heel in what will soon prove to be a dramatic restructuring of the EU into 10 specific regions under Berlin’s control. (For an explanation of what informs that statement, request a free copy of our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.)
This theme popped up in a recent Financial Times blog. Under the title “Introducing Greater Germany” was a map of Europe—with countries viewed as German possessions colored blue. “The entire eurozone was blue,” EUobserver wrote. “If you passed over the map with your mouse, a caption popped up: ‘The area formerly known as the eurozone’” (Dec. 9, 2010). This article mused, “Perhaps the author was … suggesting that through the EU’s Bundesbank-inspired economic strictures, Germany, finally, in its third try at it, had managed to rule most of Europe.” Interesting thought.
One thing is certain: The Germans are seizing the moment. Thatcher’s words ring loudly today: Now they’re back.
Irish crisis, German opportunity
Facing economic collapse and at risk of spreading the contagion throughout the eurozone, Ireland caved in to EU elites’ demands to accept a bailout, taking loans of up to around €90 billion on November 21.
This is a hammer blow to Ireland’s national sovereignty. Ireland will now hand over control of much of its budget to Europe. The nation’s economic policy from this point on will be subject to the purview of the EU’s central bankers.
As in the previous Greek bailout, the Irish crisis brought German bullying tactics to the surface. Talk of “hit squads” descending on Ireland to force the EU’s (Berlin’s) will on the benighted Emerald Isle have added to a spreading sense that Germany is in command of the future direction of EU economic and fiscal policy—that the will of the German elites will prevail in the current crisis.
Marko Papic, Stratfor’s analyst for European affairs, declared of the Irish financial crisis: “For Germany the bailout is another opportunity …. The uncertainty about the eurozone and its markets means that the euro is trading lower, which helps German exports immensely. Furthermore, Germany is using the opportunity presented by the crisis to redesign the European Union and its institutions—especially eurozone fiscal rules and the enforcement mechanisms for those rules. The real test for the eurozone therefore is not the panic level in Madrid or Lisbon or Dublin, but rather the extent to which the policymakers in Berlin are concerned” (Nov. 22, 2010).
It is not by accident that the economies of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are failing, risking spread of the contagion to other weaker European nations. It is a direct result of Germany imposing its single currency scheme on Europe!
Berlin and Frankfurt, through their lackeys in Brussels, usurped the means of exchange among European Monetary Union (emu) member nations by replacing their national currencies with the euro. They seized control of setting member nations’ interest rates. The next move is to seize control of their taxation systems. The ultimate third-party control of any EU member nation occurs when, economically exhausted by having sold itself to the emu, the nation rolls over and capitulates to the controllers in Berlin, Brussels and Frankfurt—just like Ireland did in November.
In his book The Breakdown of Europe, Sir Richard Body clearly articulates German intentions behind the monetary union scheme for the European Union: “The objective of a single currency in the European Union … is to integrate formally and irrevocably all the economies of the member states. They will be merged into a single economy under the control of a single authority that will be (de facto if not de jure) a government.”
Thus, the true intent behind the European Monetary Union is to consolidate control by a single entity over all European economies. The grave danger in all this is contained in economist Maynard Keynes’s observation that “Whoever controls the currency controls the government.”
Sir Richard further comments that as the Germanic single currency project matures, “A concentration of power over 350 million people will pass into the hands of a few … the few will be the directors of the [European] central bank.”
Ever wonder why the European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt, Germany, not Brussels as are the other centralized bureaus of the EU?
Dr. Walther Funk, Hitler’s economic affairs minister, planned to have Berlin impose fixed rates of exchange in European countries. Such a plan would work against the growth of other European economies while allowing the Continent’s strongest economy, Germany, to become ever richer, selling its manufactured goods on ever more favorable terms.
German elites have, in reality, imposed the Nazi vision of Dr. Funk on the modern-day economies of the European Union, with exactly the results he envisioned!
Europe’s sovereign debt crisis is simply taking that old Nazi vision one step further. As Marko Papic so rightly stated, it is creating the opportunity for Germany to entirely reshape the European Union to its will.
The current crisis in Europe actually places us on the brink of the imminent fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of the carving up of Europe into 10 specific regions (Revelation 17:12-13), each under a dictatorial power in turn submitting to one overarching government, which the Prophet Daniel labels the king of the north (Daniel 11:13).
Watch for more “Irelands” in the EU over the coming months. And as you watch, note the progressive loss of sovereignty of EU member nations, with the dramatic exception of one—Germany!
Equal partners? Not anymore.
Up until recent times, the strength of the arrangement of convenience between France and Germany has kept designs on European unification alive. For years, the Europe project has represented France’s effort to keep German political ambitions in check, and Germany’s contentment with using France as a foil for its own expansionist goals.
But that is all now changing.
“France used to like to think of itself as equal partners with Germany in Europe. But aren’t these two headed for a clash?” Peter Zeihan responded to the question adamantly: “Definitely. The question is when. At this point, France does not have a better alternative. So long as Germany is willing to consult and even defer to France in many matters, the French are willing to let the Germans have their way with the financial system” (Stratfor, Dec. 10, 2010).
The team at German-Foreign-Policy.com has also highlighted the unhinging of the Franco-German relationship: “France is clearly lagging behind Germany in important targeted regions of its foreign policy,” they wrote, citing a series of recent studies published by the German Council on Foreign Relations. “At the same time, Paris has, for the most part, adopted Berlin’s foreign-policy priorities and—contrary to the 1990s—puts up no resistance to Berlin on basic issues. … France’s loss of political influence vis-à-vis Berlin is in correlation with its growing economic loss of ground vis-à-vis Germany. … Overall, France is pursuing the same line of foreign policy as Germany and has given up previous deviating approaches. But France is clearly lagging behind the European hegemonic power” (Dec. 6, 2010).
The clearest-thinking analysts see this fracturing of the postwar Franco-German platform upon which the EU has been largely built as highly dangerous and opening up the prospect of a more aggressive expansionist foreign policy from Berlin.
Merging militaries: More than just lip service
Having succeeded in uniting Europe economically, commercially, politically and—albeit precarious—financially, Germany is doing what any imperialist power would do as its next move: consolidate its military and security structures. The German government is working to combine the EU’s defense forces under German hegemony.
Deutsche Welle reported that ministers at a European Council defense meeting recently “gave their backing to a German and Swedish plan to analyze areas where more collaboration would be possible” (Dec. 10, 2010). This is entirely consistent with German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s policy of unifying both European defense industries and military forces.
Just last September, EU members agreed to the formation of a European Air Transport Command, a German idea. This plan is certain to open up other initiatives for EU member governments to unify the Continent’s military structure—and it is all being driven by Berlin.
Germany is cleverly using the Continent’s financial troubles to justify this merging of EU military industry and defense capabilities. Defense Minister Guttenberg has declared that the “scarcity of resources in all nations” necessitates the pooling of skills and equipment to support other European states. “The commitment to European defense must be more than just lip service,” Guttenberg wrote in an opinion piece for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily. “By intensifying our military cooperation, we will all benefit in the end” (Dec. 9, 2010).
Translate that statement, “What’s good for Germany is going to be good for all!”
Return of the SS?
The other arm of any imperial power’s security—in addition to military forces for the protection of its own borders and to reach beyond them to colonize weaker powers—is its police force.
German elites, ever ready to convert crisis into opportunity, have now used the terrorist threat as an excuse to consolidate the German state’s policing structure. Already the increased terror threat in the country has resulted in airports, train stations and streets being patrolled by more machine-gun-toting police. Now they want to combine the two federal police forces, the Bundeskriminalamt (bka) and the Bundespolizei, into what some have called a “super-police force.”
Der Tagesspiegel, a Berlin newspaper, sounded the following warning: “There has been a trend, driven by the federal government, since 1990 to centralize the security structure. And this in a country that historically hasn’t had good experience with the centralization of the police. That’s why the merging of the Bundeskriminalamt and the Bundespolizei should be watched carefully” (Dec. 10, 2010). Amen to that.
As Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said, in the words of Financial Times Deutschland, “The reform is necessary to dispose of more than 60 years of duplication.” But that’s exactly the point. It is the duplication, or rather the separation of structures, within the German police force that gives it protection from evolving into something akin to the dreaded SS of Nazi infamy. Now Germany’s Interior Ministry, by posing the prospect of a centralized super-police force, is again putting Germans—and the rest of Europe—at risk of the revival of such a dreaded system.
The United States of Europe
Just what is all this centralizing of power under Berlin going to produce within Europe?
Back in 1997, Hans Tietmeyer, then president of the German Bundesbank, stated to a group of Danish corporate executives that regarding the eurozone project, “Any split in real economic trends would naturally exert pressure in the direction of a transfer and social union, or even of a European ‘superstate.’ … You in Denmark—if I understand it correctly—do not want [it], and … we in Germany—I can assure you—do not want [it] either” (EUobserver, Dec. 9, 2010).
That was 14 years ago. A lot of water has tumbled under the EU bridge since then. And what do we have emerging today? Exactly what Tietmeyer said Germany did not want—an emerging superstate, with a centrally controlled currency, gearing toward a centralized command of a consolidated EU military structure, already possessing a centralized air command, centralizing control of industry standards, and a centralizing police force in the most centralist-minded EU nation of all: Germany.
As EUobserver put it, “It is no exaggeration to ask whether we are living in the last days of the eurozone, or the first days of a United States of Europe” (ibid.).
A United States of Europe!
Sound familiar?
It certainly would had you been one of the multiple millions worldwide who heard a lone voice crying out over the airwaves warning of this prospect throughout the latter half of the 20th century.
A Clarion Warning
Does the name Herbert Armstrong ring a bell? It certainly should to many who lived from the 1930s to the mid-1980s. Through the voice of the World Tomorrow radio and television program, and the pages of the Plain Truth magazine, Herbert Armstrong warned the world for decades of what was about to rise up in Europe.
Thirty-five years ago, Herbert Armstrong warned, “Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe. Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe.”
Five years later, he wrote, “The new giant world power of the United States of Europe—the revived ‘Holy Roman Empire’ of 554 to 1814—could conceivably now emerge to stun the whole world in wonder …. This whole situation is extremely serious. The whole world is aflame and in chaos …. The formation of the United States of Europe … is close at hand” (Good News, January 1980).
A couple of years later he declared in a message to his supporters, “I have known for years (and you have heard me proclaim again, and again, and again) that the United States of Europe is coming. They are going to unite—10 nations in Europe; and the Vatican will be on top of the heap …. All the pieces are falling into place now, all of a sudden …. All are going to look on with absolute dumbfounded wonder when they see this United States of Europe rise up” (Nov. 17, 1982).
Just months before his death on Jan. 16, 1986, Herbert Armstrong again declared in the Plain Truth of June 1985, “This coming ‘United States of Europe’ is the dream of many leaders—not only within Europe, but in Britain and America. The Common Market is only its economic beginning.
“Every indication is that this advance news will be current news. And it will completely stun the world! Yet the Plain Truth has reported this news in advance for the past 51 years!
“Can you envision what that will mean in the world’s balance of power?”
Well we hardly have to imagine that today. Germany is once again the dominant power in Europe. It is back and working hard and fast at the business of once again becoming not only the holder of the balance of power in Europe, but also a dominant world power that will, for a moment in time, tip the global balance of power in its own favor.
It is already happening.
In the run-up to the November G-20 summit, German voices strongly criticized America cranking up the printing presses to try to stave off the inevitable declaration of the bankruptcy of the United States. A couple of Reuters journalists noted that “Berlin has taken the rhetoric to a new level.” They quoted Anton Boerner, head of Germany’s Foreign Trade Association, as observing, “The Atlantic is getting wider” through a “‘creeping alienation’ between America and Europe, which has been exacerbated by the global financial crisis” (Nov. 10, 2010).
It starts with the rhetoric, a war of words—and as it takes its inevitable course, it ends in hot war. That has happened so many times throughout history.
The current U.S. administration is yet to score one foreign-policy success in its two years of existence. In the meantime, Germany is racking up foreign-policy success upon success. It has been doing it from its first excursion into the foreign-policy arena as a united nation, back in 1990, when it recognized Croatia and Slovenia as sovereign states separate from the greater Yugoslavia and promptly sparked the Balkan wars.
Now, Germany is becoming an expansionist military power of note, and it will—courtesy of a consolidated, centralized European military force, incorporating nato assets no doubt—spark more wars in its drive for global power. Queen’s Counsel and former lawyer for the British security services Michael Shrimpton believes that Germany is preparing for hot war within two years, no doubt as it gears up to react to the Islamist terrorist threat.
The results will, yet for a third time, prove disastrous for the rest of the world, in particular the U.S., and Britain with its dominions.
So where will this all lead? One has but to have a mind to history to answer that question in the immediate term.
Yet, the real question to be answered is, where will this all ultimately lead? How will it affect your future and the future of your loved ones?
You need to read our inspiring free booklet The Key of David. It will help unlock the future to you in fantastic detail. It will give you a mind-expanding vision of not only what the immediate future holds. It will expand your vision to see way beyond the coming world chaos to a fantastic future which the Savior of humankind will impose, under the rule of godly law, to finally bring peace to this strife-torn, war-weary world.
That will be a time when all peoples—German, Jew, Israelite, Gentile—will learn to live together in harmony and build a world such as man has only imagined and never achieved: a literal paradise on Earth!
