Europe recently mourned the death of one of its most famous aristocrats, a champion of European unification, Otto von Habsburg. It was notably ironic that his death occurred on July 4, America’s Independence Day—the celebration of the birth of the American republic. That day has historically marked America’s freedom from oppression and the success of its struggle as a new nation. Habsburg sought a new Europe, a United States of Europe, free of tyranny and of its past proclivity for war.

Habsburg’s funeral mass was conducted with pomp and pageantry on July 16 at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, followed by a procession of 10,000 mourners. Reporting on his funeral, CatholicCulture.org wrote, “Archbishop Peter Stephan Zurbriggen, the apostolic nuncio in Vienna, read a message from Pope Benedict xvi praising the late Otto von Habsburg—who had become a prominent member of the European Parliament and a bitter opponent of both fascists and Communists—as ‘a great European.’”

The pope is well aware that Habsburg shared the Vatican’s passion for a Catholic heart beating at the center of Europe. A descendent of the house of Habsburg, which dynasty ruled the fourth resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire during the 16th to 19th centuries, Habsburg renounced all his official titles after World War ii and became a member of the European Parliament. Yet he remained very conscious of the reality that, as cited in his book The Social Order of Tomorrow, “The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live …. We possess a European symbol which belongs to all nations of Europe equally; this is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which embodies the tradition of Charlemagne.”

Habsburg’s heart may have stopped beating on July 4, however not his royal family tradition of its dead having their heart placed in a silver urn and buried separately in a location deeply rooted in his family heritage, the nation of Hungary. Though he lived in Bavaria after the war, that family heritage was shared between Austria and Hungary. Now, as he leaves behind him a powerful legacy of pro-unionism in Berlin/Brussels, his body is interred in Austria and his heart in Hungary. The shadow Habsburg casts over European unification is long. Thus the hopes and fears respecting unification as expressed by this European patriarch during his long lifetime are worthy of consideration.

The recent financial crisis in Europe and Germany’s stance taken on July 22 on the euro crisis, with its powerful ongoing implications for all eurozone member nations, reminded me of a 1984 visit by Herbert Armstrong to Europe and a private meeting he had with this last official emperor of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. During that private meeting, Mr. Armstrong inquired, “Dr. Von Habsburg, I wonder if you could bring me up to date a little bit on the progress of the unification project here in Europe.”

Habsburg responded: “…[W]e have of course made a major breakthrough with the enlargement, with the accession of Spain and Portugal—this was a major breakthrough. You see I have a little bit directly to do with it since as I am the first vice president of the Mixed Committee between the European Parliament and the Spanish quarters—so I was in the negotiations.”

One of Mr Armstrong’s aides then asked a question as to which would be the strongest body within the combine once unification was achieved. Would it be one particular nation, or Europe’s parliament?

To this, Habsburg responded: “I hope it would be balanced. I think there is a fair chance of it being balanced. You see I wouldn’t be happy about any of the powers being too strong, they should all be checking each other. Because if a power runs away with too much influence it’s always dangerous. You know, it’s like in a state, it’s the same thing—the checks and balances are something very important to keep freedom.”

Habsburg hoped for peace; he planned for peace and labored to see the European Union as an institution that would supply the “checks and balances” to maintain peace among its member nations. Yet he warned against the danger of the domination of Europe by any one single power. Has his fear been realized? What’s happened to the checks and balances? Is one nation now dominating Europe? Is one nation now running away with its power and as such changing the very balance of power in Europe, overriding those checks and balances that Habsburg felt were required to guarantee freedom?

In his article “The Holy Roman Empire Is Back!” our editor in chief Gerald Flurry declared: “The Holy Roman Empire became official Jan. 1, 2010. On that date, the European Union implemented its diplomatic service and appointed other officials. That made the Holy Roman Empire official. Now they have already begun to build their own military, which is destined to become a world-shaking superpower! The EU constitution was signed in November 2009. It is far from being a democratic constitution. The EU is absolutely domineered by Germany—a nation that started World Wars i and ii!”

Observers of Germany are noticing its sudden swing from being once publicly pro-EU to becoming very focused on overtly pushing its own national interests to the fore. As one source reported, “Of late, a cycle of hand-wringing over Germany has sprouted in wonkish foreign-affairs journals. … At bottom, the fear is that after a half-century of moving in concert with other Western powers, Germany may be reverting to historical form—putting its own strategic and commercial interests first, however destabilizing for the rest of the world” (National Catholic Reporter,July 27).

It is becoming patently obvious that today’s EU is undeniably dominated by one country, one government, one Mittleuropa power bloc—a united Germany. That is not what Otto Von Habsburg had hoped for, conscious as he was of living through the horrors of the Nazi onslaught in Europe during World War ii. Yet, it would now seem that a real fear that he harbored regarding European unification, according to what he told Herbert Armstrong, has now been realized.

That “Iron Lady” of Britain, Margaret Thatcher, just four years following German reunification declared back in 1993, “You have not anchored Germany to Europe. You have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.” Europe has witnessed a subtle coup d’etat in which Germany has come full circle, realizing the long-held dream of its old World War ii elites of rising from the ashes of defeat at the close of the war to become today’s undisputed master of Europe.

In our article “Habsburg—Heir to an Empire Dies,” we noted how Habsburg’s vision of a resurrected Holy Roman Empire is shared by certain present-day German elites:

It is a dream shared and perpetuated by such Bavarians as the elder statesman Edmund Stoiber and the as-yet-still-most-popular political personage in Germany, despite his current withdrawal from active politics, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, baron of the Holy Roman Empire. The one is a seasoned and accomplished politician, the other an aristocrat possessing impeccable connections in the upper echelons of European society, especially the dynasties that once ruled the nations of Europe. What a formidable team they would make if they were ever brought together at the forefront of European politics.

As regular readers are aware, we have warned and encouraged our readers to watch for a powerhouse Germany to continue calling the shots over the slow-motion train wreck that has become of the euro currency; to watch for that nation to soon weary of the bloc’s weaker nations, including anti-Euro Britain; to watch for the sudden rise of a German-centric, Vatican-guided, streamlined United States of Europe to replace today’s cumbersome 27-nation EU; and to watch for that powerful European empire to have the stamp of the making and design of both Rome and Berlin etched deeply into its core.

Now it is laid bare for all to see!

Gone is the balance of power in Europe. We now see a singular entrenched power that “runs away with too much influence.” Removed are the checks and balances required “to keep freedom.” Before our very eyes we now see that Otto von Habsburg’s fear has been realized: the domination of a united Europe by a single great power—Germany. And we do not have to go too far back in history to predict the end result of Germany becoming the dominant power in Europe!