Three Men to Watch
What is it about these three Bavarians—Ratzinger, Stoiber and Guttenberg?
All three keep bouncing back into news headlines. Perhaps it’s understandable that Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict xvi, should grab media attention periodically given the consistency of his stoic ultra-conservative stand on Catholic dogma resisting a secularist opposition.
Yet why is it that, despite the fact that neither currently holds political office, elder statesman Edmund Stoiber and “distinguished statesman” Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg should continue to pop up in the news?
Pope Benedict’s highly successful recent visit to Germany consummated in a muted and grudging admission by Germany’s leftist press organs that the Bavarian ex-member of the Hitler Youth did have profound effect on German minds searching for a moral anchor within their nation’s current state of crisis.
This pope has thrown down the gauntlet to Protestants, Muslims, homosexuals, pro-choicers and their ilk with the clear message that Rome is unyielding in its stand against them and intent on crusading for a return of Germany to its Romish religious roots. In so doing, Ratzinger has paved the way for an aggressive push by Roman Catholicism to take over the European heartland.
He will not waver in this crusade. Watch for the German masses to begin to trickle back to mother Rome. The trickle may end with a rush to its arms when Germany’s current leadership vacuum is filled with the prophesied leader who will lead them to a final short period of global dominance.
So what about Edmund Stoiber and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg?
Within days of each other last week, both Stoiber and Guttenberg were in the news. Edmund Stoiber’s 70th birthday celebrations made headlines in Germany for both the size and elite nature of the guest list. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg made press and mass media headlines in the United States for his acceptance of a position with the prestigious Center for Strategic and Intelligence Studies in New York, as a “distinguished statesman” working in the interests of strengthening cross-Atlantic ties between the U.S. and a German-dominated Europe.
Foremost among the reported thousand guests at Stoiber’s birthday bash were Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Christian Social Union (csu) head Horst Seehofer and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, among many other dignitaries. This array of active politicians on both the German and EU fronts seems to indicate recognition of the prospect that Stoiber is far from being a spent force on the political scene.
Add to this Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s telephoned birthday greetings together with his personal invitation for the elder statesman to visit him in Russia, and there does appear to be a reason for our continuing to watch Edmund Stoiber within the current climate of political crisis in Germany and Europe. We intend to continue to watch this man closely as the European Union reconstructs itself via its current euro crisis.
Then, across the water, a bit more than half the age of Edmund Stoiber, settling in to a temporary stateside abode and a new job, is his fellow csu party member, the Bavarian baron of film star image, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.
Having broken into the headlines in New York at the 9/11 anniversary observance—their first public appearance since relocating temporarily to Connecticut—Guttenberg and his attractive aristocratic wife seem to be destined to rapidly become the darlings of the New York cocktail set. Aiding in this is the New York bureau of Germany’s Bild newspaper.
Bild was where Guttenberg took a turn at an internship during his student days. This newspaper was instrumental in developing the high-profile media image that surrounded the Guttenbergs during the young baron’s period in political office within Chancellor Merkel’s coalition government.
But it was the press release by the New York-based think tank the Center for Strategic and Intelligence Studies, announcing its acquiring the services of Guttenberg as “distinguished statesman” with the brief to enhance cross-Atlantic ties, that caught the headlines last week.
A hardly better position could be imagined for further preparing this bright young aspirant for senior political leadership for a future invitation from his home country to return and help raise both the morale and the prestige of the German nation when its current crisis peaks. By then Guttenberg will have gained much more knowledge about the internal machinations of Washington, the various personalities involved in governmental decision making within America, together with the ways and means of penetrating U.S. security.
There is a reason why we watch these three Bavarians—Ratzinger, Stoiber and Guttenberg. They all share a common vision. It is the vision propounded by Stoiber’s mentor, Franz Josef Strauss, which matched that of the recently deceased Otto von Habsburg. It’s a Holy Roman imperial vision—a vision that has Rome as the spiritual glue that will hold together a revival, a literal resurrection, of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
These men are obviously sincere in their intentions to revive German imperial greatness, as they see it being the only way out of the great confusion that currently reigns morally, economically, financially and politically within the European Union in its present form. They are of the ilk of visionary statesmen who are prepared to await their moment to be called upon by the great German nation of historic renown to revive its imperial ambitions.
Watch these men. We do not condemn them in their sincere aspirations to be instrumental in returning Europe to a semblance of stability. Indeed, from a human perspective their objectives may be seen as admirable, in particular when considering the current political ineptitude of the Anglo-Saxon nations together with their dramatic spiritual and moral decline.
However, we do understand Bible prophecy, the revelation that forecasts the terrible result of the drive by European elites to impose a new order on the world in the wake of the inevitable failure of the current global system. We do understand the power—a power higher than man—that drives men to fulfill such a goal (Revelation 13 and 17). And we do comprehend, in detail, its outcome, that the horror of this system’s end will be the harbinger of the coming of the ultimate global order under the rulership of the Son of God! (Isaiah 9:6-7).
So, once more we are led to encourage our readers to watch and listen to our editor in chief, Gerald Flurry, as he in turn watches and comments from time to time on these three Bavarians—Joseph Ratzinger, vicar of Rome, Edmund Stoiber, elder statesman cast in the mold of Franz Josef Strauss, and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, baron of the Holy Roman Empire.
They may all figure prominently in the final formation of the seventh—and final—resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire.
