The results of Germany’s election stunned many because of the success of the party commonly referred to as AfD (which in English stands for “Alternative for Germany”):
September 26, 2017
For all its orderly, prosperous modernity, Germany remains shadowed by memories of World War II and the horrors of Nazism. Now, for the first time in the country’s postwar history, a far-right party — with a roster that includes some candidates who embraced anti-Semitism and espoused neo-Nazi views — will enter the lower house of Parliament, or Bundestag.
Alternative for Germany, known by its initials AfD, won 12.6% of the vote in Sunday’s election, coming in third place after the conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats. …
Hailing the vote result, one of the party’s leaders, Alexander Gauland, vowed to “take back our country and our people.”
How did this party get started?
The party was founded in 2013, cobbled together under the umbrella of vehement opposition to the European Union and its common currency, the euro, together with sharp condemnations of German taxpayer funding of bailouts for what was seen as a feckless Greece. But it was the AfD’s anti-immigrant stance that put it on the map. …
What does it mean for the rest of Europe?
Some of the ground that AfD gained in this election came at the expense of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union party, leaving her in a weakened position as she forms a coalition government. …
By the numbers alone — AfD is forecast to be allotted 94 seats out of 709 in Parliament — the party should wield considerable clout. …
AfD’s greatest influence, analysts say, may lie in continuing to move political discourse to the right, forcing others to adopt a milder version of some of its stances. Its rise, for example, is widely viewed as having forced Merkel to take steps to stem immigration, including a deal with Turkey, strongly denounced by human rights groups, to choke off refugee flows. …
Before the vote, Gauland shattered a taboo when he said Germany should be proud of its military’s “achievements” in World War II. And an AfD leader in Thuringia state, Bjoern Hoecke, has urged a “U-turn” in how Germany’s Nazi past is remembered. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fg-germany-far-right-20170926-story.html
26 September 2017
The entry of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Bundestag (German parliament) has shocked many Germans, but the anti-immigration party’s surge has also unsettled Muslim migrants in Germany. … The party raised anti-refugee slogans and held protests against what they deem the “Islamization” of Germany. http://www.dw.com/en/far-right-afds-surge-worries-muslim-refugees-in-germany/a-40688641
September 26 2017
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, AfD voters were primarily motivated by fears of terrorism, fears of crime and dissatisfaction with the influx of asylum seekers into Germany since the 2015 crisis.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Perhaps key to understanding the lurch to the right is the indication that the majority of AfD voters say they made their decision not based on belief in the party, but rather as a reaction to their disappointment in the other parties. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-25/why-germans-voted-far-right-afd
An anti-Islamic party, which reminds people of Adolf Hitler’s party made significant gains in the German election. While 12.6% of the vote does not seem like much, consider that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP) rose from obscurity to win 18.3 per cent of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election when Germany had major economic problems. The AfD won 94 parliamentary seats. Do not think a small showing means that a party or its ideas have little traction.
The reasons that German voters gave suggest that many in Germany want a strong leader to stand up against crime, terrorism, and Islam.
Such as leader will come.
The comment that AfD’s rise is a “reaction to their disappointment in the other parties” is consistent with such a view. And that is a major reason why the AfD gained influence.
Notice the following:
A former member of Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s government said Monday he’s concerned about the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has secured a place in the Bundestag for the first time.
“It is a movement. It is a protest movement,” said Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who served as economics minister and then defense minister in Merkel’s administration from 2009 to 2011.
“Part of this movement are people who are racist. Part of this movement are people who are openly anti-Semitic. Part of this movement are people who use language that we have heard in Germany about 80 years ago,” Guttenberg said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” a day after Merkel got enough votes to win a fourth term as chancellor.
But the AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote. The party, founded only four years ago, will be the first right-wing nationalist party to enter the German parliament since World War II.
“It’s not enough to stay silent” and hope the AfD goes away on its own, Guttenberg said. “So we have to be outspoken and clear about the risks that emerge out of such a group of people. And that’s the task Germany has ahead of it.” https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/german-far-right-afd-party-raises-concerns-about-nazi-ideology-of-the-past-warns-ex-merkel-official.html
Herr Guttenberg is denouncing the AfD, but I suspect, in time, he will promote something even worse (see Might German Baron Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg become the King of the North?). Herr Guttenberg, perhaps it should be pointed out, was the former Minister of Defense for Germany.
Notice something from an Israeli news source related to the :
The real danger in the AfD and their ilk is not how similar they are to 1930s-style Nazism, but just how comfortably a political party whose leader calls on Germans to be proud of their soldiers in both world wars fits in to today’s political scene. 09/25/17 http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-1.814206
The Bible shows that a militaristic leader called the Beast will arise and become militarily successful (Revelation 13:1-4). Germans will be comfortable, for a time again, with such a militarily successful leader.
French President Macron made some comments in a speech today:
September 26, 2017
France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said the European Union should embrace a joint budget, shared military force and harmonised taxes to stay globally relevant. …
“The Europe that we know is too slow, too weak, too ineffective,” he said.
To change that, he proposed a joint budget for European countries sharing the euro currency that would allow investment in European projects and help stabilise the eurozone in case of economic crisis. …
Mr Macron also proposed a shared European military intervention force and defence budget. http://www.irvinetimes.com/news/15558889.Emmanuel_Macron_calls_for_joint_eurozone_budget_in_plea_for_greater_unity/
September 26, 2017
Macron is going all-in on European integration in a speech today.
- A group dedicated to the “re-foundation of Europe” to launch in the coming weeks
- Why not gives ourselves the aim to fully integrate French and German markets by 2024 and harmonize respective laws
- Calls for single European military
- Eurozone needs its own budget to finance joint investments and ensure stability against economic shocks
- Wants to re-launch European financial transaction tax plan
- Wants to gradually create European border police
This speech has been continuing for more than an hour. He’s at Sorbonne University in Paris.
He’s basically calling for a full-scale United States of Europe. https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/macron%20%22united%20states%20of%20europe%22/macron%20%22united%20states%20of%20europe%22?hl=en&ned=us
We in the CCOG have always expected a type of United States of Europe. Furthermore, when Europe was still recovering from being devastated in World War II, after attending a conference related to the start of the UN, in the December 1948 issue of The Plain TruthHerbert W. Armstrong predicted a coming “United States of Europe” when he wrote:
It was the SERMON that shot forth that spark, impregnating the minds of world leaders in attendance. This amazing sermon was delivered by a foremost radio speaker of the Catholic Church, Bishop Duane G. Hunt of Salt Lake City … Without the guidance, supervision, authority of the Catholic Church, he told these men, they were laboring in vain …
This was the Roman Catholic bid to resurrect the so-called “HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE” ! And PROPHECY says they will succeed! … At the psychological time, the pope will step in … Thru this political movement, he will UNIFY … nations in Europe. It will be a “The UNITED STATES OF EUROPE,” but that probably will never become its official name. (Armstrong HW. Now It Can Be Told…The Plain Truth,December 1948, pp. 2,5).
Europe currently, looks divided and unequal in various ways. Yet, the Bible prophesied that:
41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:41-43)
The Bible is showing that there will be a unity problem with Europe. It will take a strong leader to make Europe’s coming, temporary, unity stronger.
The election of US President Donald Trump is one factor that is pushing Europe to unify. A few days ago, the German publication Deutsche Welle (DW) published the following:
21 September 2017
Germany’s Sigmar Gabriel slams Donald Trump’s ‘national egoism’ in UN speech
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned against “national egoism” in world politics on Thursday in his first speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
“This worldview describes the world as an arena, a kind of battleground, in which everyone is fighting against everyone else and in which everyone has to assert their own interests, either alone or in alliances of convenience,” Gabriel told world leaders.
“The motto: ‘Our country first’ only leads to more national confrontations and less prosperity. In the end, there will only be losers,” he said, in a thinly veiled reference to US President Donald Trump’s oft-repeated slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Gabriel’s speech rejected Trump’s previous remarks to the world body that encouraged world leaders to primarily consider their country’s own interests, reiterating his statement that he will be putting “America first” when it comes to foreign policy.
“We have learned that it was not ‘Germany first’ that made our country strong and prosperous. Rather, it was only ‘European and international responsibility first’ that gave us Germans peace and prosperity,” Gabriel said. …
In an interview with DW, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that her government had a “clear disagreement with Trump over North Korea.” She went on to offer to mediate between world powers and Pyongyang to reach a diplomatic solution to the crisis. http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-sigmar-gabriel-slams-donald-trumps-national-egoism-in-un-speech/a-40634957
German leaders continue to point to Donald Trump as a reason to work on Germany’s international ambitions. Germany wants to expand its influence and command a more powerful Europe.
Donald Trump makes a good ‘foil’ as many in Germany and Europe despise him so much that doing anything differently than Donald Trump is often considered a positive. Europe has relied on US leadership since World War II–it will one day turn to a strong leader to lead it, separately from the USA.
The old Worldwide Church of God published the following decades ago (bolding mine):
Watch the emergence of a strong man in West Germany (Hogberg G and Walter EM. NATO at the Crossroads. Plain Truth, May 1969)
The prophecy of Daniel 11 details events — at that time, still future — from the remaining days of the Medo-Persian empire, through the reign of Alexander the Great and his successors in Syria and Egypt, and on through to the second coming of Christ! Beginning in verse 40 we read of a conflict between two great powers: “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind….”
This is an important “end-time” prophecy. Following the chronological progression of the chapter, it becomes apparent that the phrase “king of the north” had at first referred to Syria under the Seleucid dynasty, and later, in the New Testament times, to the Emperor of the Roman Empire. … Thus, in its final end-time application, the “king of the north” is the prophesied strong man who will lead a coming union of ten European nations — the seventh and final revival of the ancient Roman Empireprophesied by Daniel and in the book of Revelation (see Revelation 17:12-13). (Stump K. THE ARAB WORLD IN PROPHECY. Plain Truth, December 1979)
The Bible shows that the European beast leader, also called the King of the North, will arise promising peace.
21 And in his place shall arise a vile person, to whom they will not give the honor of royalty; but he shall come in peaceably, and seize the kingdom by intrigue. 22 With the force of a flood they shall be swept away from before him and be broken, and also the prince of the covenant. 23 And after the league is made with him he shall act deceitfully, for he shall come up and become strong with a small number of people. (Daniel 11:21-23, NKJV)
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. (Daniel 8:25, KJV).
The Bible specifically shows that a reorganization will come to Europe and power will be given to that dictator:
12 “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. 13 These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. (Revelation 17:12-13)
(More on the reorganization is discussed in the article: Must the Ten Kings of Revelation 17:12 Rule over Ten Currently Existing Nations?)
The “Beast” leader is the one who becomes the final King of the North(cf. Daniel 11:21-44).
(To prove this leader must be European, please watch the video: Can You Prove that the Beast to Come is European?)
What about the view that this dictatorial leader will be German?
Biblical prophecy indicates that this leader will be at least partially Germanic (Isaiah 10:5-12; see also Germany’s Assyrian Roots Throughout History and Germany in Biblical Prophecy).
Other people are starting to notice that Europe is already being dominated by Germany (see ‘Undemocratic’ European Union has become a German empire). And many in Europe want that.
The situation with Islamic migrants in Europe as well as issues with the USA will be factors in Europeans turning towards a dictatorial power.
While the AfD has its own problems, its rise is demonstrating that Germans are becoming less tolerant of Islam than many thought.
War is Coming Between Europeans and Arabs.
But, perhaps it should be noted that the Bible shows that war (Daniel 11:40-43) will come AFTER the Europeans successfully war against the USA and its Anglo-Saxon dominated allies (cf. Daniel 8:24-25; 11:39).
The rise of AfD reminds many of pre-WWII. We are getting closer and closer to WWIII.
