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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 8, 1983
PAGE 13
It was not by mere chance that the words "of the German nation"
came to be added to the title [ the Holy Roman Empire of the German
nation]. Germany was the country best fitted to be the home base
of the empire. In the very center of the European land mass it
formed, then as now, the geographical, economic, and political
heart of Europe.
The Reich [ as in das Heilige Roemische Reich, or Holy Roman
Empire 1 is not a kingdom: a kingdom is a qualified Reich, a
Koenigreich. Etymologically the word "Reich" is cognate with the
English "rich." But there is nothing crassly material about the
Reich: it is mantled in a vague solemn dignity that is other
worldly. To call the Reich holy [heilig] is almost repetitious.
Reich is a semantic and conceptual bridge to "Himmelreich," the
Heavenly Kingdom. With the lateral transfer of the Holy Roman
Empire to Germany the Germans became the people chosen by God to
implement the Christianization of the world, beginning with
Europe. "Germany" became synonymous with the Reich, with the
Kingdom of God on Earth (a development that made the confronta
tion between Germans and Jews all but inevitable: one chosen
people versus another chosen people)••..
So the dream of the . Holy Roman Empire has remained. _!! has be
musecr - ever � � enerat1on of Germans since Charlemagne.
It has
beckoned an ewitched every German leader worth or not worth his
salt, ranging in terms of merit and ability all the way from
Barbarossa to "Kaiser Bill." The dream has proved to be an ir
resistible attraction and by no means only to Germans and their
far-flung relatives.... Napoleon realized this early in his
career and accepted it. Indeed, the empire was virtually thrust
upon Napoleon as a matter of course by German princes....
After Hitler had annexed Austria and, in conscious or unconscious
imitation of the medieval German emperors, traveled to Rome with
fitting pomp to negotiate with Il Duce, the German press erupted
in headlines proclaiming the Holy Roman Empire of the German
Nation. During Christmas 1942, when the blitzkrieg had become a
protracted bloodbath, there appeared in the FRANKFURTER ZEITUNG
an editorial under the title "The Empire Put to Proof."
The
point of reference was the Holy Roman Empire. "This," ran the
editorial, "was a supra-national European order in which a
variety of culturally different peoples were subordinated to the
German emperor•..."
Very few news analysts (Dr. Brzezinski and William Pfaff are notable
exceptions) really see what is happening now in Europe. Even these men will
be surprised as to the ultimate outcome. Truly the scripture says: "And
they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in
the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the
beast that was, and is not, and yet is" (Rev. 17:8).
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau