German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains one of the most powerful and influential leaders in the world, and Germany holds a great deal of sway among its NATO partners and in the United Nations. Modern Germany has built its leading position on strong, responsible fiscal policies and relative internal peace. Yet with such a checkered past in terms of racial violence, that peace can be fleeting.

While racial tensions and violence will continue to be an issue in Germany, where some still harbor resentment over the two World War defeats in the past century, neo-Nazi groups are upping the ante in terms of spreading terror among immigrant populations and asylum seekers.

Der Speigel, Germany’s top newsmagazine, recently reported on the resurgence of racially motivated violence and harassment in parts of the country: “Germany these days is a nation split in two. On the one side is a populace that is showing greater solidarity with refugees than ever seen before . . . The other half of the country is extremely difficult to tolerate in some places.

“Racist violence is on the rise. The German Interior Ministry registered 173 instances of criminal right-wing offenses against accommodations for asylum-seekers during the first six months of this year, almost three times as many as during the same period the previous year” (“Is the Ugly German Back? Flames of Hate Haunt a Nation,” July 24, 2015).

Europe in general is an increasingly unsafe place for some minorities, including European Jews, who are facing a wave of anti-Semitism even in generally more tolerant places such as France, let alone more traditional hotbeds of discrimination such as Greece. This world is currently under the sway of Satan, who hates human beings and does all he can to inspire us to destroy ourselves (2 Corinthians 4:4). Thankfully, Satan will at last be deposed, his rule brought to an end, when Jesus Christ returns to usher in a new era of peace for all mankind. (Source: Der Spiegel).