NOSTRADAMUS, ASTROLOGY AND THE BIBLE
SUBSTUDY "WORLD WAR II"
Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa
(K.E. Krafft, Madrid, 1941 [1940])
- T.W.M. van Berkel -

• Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas (K.E. Krafft, Berlin, 1940)
• Comment Nostradamus a-t-il entrevu l'avenir de l'Europe? (K.E. Krafft, Brussels, 1941 [1940])
• Nostradamus forudser Europas Fremtid (K.E. Krafft, Copenhagen, 1941 [1940])

Spain in World War II
In World War I, Spain was neutral, but divided. Rightists, especially the Church, were against France, whereas leftists sympathised with the Allies. 
The years after World War I were filled with revolutionary actions, in which anarchists and socialists increased their influence, until on September 13, 1923, general Primo de Rivera, by approval of king Alfonso XIII, seized power. Under his regime, which took the regime of Mussolini as an example, Spain became a totalitarian nation. The parliament was disbanded, the freedom of press and civilian rights were abandoned. In 1929, people increasingly resisted. In January 1930, Primo de Rivera was replaced by general Berenguer. In April 1931, the Republicans won the municipal elections. Alfonso XIII fled abroad and Spain became a republic with France as an example. In November 1933, a coalition of rightists won the elections. In 1934, rightists and leftists started to fight each other. Republican and anarchistic parties joined together in the People's Front, which in 1936 won the elections. As a result, the social tenses increased and people began to fight in the streets. On July 17, 1936, from Spanish Morocco, the Spanish army seized power. As a reaction, Spanish labourers started a revolution. This was the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, which ended on April 1, 1939, with the victory of the nationalists, led by general Francisco Franco y Bahamonde. Until his death in 1975, Franco ruled Spain as a dictator, supported by the Falange, the only allowed political movement, in which all right-wing forces were united.
In World War II, Franco supported the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, but he did not join the war.

Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa 
In 1941, Ediciones Españoles S.A. publishers, seated in Madrid, Almagro 40, published Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa, the Spanish translation of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, a national-socialist propagandistic comment upon the Centuries, meant to influence the Spanish people. Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas was written between May 28 and June 30, 1940 by the Swiss astrologer/statistician Karl Ernst Krafft (Basel, 1900 - Buchenwald, 1945), by order of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, represented by dr. Werner Wilmanns, in charge of the Inf IV section. On most lately August 19, 1940, the final German source text was finished.
Most likely, the Spanish translation of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas was made in Spain. In his letter of August 20, 1940, which accompanied the sending of copies, meant for abroad, of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, the author, Simon, recommended to have Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas translated abroad, for quality reasons. He also wrote that Krafft, who had sufficient knowledge of the French language, would translate Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas into French.[1]
Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa was printed at Diana Artes Graficas, seated in Madrid, Larra 6.

Contents of Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa
Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa is a bound booklet of 147 pages with b/w illustrations. The division of the text of Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa into chapters and paragraphs corresponds with Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas. The table of contents of Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa can be found on the last page, in contrast with Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas. 

Illustration material
To Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, enclosures were added with twelve pictures with corresponding letter presses, and with photocopies, taken from the "1940-Krafft-copy" (a photocopy, made by Krafft, of a 1568-B.Rigaud-edition of the Centuries) of four paragraphs of the Epistle to Henry II and the French quatrain text of the 35 quatrains, discussed in Nostradus sieht die Zukunft Europas. This material had to be included in the translated editions of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas. It looks as if the foreign publishers to some extent could arrange this material the way in which they thought it was the best.

The cover
Like the cover of the Hungarian and Portuguese translation of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, the cover of Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa contains a portrait of Nostradamus, taken from the book by the French Century-scholar Bareste, published in 1840. This portrait is also depicted on page 5.

Illustrations 
In Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa, all illustrations which were included in the enclosure to Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, are used. Each illustration has its proper letter press, translated from the letter press, given in Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas.

• p.5: portrait of Nostradamus (uit: Bareste, 1840)

• p.13: title page of the German translation by the physician Jeremias März in Augsburg of two medical publications by Nostradamus (1589)

• p.17: cover of a 1557-DuRosne-edition of the Centuries

• p.21: cover of a 1568-B.Rigaud-edition of the Centuries, used by Krafft as a source text and published in October - November 1940 as a photocopy (the 1940-Krafft-copy)

• p.23: cover of the 1650-Leiden-edition of the Centuries

• p.25: cover of the 1668-Amsterdam-edition of the Centuries

• p.27: title page of the 1689-Cologne-edition of the Centuries

• p.41: map of the supposed escape-route in 1791 of the French king Louis XVI from Paris to Varennes

• p.49: picture of a woodcut, showing the arrest on June 22, 1791 of Louis XVI in Varennes

• p.75: horoscope figure for May 10, 1940

• p.79: ephemeris page May 1940

• p.131: horoscope figure general Franco

French Century-texts
Alle quatrains, discussed in Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, are also discussed in Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa. To Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa, no quatrains were added. In contrast with the Danish translation of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, no photocopies of French quatrain texts, taken from the 1940-Krafft-copy, which were part of the illustration material in Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, were added to the quatrain discussions. These quatrain texts were composed again and provided with quatrain numbers. In Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa, the quatrains 08-37 and 10-22, which in Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas were numbered erroneously as VII-37 and X-27, were numbered correctly.
In Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, Krafft extensively discussed three paragraphs in the Epistle to Henry II in which was written about the rise after 1792 of Italy, the rise of Romania, Germania and Spain and their future power. The enclosures contained photocopies of these paragraphs, taken from the 1940-Krafft-copy. In Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa, these photocopies were composed again. 

The message of Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa
In Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa, the text of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas was translated completely, without additions or omissions. Therefore, the message of Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europais identical with the one of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas: according to Krafft, Nostradamus foresaw in detail all important successful German political manoeuvres and battle (the rise of Hitler, the adding to Germany of the Rhineland, Austria and Bohemia, the invasions in Poland and Scandinavia and the beginning on May 10, 1940, of the Westfeldzug) as well as the fact that Italy would join the war and that France would capitulate. According to Krafft, Nostradamus could predict facts of the far future and the future perspective he derived from the Centuries, inevitably would become true: England would suffer from famine and military defeat, would lose North-Ireland and eventually would disappear from the world theatre. Germany would win the war and would become the leading power in Europe. Hitler would persecute the Jews, the alien race in Europe. 
Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa is not focused on the country in which it was going to be spread, in contrast with a number of translations of the German Nostradamusbrochure, written in November - December 1939 by Hans-Wolfgang Herwarth von Bittenfeld, prof. dr. Karl Bömer and Leopold Gutterer, managers in Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda.[2]

An outdated propaganda message
The translations of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas, a text, written in May-June 1940 and dealing with the battle between Germany and England, Germany's only remaining adversary, were published in 1941, i.e. with a delay of almost one year, in a period in which there were no German campaigns on the European continent and the battle with England was at a low ebb. According to these translations, the battle on the northern front resulted in a victory for Germany, which meant that only one front was left, the western front, where Germany inevitably would win the war. In 1941, however, Germany did not defeat England and by invading Russia in June 1941 opened a second front, the eastern front. This meant that the description of the war in the translations of Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas became outdated, which might have had a negative impact on the propaganda in these brochures. Krafft had written nothing about Russia and had made not one allusion which could be explained as a prediction of Operation Barbarossa, as the German invasion in Russia is called.

Quatrains, discussed in Nostradamus predice el porvenir de Europa

Notes

1. Van Berkel: Nostradamus sieht die Zukunft Europas (K.E.Krafft, Berlin, 1940). Ediciones Españolas S.A. in Madrid also published the series Historia de la cruzada Española uitgegeven, (1940 ff), in which a.o. the Spanish Civil War was discussed. [text]

2. Van Berkel: The German source text of ao Hoe zal deze oorlog eindigen? (H.-W. Herwarth von Bittenfeld, prof. dr. K. Bömer and L. Gutterer, Berlin, 1940 [1939]). [text]