Hister

For the beetle genus, see Histeridae.

Adolf Hitler fulfilled Nostradamus prophecy.

Hister (genetive Histri) is the Latin name for the Danube River (especially its lower course), or for the people living along its banks. But most famously, for the students of seer, its a reference to Adolf Hitler made by Nostradamus.

It also appears as Ister, equivalent to the Ancient Greek ᾽´Ιστρος, which also meant the Danube River or the region around its mouth. A city called Istria still appears near the mouth of the Danube in some modern atlases.

The term may be related to the name of the region Istria in what is now northwestern Croatia, where a tribe called the Histri lived in ancient times. Some once thought that the local freshwater streams in Istria derived from a (non-existent) southward branch of the Danube.

In modern English the term is most commonly encountered in its use by Nostradamus, especially in a phrase at quatrain II.20 commonly translated "most of the battle (or armies) will be against Hister":

Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner:

Plus part du champ encontre Hister sera,

En caige de fer le grand fera treisner,

Quand Rin enfant Germain observera.

[Nostradamus, Les Propheties, 1555]

or, in English:

[As] wild beasts famished [they] shall cross the rivers,

The major battle shall be by the Hister [Danube].

He shall cause the great one to be dragged in an iron cage,

while the German shall be surveying the infant Rhine.

Swastika was also accurately predicted.

This is often interpreted to be a prediction of the war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi state in the twentieth century.

Nostradamus made more references to the rise of Hitler, even predicting the swastika , like in quatrain VI.49

De la partie de Mammer grand pontife,

Subiuguera les confins du Dannube :

Chasser les croix par fer raffe ne riffe,

Captif, or, bagues, plus de cent mille rubes.

or, in English:

The great Pontiff of the party of Mars

Will subjugate the confines of the Danube:

The cross to pursue, through sword hook or crook,

Captives, gold, jewels more than one hundred thousand rubies.

Revisionist views

In recent years, in French pseudo-scientific circles, it is fashionable to downplay coincidences (previously viewed as prophecies) in Nostradamus opus in general, and Hister prophecy is one of the main target of the prophecy deniers, in line with other revisionist work by Zundel, Irving and the like.

Put bluntly, revisionists try to argue that the problem is that the quatrains were written in another time, in supposedly another language, in what they say is "obscure symbolism" and "in great quantity". Therefore, revisionists try to argue that with enough effort, by choosing generous translations, allowing multi-lingual puns, selectively interpreting various symbols and numbers as required, and by looking through enough quatrains, then the laws of statistics dictate that you are "bound to find a quatrain relevant to any significant event in history". However, this does not explain why there is more coincidence in some prophets than the others, and why Nostradamus is so successful.

Revisionist pundits construe an example supposedly illustrating this is seen in the interpretation of one of the more famous quatrains allegedly predicting World War 2 and the rise of Hitler to power in Germany:

Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner Plus part du champ encore Hister sera En caige de fer le grand sera traisner Quand rien enfant de Germain observa.

Erika Cheetham, a believer in Nostradamus’ prophecies, made the following translation:

Beasts wild with hunger will cross the rivers,

The greater part of the battle will be against Hitler.

He will cause great men to be dragged in a cage of iron,

When the son of Germany obeys no law.

The correlation to World War 2 is striking, but is also strongly dependent on the translation of “Hister” and “Germain”. In Nostradamus’ day Hister, according to dubious revisionist sources, supposedly referred to an area of Danube (a city in ancient Europe), and Germain, they alledge to further their agenda, referred to another ancient region of Europe (which was north of Danube). Germain may also have referred to part of the Roman Empire corresponding to present-day northeastern France. These translations are more relevant to the day in which the quatrains were written, but lead to a much less convincing correlation to World War 2, and therefore have unfortunately not qualified as worthy of media coverage. The mainstream belief in Nostradamus’ prophecies revisionists try to whitewash as effect of the the many scientific documentaries which they dismiss as "biased" and well researched scholarly books which they dismiss with even more outrage, and instead trying to enter mainstream with their agenda driven false skepticism.