Source of the Danube
As early as 1847 the following definition can already be found in the "Universallexikon des Großherzogtums Baden" (Universal Lexicon of the Grand Duchy of Baden): “Danube, the biggest river of Germany, rises at the Martinskapelle in a wild and lonely area of the Black Forest, is called Brege at its origin and forms the river Danube in Donaueschingen where it is unified with the Brigach." (German original: „Donau, der größte Fluß Deutschlands, entspringt bei der Martinskapelle in einer wilden und einsamen Gegend des Schwarzwaldes, heißt am Anfang Brege… und bildet erst in Donaueschingen, wo sie sich mit der Brigach vereinigt, die Donau.“)
Hister
This is often interpreted to be a prediction of the war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi state in the twentieth century. However, none of the reputable sources listed support this view. In fact all of them point out that the name 'Hister' (as Nostradamus himself explains in his Almanac for 1554) in fact refers in his writings to the Danube, being mentioned (as elsewhere) alongside 'R[h]in' (Rhine) – two rivers that formed the north-eastern frontier of the ancient Roman Empire. "Un bien sçavant homme dans ce dernier quart se pourmenant le long de la riviere Hister dite Danube", he writes at Prose Presage 222, "la terre se parfondant, dans ladite riviere se perdra" ('A very scholarly man during this last quarter, while walking along the river Hister known as Danube, the ground subsiding, in the said river shall be lost'). This is evidently based on a "historical" incident described by Nostradamus himself in his "Traité des fardemens" (Proem, p. 19, 1552), involving one Gaspar Ursinus Vellius "consellier à Vienne en Austriche, qui un soir soy pourmenant le long du Dannube la terre se fendit, & tumba & se nya" ('a councillor at Vienna in Austria who one evening was walking along the Danube, the ground split apart and he fell in and was drowned'). Nevertheless, it has also been acknowledged that Hitler referred to the Danube as "the river of the future" and sought to use it to affirm control of "the heart of Europe." The Nazi Government also felt the raw minerals in the Danube area were vital to their goals of conquering sufficient "living space" in the Soviet Union. In 1936, Hitler oversaw the remilitarization of the Rhineland, which is located along the Rhine River area in western Germany.