Edward Hine originated the notion, still current in Anglo-Israelism and some strains of U.S. Christian fundamentalism, that modern Germans are partly descended from the ancient Assyrians.
Hine took a more particularist view, deciding that only the British nation fulfilled the prophecy for Israel — he acknowledged an ethnic affiliation between Britons and Germans, but thought this reflected what he considered was a close relationship between the ancient Israelites and their neighbors the Assyrians (who had taken the Ten Lost Tribes into captivity in Assyria).
Likewise, Britain and Germany's status as two great powers of the modern age he considered reflective of the ancient glories of the Kingdom of Israel and of Assyria.
[2] Hine maintained that only the Ten Tribes of Israel were included within the British race and excluded the Continental Teutonic or German peoples, who he instead believed descended from Assyrians not Israelites.
[4] Hine's particularist view was received with some hostility by other British Israelites, who maintained that other Europeans descended from the lost tribes of Israel, not solely Britain.
[8] In reality land controlled by the Assyrians during the Neo-Assyrian Empire did not stretch that far, but only reached into southern, south western and north eastern Anatolia, bordering Armenia.
[9] However, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which took control over the Assyrians and Babylonians in the 6th century BC did extend its territory to the Black Sea and north-west into Thrace.
[8] British Israelites also cite Pliny the Elder, who mentioned a tribe dwelling around the north-western regions of the Black Sea (Romania or Ukraine) in the 1st century AD called the Assyriani, who they believe were Assyrians.
British Israelites provide an answer for this: they believe since the Assyrians had long controlled parts of Europe (especially Germany) that the Germans or Austrians became to accept Jewish customs and faith in the 8th century BC because Sennacherib (who captured several cities in Judah) had deported its Jewish inhabitants into Eastern Europe along the Danube River, eventually reaching Austria and Germany.
[18][19] Hine believed that the Anglo-Saxons were only in Germany for a short time as part of their migration to the appointed 'Islands' (which he identified as Britain) as their final resting place, as told where the Israelites would be resettled in Isaiah 24: 15; 42: 4; 49: 1; 51: 5 and Jeremiah 31: 10.
[23] Hoeh (1963) draws on Verstegan (1605) and Johannes Turmair (1526) to conclude that Deutsch really derives from Tuisto whom he in turn identifies with Shem: As with Anglo-Israelism itself, proposed German-Assyrian connections enjoy no empirical support and are not current among historians, anthropologists, archaeologists or historical linguists.