The author of this article lives in South Dakota and appears to be very active in attempting to maintain our freedom. I encourage everybody to read this article and pass it along. I see so many parallels in this country–are we going to sit by and watch it happen? Spread the word; also contact your congressional reps; vote them out if they don’t do what they should. If you don’t want to be bothered, then you’re part of the problem! Google Kitty Werthmann and you will see articles and videos.
This Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away
By: Kitty Werthmann
What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books.
I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote.. I’ve never read that in any American publications.
Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.
In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed.. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.
Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.
The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna , Linz , and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.
We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria . We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.
We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.
After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.
Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home . An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.
Hitler Targets Education – Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:
Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,” and had physical education.
Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home . I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
Equal Rights Hits Home:
In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.
Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.
Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:
When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children.. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.
Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:
Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn.
There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.
As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.
We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.
We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.
“Mercy Killing” Redefined:
In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps . The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause home sickness.
As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.
The Final Steps – Gun Laws:
Next came gun registration.. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.
No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria . Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism.
Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.
“It’s true..those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
America Truly is the Greatest Country in theWorld. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away,
“After America , There is No Place to Go”
ONE NATION UNDER GOD
Please, kill the bill.
This is not a particularly good historical account.
For one thing, the Austrian Nazi Party had already staged a coup and taken over Austria’s state institutions, and the German Nazi tanks and troops were already in Austria, when the referenced vote took place. While the Nazis did claim to win with 99.73% of the vote, we only have their word for it.
The Anschluss is barely taught in American high schools at all, so exactly how it happened is never mentioned. This article does a fine job of covering a lot of the particulars. Most of the most important particulars were completely ignored in the letter above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
Dr. Loudon,
The part about “equal rites” is completely ahistorical. Either the author of the letter has a bad memory, or is simply making stuff up. The Nazis only had one place for women in their ideology, and that was in the home, taking care of the kids and the kitchen. This letter writer is suggesting they were on the front lines with the Wehrmacht as anti-aircraft gunners.
While reliable employment data for the Third Reich is lacking, I just read that there is published data that shows female workforce participation rates fell from 37% to 31% during the first 5 years of Nazi rule in Germany.
There is only one conclusion one can draw about the author of this letter.
I don’t know much about Kitty Werthmann. I do know that her letter is very wrong about the history of an event she claims to have lived through.
For you, Dr. Loudon, to leave the letter posted knowing how distorted its details are, does not speak well for you. Do you feel no responsibility to verify such inflammatory claims, despite the fact that they are remarkably easy to verify?
The referendum on unification was called by the Austrian leader as a way to fend off Hitler’s ambitions. It was the announcement of the referendum which triggered Hitler’s invasion, in all likelihood because he knew that a legitimate vote would have favored Austrian independence.
After the invasion, it is my understanding that the referendum was simply cancelled in most Austrian cities, though a vote was held in some smaller towns and villages. The “98%” in favor of annexation was the result announced by the Nazis and verified by no one.
Why Kitty Werthmann chooses to believe a pice of obvious Nazi propaganda is, to say the least, puzzling. Why she fails to tell people that the Nazi invasion had occurred prior to the vote is truly inexplicable. Why ahe fails to tell people that the Austrian government did everything in its power to prevent the Nazi takeover is unforgivable.
I am also astounded that Kitty Werthmann both paints pre-annexation Austria as a place which was nonfunctional and mired in social and economic crisis, and as a place where people “had very good medical care.” How did people afford this good care if they could not afford food? Was the health care free?
That Kitty Werthmann tries to tie the recent passage of the health care bill to any of these events is beyond puzzling, inexplicable, and unforgivable.
Mr. Russ:
You make some interesting points, however, I am not sure that even if your points are accurate, they entirely discredit the point of the letter. It is still true that the path we are headed on in this Country appear ominous, even to the casual onlooker. The one thing about pre-invasion Austria that makes our situation in the US look even more terrifying is our debt.
Obviously, if Hitler was not elected by that vote and that is truly Nazi propaganda, I would not want to perpetuate it which is why I posted your letter to me. However, even if it is true, it doesn’t change that the Bill of Rights is such a very critical element of our freedom, or that freedom (and especially a republic) are extraordinarily fragile. It certainly does not condone socialized medicine, or the oligarchical takeover of 20% of our economy! It does not condone the debt this administration has strapped on my children. And it does not condone the continued erosion of our right to bear arms.
The way the MSM tried to change the subject from BHO’s takeover of our health care to “the Tea Party is racist and violent” is so evident that I can’t believe liberals are even buying it.
That, to me is puzzling, inexplicable, and unforgivable.