When Kitty Werthmann was a little girl in Austria, she
witnessed firsthand Adolph Hitler's rise to power and the Soviet communist
occupation that followed. She also witnessed, for decades, the distortions of
the media when it came to the reporting of the events.
From her eyewitness perspective, Werthmann said that the
whole thing didn't happen overnight, in a brutal attack, like the media
portrays it, but rather, it evolved into a dictatorship gradually, over a
period of a few years. Hitler didn't come across as someone evil, to be feared,
initially. "In the beginning, Hitler didn't look like, or talk like a
monster at all. He talked like an American politician."
School Children Sing Praise To Obama
Elementary school students taught to sing praises of President Obama. A video has resurfaced of school children being indoctrinated to sing about Obama. How many other schools has this happened at? Can you imagine the uproar if students were taught to sing the praises of George W Bush?
I am a witness to history.
“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and
guns; it would distort history.
If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von
Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty
wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10
years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching.
“We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,”
she recalls.
She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th
birthday. But she remembers.
“Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks
and took Austria by force.”
No so.
Hitler is welcomed to Austria
“In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third
of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent
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.’
“We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where
Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “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 in Germany 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,” remembers Kitty, “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 re- quired to give up for marriage.
“Then we lost religious education for kids
“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.”
And then things got worse.
“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,” remembers Kitty. “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.
“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,” remembers Kitty. “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.
“When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the
government immediately established child care centers.
“You could take your children ages four weeks old to school
age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven 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.
“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 percent 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, too
“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 livestock, and then tell
the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.
“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 homesickness.
“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.
“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
afterwards, 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.”
“This is my eyewitness account.
“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of
Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
“America is truly is the greatest country in the world.
“Don’t let freedom slip away.
“After America, there is no place to go.”
Kitty Werthmann
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