“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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When I hear, "Let's make America great again," it makes me sick. We were great, until someone began screwing with our government. Now, we are the laughingstock of the world.
