General Music Chat

               The author of the following article, Kitty Werthmann, grew
up in Austria and lived through the Hitler regime both before and after
WWII, and the suppression of human rights and freedom by the Nazi Party.
She moved to the USA and became a citizen in 1962.  She is 83 years old
and lives in Pierre, South Dakota where she has written and spoken
extensively about the danger of loosing our freedoms.  The following
article is one of many that she has written.  You can check out this info
for yourself on the Internet by going to Google and searching for Kitty
Werthmann. There is no Snopes information on her.

  A sobering, serious read.  Please feel free to pass it along, preferably as “bcc.”



      America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World.

               Don't Let Freedom Slip Away!
---------------------------------------

         By: Kitty Werthmann (An Austrian who witnessed
what took place under Hitler)

 What I am about to tell you is something you've
probably never heard or read in history books.

 I am an eyewitness to history.  I can tell you
that Hitler did not take 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 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

  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, and 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 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.

           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.

 After World War II, Russian troops occupied
Austria.  Women were raped, preteen to elderly.  The press never wrote
about this either.  When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything
that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process.  They sawed
down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they
burned.  We called it The Burned Earth.  Most of the population
barricaded themselves in their houses.  Women hid in their cellars for 6
weeks as the troops mobilized.  Those who couldn't, paid the price.
There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were
massacred by the Russians.  This is an eye witness account.

  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 the World. Don't
Let Freedom Slip Away.

     "After America, there is No Place else to Go!"

 Count what you have seen taken away in your life time from
removing religion from schools to registering guns.  Our Country will not
be taken away as quickly as Austria was, but so much has already been
taken, and since it is usually small steps .......most don't have an
issue with it.  Once it is gone it is gone for good. Government
involvement/control and or indirect ownership of education, banking,
finance, auto, insurance and mortgage industries are justified bailouts
we are told, to help the economy survive, but when do these ties end?
Nationalizing health care is another step in the wrong direction. When
will we wake up? You may get tired of continually receiving emails of
those fighting for all these different issues....but the above true story
is what happens when enough has been given up, and the right leader gets
in control.

    Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and
it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and
you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be
imposed on them, and these will continue till they have been resisted
with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are
prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.

               -- Frederick Douglass

Sobering indeed!

I did reply to this but removed it. It might well be known that there are others that suffered and the ONLY thing that separates this event is technology.

Kindling old flames never did anyone any good.

My cousin sent this to me. I found it interesting for it's historical perspective as well as it's "is this where we're headed" thought provoking properties.
I know from personal experience how evil can seep into ones life in the guise of "man this is great".

I would suggest that it might both be where we are being guided too on both sides of the coin.
I wonder if this Lady did not have this history this concept would be as easily eaten?

My cousin sent this to me. I found it interesting for it's historical perspective as well as it's "is this where we're headed" thought provoking properties.
I know from personal experience how evil can seep into ones life in the guise of "man this is great".

Its a slippery slope folks! And we are sliding right on into socialism!

I am actually reading a book right now about the rise and fall of Hitler. The reason he was able to get power in Germany to begin with was, because at the time, there was no leadership in that country. There were many, many factions that were trying to take control. A few were in power but the economy was EXTREMELY poor and he took the opportunity to slowly make his rise. The bad economy was not even close to what we have here. Hitler was a very charismatic speaker and convinced people in small groups at first then on to larger and larger groups, to follow his thinking. It took many years for this to happen. There was no checks and balances in place in Germany during this period. I don't think anything like that can happen here in this country for the simple fact that we do have in place a checks and balances system. Wether we like the democratic or republican party or even the independents, they do serve a purpose. I don't want to start another debate on what party is better, I am just stating that this is how I feel on that subject. Hitler took the opportunity when he saw it and did get very lucky at times by being in the right place at the right time.

I wish I still had that write-up someone gave me years ago, before I was on the internet. It was a list of the good that a leader had done for his country, & it was surprizingly quite a long list, esp when, at the end of it all, you were told that the leader who'd done it all was Adolf Hitler. He fixed his country's economy, established an entire production plan for the Volkswagon, got ppl working, brought order when there was chaos & high crime, brought health care & food to those in need, etc, before he turned ugly & emperialistic & such.

The problems this country faces may look eerily similar, but one must keep in mind that these are also different times, times in which many of one's personal failings are all too often brought to light, where info is free for all of us. I don't believe we are in danger of repeating the past, esp THIS particular past, in spite of all of those who would draw all of those alarming parallels for me over & over.

This kinda crap is very popular with the far right, & often rears its ugly head when they are in danger of becoming a less powerful presense. That's the only time I hear or see these kinds of propagandas.

To add to the above, my stepmom, who I love dearly, was born and raised in Germany. She became an american citizen after she married my dad and moved to the states. She was a little girl during the war in Germany and now suffers from post traumatic stress from the bombings during that period. Nothing extremly major, but thunderstorms get to her. It gets worse as she gets older for some reason.

Yes my uncle Adolph did much to bring the oppressed peoples of Germany and Austria back to power and economic solvency, after WWI just before he dragged them into insanity.



( Not really my uncle ... but my last name is HEIL ! )

Many cities have been flattened. Some by nature, some not. I know some people who in fact share that same fear of noise.

To add to the above, my stepmom, who I love dearly, was born and raised in Germany. She became an american citizen after she married my dad and moved to the states. She was a little girl during the war in Germany and now suffers from post traumatic stress from the bombings during that period. Nothing extremly major, but thunderstorms get to her. It gets worse as she gets older for some reason.

THE reason Hitler was able to seize power was the Treaty of Versailles which subjected Germany to very harsh, almost punitive terms. The entire population of Germany resented the treaty and HItler was able to capitalize on the resentment. IMO opinion, and I've studied history a bit, the Treaty of Versailles was the worst event for world peace in the last century. It led directly to the formation of the Soviet Union, World War II, the many decades of war in Indo-China, the Holocaust, and many of the conflicts in Africa and indirectly the problems we are still facing in the Middle East. The signatories of the treaty sealed the fate of the rest of the century with their ignorance...

THE reason Hitler was able to seize power was the Treaty of Versailles which subjected Germany to very harsh, almost punitive terms. The entire population of Germany resented the treaty and HItler was able to capitalize on the resentment. IMO opinion, and I've studied history a bit, the Treaty of Versailles was the worst event for world peace in the last century. It led directly to the formation of the Soviet Union, World War II, the many decades of war in Indo-China, the Holocaust, and many of the conflicts in Africa and indirectly the problems we are still facing in the Middle East. The signatories of the treaty sealed the fate of the rest of the century with their ignorance...

Exactly Bob !!
I should not be surprised. You have a good sense about you in most all issues.
Quite the history study myself, I honestly believe by in large the Austrio-Hungarian Empire were within their rights at the onset of WWI after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by the BLACK
HAND a Serbian "terrorist" group seeking Serbian independence.
Though it was also a great excuse for more European style colonialist conquest.

But as a civi with no interest in war what so ever the flattening of your town and commerce center will have an everlasting effect on you no matter what your culture is, You will be afraid of every loud noise. Its common sense and nothing to do with historical knowledge, sense of awareness or nuance.

But as a civi with no interest in war what so ever the flattening of your town and commerce center will have an everlasting effect on you no matter what your culture is, You will be afraid of every loud noise. Its common sense and nothing to do with historical knowledge, sense of awareness or nuance.

That's true Chippy. It even effects those whom dropped the bombs for the rest of their lives.

War is hell.