"After
America , There is No Place to Go"
By: Kitty
Werthmann - an Austrian born German
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 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:
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
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
Truly is the Greatest Country in the World.
Don't Let
Freedom Slip Away!
"After America, There is No Place
to Go"
When the
people fear their government there is tyranny.
When the
government fears the people there is liberty.