We hold these Truths to be self-evident...
Kitty Werthmann was born in Austria in 1925; her family experienced the depression-era economy and her nation’s desperate embrace of Nazi fascism. Today, she tells her story to all who will listen. Her audio testimony is transcribed below.
- Obviously unlawful wars of empire with a paper-thin level of propaganda of “national security.” Admitted war-spending "losses/unaccountable spending" of TRILLIONS of our tax dollars.
- Corporate media connected to government military and intelligence agencies to control and manipulate public opinion on key policies.
- Monetary policy for perpetual debt that never can be repaid at a systemic level to maintain a group of elites who create “money” out of nothing and loan it to us at interest while reaping real assets from defaults. Political fascism includes collusion between corporate elites and political elites, who often swap places through a revolving door of power.
- Stripping of financial regulation to allow elites to operate a rigged-casino capitalism; gaining billions in profits and bonuses with fraudulent economic bubbles, and then be socialized in their losses when the inevitable bubble bursts.
- Torture and rendition, even against US citizens to stop public resistance through direct action and indirectly through fear.
- Breaking the will of the people with refusing to take simple and obvious steps to address near-record unemployment. Is this a planned demolition of the economy in order to install martial law when the inevitable protests develop?
- Government-sponsored assassinations of resistance leaders, like Martin Luther King when he spoke and acted to end immoral war and poverty, Bobby Kennedy when he campaigned to end war and poverty, and JFK (and here, here) when he planned to end the Vietnam War.
- Controlled elections with electronic voting machines that often have no paper-trail to verify reported results, secret software that can’t be verified, and a history of statistical impossible “official results” compared with large-sample exit poll data (I haven’t done an article on unaccountable voting machines yet, but peruse here, here, here, here, and here to understand one more Orwellian issue).
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 - 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 to Run.
Comments
Why have you left out government takeover of healthcare? Sound like the major plan of anyone you know?
Eugene:
Kitty's testimony includes her account of what happened with health care in Austria. In the US, the takeover is by insurance companies enabled by government. The collusion between govt. and corporatism is a main component of fascism.
What we need is an honest cost-benefit analysis communicated to the public. From the ones I've seen, the US public saves ~$100 billion every year if we remove health insurance companies as "middle men" and leave health care decisions and authorization to medical professionals and the patient rather than a profit-diriven corporation with a conflict of interest to approve of health care treatment.
There's a lot of research to limit unnecessary visits that fit into that $100 billion savings figure. So this is a government -paid system without advertising and excessive red tape (if it's designed right, removal of conflict of interest and corporate profits driving up costs, and with the moral benefit of covering everyone, especially children.
No comment about yesterday's Supreme Court decision that opens the way for corporations to REALLY control elections?
Hmmm:
It's coming. I'm collecting links and reviewing video.
Are you serious? Out of one side of your mouth you warn us of the dangers of fascism while out the other you promote state-run healthcare? It doesn't matter how you phrase it or how it's designed: State-controlled healthcare = fascism. Please explain to me how a world in which all healthcare decisions are at the discretion of the State is not a world in which totalitarianism thrives?
I might also mention that you are remiss in not mentioning Obama's takeover of the banks and the auto industry (boy, does that one sound familiar...). And as far as the recent Supreme Court decision goes, the defining argument was made when the government lawyer was forced to admit that if it's possible to restrict political speach made by corporations, it would be possible for the State to ban books. Does THAT sound familiar?
Cont: You must be kidding about my Bush/Obama’s bank takeover coverage: peruse my titles in economics.
And as to the appointed justices’ opinion linking book burning to restricting or not restricting corporate-purchased advertising for elections, I’ll stick to the argument that empowering corporations to further control elections is another step into American fascism. I discussed the degree of election control here: “How can the US be fascist if we have elections and the US Constitution? Ok, I'll explain…”
Eugene:
Sure; I'll explain. Economic policy has lots of socialized areas: sidewalks, fire departments, public schools with local school board oversight. That doesn’t equal fascism. Fascism varies with definitions, but is dominated by wars of conquest, state-controlled propaganda, limited political and civil rights, and corporate privilege to socialize their losses that can have a revolving door between those corporations and political “leadership.”
I’m only going to repeat this once more, Eugene, then repeated strawman statements by you are subject to deletion: I don’t argue for “state-run” or “state-controlled” or “healthcare decisions are at the discretion of the state.” I clearly wrote that decisions should be made by health care professionals and not insurance companies. We’d collectively pay for services and cut-out the insurance companies; cost-benefit analyses show our saving ~$100 billion a year. More…
Nice try, but that's the same hack-liberal argument always trotted out to defend socialized medicine: "Roads are socialized, why is socialized medicine so dangerous?"
It's dangerous because, no matter how benign you try to make it sound, a system where care is "in the hands of the doctors" but paid for by the State still gives the State the final say over what happens to your body. Please explain how this is NOT the case.
If you want the "middle man" out of healthcare, then let people pay their own way for doctors. The way things used to be. This requires less government involvement and the reduction of price and costs. A State takeover of healthcare administration will in no way achieve either of these things. If you don't believe me, please cite an instance where the State took over a major service/institution and made it more efficient.
Here are some it has made less efficient: Post Office, AMTRAK, Freddie Mac, Fannie May, General Motors, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
Cont: Using cost-benefit analyses the solution most attractive in my reading and conversation with medical professionals is to break-up the cartel of Big Pharma, have universal health care without red-tape, provide choice to individuals to keep the medical field competitive, and take the benefits of ~$100 billion/year with the morality of no suffering and secondary benefits of reduced crime.
If you want to reply, I’ll leave the conversation here. I recommend Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt articles for her analysis of health care costs and coverage. She has an excellent article now and will have another in a few days on this very topic.
Cont: As to efficiency of costs and benefits, that’s the proper role of apolitical cost-benefit analyses to clarify our choices. That’s the opening move in an honest government, including health care.
Eugene, I agree with you that in our current fascist context the public good is not served relative to the profits of those embraced in the cartel of “leadership.” But what other option do we have relative to health care: allow the poor, including children, and the aged to die in the streets? Accept our forced-payment to cover all Americans by funneling money to insurance companies? Both of these choices suck. More…
Eugene:
First, I encourage readers to keep two balls in play:
1. the danger of fascism presented as a “solution” to economic depression (in our case caused by those pushing toward fascism).
2. the question of what goods and services we want for all in our society.
Government is designed to be We, the people, not “them” the collusion of plutocracy and cartels. Government is no more than teamwork; and management is the difference between centralized efficiency for large projects and corruption where individual greed is greater than the public good. More…
Rider I
Special Library
http://rideriantieconomicwarfaretrisii.blogspot.com/
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