Kitty Werthmann: Her Story living under Hitler in Austria - America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freed
Kitty Werthmann
Comment: 1938 Austria -- Land of "The Sound of Music" Story
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom SlipAway
By: Kitty Werthmann
What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard orwill ever read in history books.
I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you thatHitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. Weelected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote. I’ve never read that in anyAmerican publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with histanks and took Austria by force.
In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforcewas unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young peoplewere going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t wantto work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian womanand believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettleof soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30daily.
The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting eachother. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna , Linz , and Graz weredestroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government tolet them decide what kind of government they wanted.
We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been inpower since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment orcrime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said aboutpersecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believethat everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria . Wewere promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemploymentand help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would beassisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent ofthe population voted to annexAustria to Germany and have Hitler for ourruler.
We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and hadcandlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens andeveryone 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 wasemployed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created throughthe Public Work Service.
Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it wasa custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. Anable-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support hisfamily. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they couldretain 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. Thepopulation was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools.The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom tofind the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Naziflag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class wewouldn’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 werenot pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that ifthey did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning thefirst 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 hoursconsisted 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 sportsequipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about thewonderful time we had.
My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out ofpublic school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that andshe told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was avery good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no politicalindoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Everyonce in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my oldfriends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their looselifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By thattime unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemedstrange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, Irealized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to thatkind of humanistic philosophy.Equal Rights Hits Home:
In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food wasrationed 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 marketableskills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for youngpeople, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During theday, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to theirbarracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to beanti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After thelabor 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 thesewomen are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handlethe horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severelyinjured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I wasspared 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 governmentimmediately established child care centers. You could take your childrenages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days aweek, under the total care of the government. The state raised a wholegeneration of children. There were no motherly women to take care of thechildren, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, noone 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 doctorstrained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care wassocialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government.The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctorsfor everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals werefull. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two foryour turn. There was no money for research as it was poured intosocialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, sothe best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.
As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlywedsimmediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish ahousehold. We had big programs for families. All day care and educationwere free. High schools were taken over by the government and collegetuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such asfood stamps, clothing, and housing.
We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-lawowned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told himhe had to replace them with round tables because people might bumpthemselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additionalbathroom 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 thegovernment owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, itcould be in control.
We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Freeenterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency speciallydesigned for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count thelive-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 . Thevillagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, wereclosed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So peopleintermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I wastold there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful anddid good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was ajanitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent andothers getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. Shesaid to an institution where the State Health Department would teach thema trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign paperswith a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They weretold visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died anatural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected whatwas happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all diedwithin 6 months. We called this euthanasia.
The Final Steps - Gun Laws:
Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitlersaid that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was bymatching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding anddutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Notlong after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn intheir guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futilenot to comply voluntarily.
No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against thegovernment was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not onlyJews, 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, mycountrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creepinggradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole ideasounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded ourfreedom.
After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped,preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When theSoviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantlingwhole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit,and what they couldn’t destroy, they burned. We called it The BurnedEarth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Womenhid 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 tothose women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witnessaccount.

