Is this where we are headed?

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 researches 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 Go"
Please forward this message to other voters who may
not have it.

After America , There is No Place to Go"

The author
of this article lives in South Dakota and is very active in attempting to
maintain our freedom. I see so many parallels in this country, are we going to sit by and watch
it happen? Spread the word; also contact your congressional reps; vote them out
if they don’t do what they should. If you don’t want to be bothered, then you’re
part of the problem! Google Kitty Werthmann and you will see articles and
videos.