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What I believe Werthmann intends to teach us is that Austria willingly allowed itself to join the Third Reich believing that to be in Austria's best interest.
There is no Wethmann and this entire letter is bogus. It's a parable constructed for domestic politics but it's a factually incorrect parable.
"Werthmann" writes:
Here's what happened:
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.
In a desperate gamble to halt the demise and to stave off Hitler, Schuschnigg announced there would be a national plebiscite on Sunday, March 13, allowing Austrians to vote on whether or not their country should remain independent from Germany. . . .
By Friday morning, March 11th, Chancellor Schuschnigg had become aware of the pending invasion. At 2 p.m. that afternoon, he informed Seyss-Inquart in Vienna that the plebiscite would indeed be canceled to avoid any bloodshed. . . .
At dawn on Saturday, March 12, 1938, German soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles roared across the German-Austrian border on schedule. . . .
Upon returning to Germany, Hitler scheduled another plebiscite, just as he had done after occupying the Rhineland. The people of Germany and Austria were now asked to approve the Anschluss. On April 10th, ninety-nine percent voted 'Ja,' with most afraid to ever vote no, knowing their vote might easily be discovered.
Some idiot who doesn't understand history is writing a fable.
If there is going to be one in this nation it will come from those who claim they want to "protect us" from that happening. At the present I am hearing that from the extreme right rather than from the left.
NO, it comes from those who want to help you. In order to "help you" they need more power for government. See Obamacare.
Beware of those who would frighten you into believing that your fellow Americans are the "enemy"
You ARE my enemy. You oppress my liberty by imposing your religious views onto me via the power of government. You are the enemy of people who value liberty. I don't need to beware of people saying this when I can see it myself.
At least you are good for a laugh, Pastor Rikurzhen, when you are preaching your paranoia from your perverted "Gospel of Conservatism".
"After America , There is No Place to Go"
What I believe Werthmann intends to teach us is that Austria willingly allowed itself to join the Third Reich believing that to be in Austria's best interest.
There is no Wethmann and this entire letter is bogus. It's a parable constructed for domestic politics but it's a factually incorrect parable.
"Werthmann" writes:
Here's what happened:
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.
In a desperate gamble to halt the demise and to stave off Hitler, Schuschnigg announced there would be a national plebiscite on Sunday, March 13, allowing Austrians to vote on whether or not their country should remain independent from Germany. . . .
By Friday morning, March 11th, Chancellor Schuschnigg had become aware of the pending invasion. At 2 p.m. that afternoon, he informed Seyss-Inquart in Vienna that the plebiscite would indeed be canceled to avoid any bloodshed. . . .
At dawn on Saturday, March 12, 1938, German soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles roared across the German-Austrian border on schedule. . . .
Upon returning to Germany, Hitler scheduled another plebiscite, just as he had done after occupying the Rhineland. The people of Germany and Austria were now asked to approve the Anschluss. On April 10th, ninety-nine percent voted 'Ja,' with most afraid to ever vote no, knowing their vote might easily be discovered.
Some idiot who doesn't understand history is writing a fable.
There is indeed a Werthmann.
Freedoms can disappear in a hurry if we aren t careful
The historical account you linked is one version. Here is another that is much closer to the account she relates of her memory as a young girl growing up in that era of history.
Austria-Absorption of Austria into the Third Reich THE ANSCHLUSS AND WORLD WAR II
People can take the lessons and warnings of danger to heart but if they actually quote any of the "history" that this lady is recounting in a debate, they'll get eaten alive by fact-checkers and the focus on that future discussion will shift away from the lessons and onto the historical distortions.
"America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away"
This thread fails as a false comparison fallacy, as Germany prior to the advent of Hitler and the United States today are in no way alike.
The thread also fails as hyperbolic demagoguery and fear-mongering nonsense, to make the ridiculous and unfounded 'argument' that the Nazi aberration could somehow manifest in the United States.
Yes, "beware of those who would frighten you into believing that your fellow Americans are the enemy". That is exactly how Hitler operated.I don't doubt her sincerity but having lived and worked for many years overseas under a totalitarian regime I know what does and doesn't constitute such an entity. If there is going to be one in this nation it will come from those who claim they want to "protect us" from that happening. At the present I am hearing that from the extreme right rather than from the left.
Beware of those who would frighten you into believing that your fellow Americans are the "enemy" and be even more wary of those who claim that they can "protect" you from them. That applies to both extremes so I am not pointing fingers here because both extremes are equally capable of it.
We the People must protect our own rights from those who would take them away. We grow when we expand rights like gay marriage. We are threatened when we restrict rights like making it harder for everyone to vote. The biggest threat to our rights today is Citizens United in my opinion. Corporations are not part of We the People and should be banned from all elections in my opinion.
What I believe Werthmann intends to teach us is that Austria willingly allowed itself to join the Third Reich believing that to be in Austria's best interest.
There is no Wethmann and this entire letter is bogus. It's a parable constructed for domestic politics but it's a factually incorrect parable.
"Werthmann" writes:
Here's what happened:
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.
In a desperate gamble to halt the demise and to stave off Hitler, Schuschnigg announced there would be a national plebiscite on Sunday, March 13, allowing Austrians to vote on whether or not their country should remain independent from Germany. . . .
By Friday morning, March 11th, Chancellor Schuschnigg had become aware of the pending invasion. At 2 p.m. that afternoon, he informed Seyss-Inquart in Vienna that the plebiscite would indeed be canceled to avoid any bloodshed. . . .
At dawn on Saturday, March 12, 1938, German soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles roared across the German-Austrian border on schedule. . . .
Upon returning to Germany, Hitler scheduled another plebiscite, just as he had done after occupying the Rhineland. The people of Germany and Austria were now asked to approve the Anschluss. On April 10th, ninety-nine percent voted 'Ja,' with most afraid to ever vote no, knowing their vote might easily be discovered.
Some idiot who doesn't understand history is writing a fable.
There is indeed a Werthmann.
Freedoms can disappear in a hurry if we aren t careful
The historical account you linked is one version. Here is another that is much closer to the account she relates of her memory as a young girl growing up in that era of history.
Austria-Absorption of Austria into the Third Reich THE ANSCHLUSS AND WORLD WAR II
Her opening paragraph distorts history. The Germans had already taken over Austria by the time of the April plebiscite. She has her history backwards. That's not a good calling card. Then she sets out to tell it like it was and promises you an account not found in history books and she can deliver that because her view of history is wrong.
People can take the lessons and warnings of danger to heart but if they actually quote any of the "history" that this lady is recounting in a debate, they'll get eaten alive by fact-checkers and the focus on that future discussion will shift away from the lessons and onto the historical distortions.
Kitty Werthmann is a native Austrian, now in her 80's, who lived and remembers living under the Third Reich in the years leading up to WWII. Subsequently a naturalized American citizen she has spent the larger part of her life speaking on socialism and how Hitler managed to come to power, slowly, by fits and starts, but relentlessly.
The following is posted in its entirety as its source is contained strictly in emails and therefore is not a copyright violation. Snopes and other fact checking groups have researched its origin and have not been able to locate an original source. It does strongly follow the context of what Werthmann would say.
For those who don't wish to read the whole long thing, the money paragraph is here:
"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."
For the purpose of this discussion, could some or all of this happen in the USA? Is some or all of it happening already? At an even slower pace that what Werthmann describes in Austria?
Or can we be complacent and confident that this relates to us in no way?
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away
By: Kitty Werthmann
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 - 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"
What I believe Werthmann intends to teach us is that Austria willingly allowed itself to join the Third Reich believing that to be in Austria's best interest.
There is no Wethmann and this entire letter is bogus. It's a parable constructed for domestic politics but it's a factually incorrect parable.
"Werthmann" writes:
Here's what happened:
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.
In a desperate gamble to halt the demise and to stave off Hitler, Schuschnigg announced there would be a national plebiscite on Sunday, March 13, allowing Austrians to vote on whether or not their country should remain independent from Germany. . . .
By Friday morning, March 11th, Chancellor Schuschnigg had become aware of the pending invasion. At 2 p.m. that afternoon, he informed Seyss-Inquart in Vienna that the plebiscite would indeed be canceled to avoid any bloodshed. . . .
At dawn on Saturday, March 12, 1938, German soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles roared across the German-Austrian border on schedule. . . .
Upon returning to Germany, Hitler scheduled another plebiscite, just as he had done after occupying the Rhineland. The people of Germany and Austria were now asked to approve the Anschluss. On April 10th, ninety-nine percent voted 'Ja,' with most afraid to ever vote no, knowing their vote might easily be discovered.
Some idiot who doesn't understand history is writing a fable.
Beware of those who would frighten you into believing that your fellow Americans are the "enemy" and be even more wary of those who claim that they can "protect" you from them.
That has been the democrat sales pitch for years now.
taking away liberties and freedoms have been happening at least from the middle 60s with the unthinkable forcing of motorcyclists to wear helmets , then seatbelts in cars but the excuse is that those are public roads and driving is a privilege . Then there are smoking laws on private property [restaurants and bars] where most are private . Last but not least the obamacare MANDATE which I think would have been unthinkable to an earlier generation . . Just a few infringements noted but there are many others. Course everyone knows about these infringements on freedom that I have mentioned but I see many more laws and regulations restricting the freedoms of Americans as time goes into the future .
Beware of those who would frighten you into believing that your fellow Americans are the "enemy" and be even more wary of those who claim that they can "protect" you from them.
That has been the democrat sales pitch for years now.
exactly
the "evil" gun owners
the "evil" Christians
the "evil" republicans
the "evil" corporations
the "evil" whites
the "evil" jews
the "evil" Americans
Finally, to those that will read and forward this type of e-mail or Facebook posts, my suggestions are that you really need to study history. I say that with all sincerity and without condescension. If you read and believe this then your history education was lacking in the most egregious way and it is having a huge impact on your ability to digest and understand information. This ignorance makes you vulenerable to the very type of propaganda that Hitler employed to control the masses.
Kitty Werthmann and the Misuse of Hitler, History and Facebook
It is often easy to overlook these types of posts on Facebook but this one was so full of vitriolic bile and hate that I had to respond for the sake of history as a discipline and as a lesson on the dangers of chain e-mails and Facebook feeds like this one.
First, the offending Facebook post or chain e-mail should be shared. Here is a link to the actual wording - snopes.com Kitty Werthmann
A brief summation of Werthmann's statement is that she is from Austria and is a "survivor" of Hitler. She is warning that the same thing is happening in America. They eleceted Hitler in 1938 and we have elected a similar person in 2012. Economic depression led to Hitler feeding the people creating public works project and promoting equal rights for women. Then he took away religious freedom, formed Nazi youth, encouraged unwed mothers to have children, and incorporated food stamps. Women took jobs more suitable for men and government established child care centers.
Then Hitler's government also instituted socialized medicine and ruined a perfectly good system. Next the government took over businesses and regulations forced people like her brother in law out of business. Free enterprise was abolished in favor of central planning. Werthman talks about euthanasia and finally gun registration and restrictions that left them with nothing to fight with but broom handles. She concludes that this full dictatorship did not "happen over night, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism."
Werthmann's not so subtly implicates Obama as being just like Hitler and the same is happening in America. The errors are so glaring that the authenicity is in seriouse doubt and snopes is still investigating.
After a cursory search on the internet, I found that a lot of people had rightfully dismissed this but no one had attacked it head on for it's inaccuracies, distortions, lies and revealed its dangers in American political discourse. So I decided to spend several hours to do just that.
First, I would like to point out how easy it is to confuse Werthmann with a holocaust survivor which she is NOT. I believe this distortion is deliberate and misleading. It is not stated whether her family had supported Hitler but I can presume that if "99%" voted for him (as Werthmann states), then they were probably among those that supported him though she never makes this admission. But the real danger in this statement is the implication that Obama is Hitler.
This type of villification is exactly what is destroying our political system. The people who read and forward this propaganda begin to really believe that Obama is like Hitler. Werthmann's readers will believe that like Hitler, Obama has been freely elected but is taking over. What are they to do then? If elections did not stop Hitler or Obama, then isn't it logical to assume that some people who read this are deranged enough to think there must be other ways to stop him? Not to mention that now the people who believe this propaganda will look at me as a Hitler, I mean Obama supporter. They will begin to hate and despise me.
So to combat this ignorance, this statement must be taken apart word by word and line by line so as to present the history accurately and impartially. This is why I teach history and this is why the study of history is so important because otherwise people are susceptible to such distortions.
Werthmann's historical distortions begin immediately by stating that Austria was annexed peacefully. She states that 'we elected him by a landslide - 98 percent of the vote'. Right off the bat this is your first historical inaccuracy. If ever you see an election that is 98 or 99 percent, it was not an election. You could have someone run against Daffy Duck and win 25% of the vote.
If you are assessing the validity of an author's statement and there is immediately a glaring distortion, you can bet that there will be more to come. So what really happened with Austria? The annexation of Austria is known as the Anschluss and the facts are very different from what Werthmann has purported. Here is a quote from my Modern Western Civilization textbook that I teach regarding the annexation of Austria:
"The fall of central Europe that ultimately led to WWII began with Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938. Many Austrians had actually wished for such a merger after the Paris peace settlement stripped them of their empire. In March 1938, Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schusnchnigg, hoping to maintain independence called on Austrians to vote for or against Anschluss, or merging with the Third Reich. Fearing negative results, Hitler ordered an invasion." -The Making of the West, Lynn Hunt, Bedford St. Martin's Press, 2001, p 1048.
So while it is true that many in Austria did welcome Hitler, it was most certainly not 98% and there was significant opposition.
Werthmann is right that the Great Depression was a significant factor in Hitler's rise to power. This i what makes Werthmanns statement so dangerous is that there are kernals of truths that are then used to support false information. The very definition of the propaganda ironically used by Hitler. For example, Werthmann goes on to state that "Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group - Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria." THIS IS FALSE! Hitler never hid his contempt of Jews. He was clear in his hatred and believe in the inferiority of slavic peoples. He never hid his disgust of homosexuals or other undesireables. His book 'Mein Kempf' laid it out clearly.
In fact, the Anschluss was done under the justification that Hitler needed to unify the Ayran peoples (Hunt 2). I realize that Werthmann was only 11 years old but this part of Hitler's plan is hard to miss. While she may not have known of Hitler's contempt for 'non-Aryan' people, I can assure you that her parents did.
This distortion is very dangerous because it attempts to dismiss blame for the holocaust by implying that Werthmann and other supporters did not know of Hitler's anti-semitism.
Werthman makes two references to the treatment of women under Nazi Germany. These references should be read carefully because they are factually wrong and they imply that the women's liberation movement is leading to fascism! She first states that "Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was cistom 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."
Think about this implication. Hitler allowed women to work independently and you see what that led to. Werthmann is implicitly arguing that women should not be able to work outside the home once married. She will go on to state that 'unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler' and 'Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men'.
Again, the implication is that this is what is happening in America as more women have children outside of marriage and women in America continue to take over men's professions. Could Werthmann actually be arguing that unwed mothers and women who are lawyers or doctors are leading America down the road to fascism?
Once again, Werthmann is wrong. Here is the relevant quote from the previously cited book, The Making of the West.
"In June 1933, a bill took effect that encouraged Aryans (those people defined as racially German)
to marry and have children. The bill provided for loans to Aryan couples in which the wife left
the workforce. The loans were forgiven on the birth of the pair's fourth child. Nazi marriage programs
enforced a hnineteenth century ideal of femininity; females were supposed to be subordinate so men
would feel tough and industrious despite military defeat and economic depression."
This is exactly the opposite of what Werthmann has stated. Is Werthmann deliberately lying or did she just make this stuff up because she obviously had done no research.
Not surprising that the next subject of Werthmann is Hitler's attack on religious freedom. She states that after Hitler was elected, ". . .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 clas we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore." Wethmann then states that her mother put her in a private religious school which was much better. The implication here is that Hitler removed prayer from school and religion from public life, liberals and Obama are doing the same and so the holocaust is just around the corner.
The facts are much more complex because people used religion to both oppose and support Hitler. For more, read The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity by Richard Steigmann-Gall. Hitler attempted to work within the religious structure and there was no widespread attempt to remove religion from public life as was the case for example in the Soviet Union. There was actually a battle between Nazi paganists and 'positive Christians' that used Christianity to justify the Nazi regime. Hitler's anti-semitism was easily tied to Christian contempt for Jewish people and existing anti-semitism.
Werthmann next tries to connect Hitler's health care program to the Affordable Health Care Act. "Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. . .After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone" and everything went to hell in a handbasket after that. Long waits, 80% tax rates etc.
Hitler's economic approach was actually opposite of what Werthmann asserts and shows a complete lack of understanding of the difference between fascism and communism which is why the claim that Obama is a fascist is so ludicrous. While Communists argue for complete control of private business and industry, fascism works through and in alliance with corporations and private sectors to promote their authoritarian regime.
Werthmann insists that 'free enterprise was essentially abolished' and that consumer protection regulations like round tables instead of square tables led to economic collapse. First, it should be noted that during the two World Wars all governments took much greater control of the economy including ours. It became a necessity in total war in an effort to keep the armaments supplied. So it would be easy to find examples of Nazi regulations in the economy just as there were in the United States. However, fascism definitely lands on the side of laissez-faire economics when concerning corporations and production. Corporations were allied with the government and not opposed by the government.
And then of course, Werthmann like all good right wing paranoid propagandists equates Hitler's gun control with that of Obama Everyone had to register their firearms so the government knew who had them and then they had to turn them in. So then no one could resist and freedom of speech was gone and they started arresting those who spoke up, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
Let me get this straight. Werthmann is asserting that the chain of events went as follows; Hitler comes to power, registers guns, takes guns, then begins arresting Jews and others who speak out against it and then the holocaust begins.
Again this is ludicrous. Here is a good article that uses citations and addresses accurately gun control in Nazi Germany - GunCite The Myth of Nazi Gun Control The fact is that Hitler's regime like all good fascists regimes was militaristic and ultra nationalist which would certainly be closer to Werthmann's political philosphy than Obama's. Werthmann implies that if only they had their guns, they could have brought Hitler down. As the author noted in the article, most people supported Hitler and if Werthmann or her family were to take up arms, they likely would have done it to support Hitler. I'd be interested to know what her family did during the war and whether they served in the Nazi army. She is notably absent on this information.
Finally, having dismissed most of the unsubstantiated and undocumented propaganda asserted by Werthmann, it should be reiterated the danger of this type of propaganda. It villifies political disagreements to the point of hatred.
From a historical perspective, this statement is most disturbing because it bends, distorts and outright lies about history to serve a political purpose. What's worse, is that it dishonors the millions killed by Hitler. Here is a great article from Menachem Rosensaft The Rejection of Nazi Analogies Must Be Bipartisan Menachem Rosensaft whose grandparents and brother was killed in the holocaust.
His article warns of the dangers of using Nazi comparisons much more eloquently than I can here. As Rosensaft states, "Let's be clear. Nazi Germany visited the greatest human carnage in history on humankind. There can be no excuse whatsoever for using Nazi analogies in an effort to score political points, and comparing anyone other than a mass murderer to Hitler or Goebbels is simply unacceptable behavior."
Finally, to those that will read an forward this type of e-mail or Facebook posts, my suggestions are that you really need to study history. I say that with all sincerity and without condescension. If you read and believe this then your history education was lacking in the most egregious way and it is having a huge impact on your ability to digest and understand information. This ignorance makes you vulenerable to the very type of propaganda that Hitler employed to control the masses.
But what can you do if you do not know the history? Obviously history is far too large and complex and no one is going to know for sure obscure information about Hitler's health care policies for example. But you can check for citations. Check for accuracy. Check for bias. If you see something on Facebook, the internet or e-mail, never take it as fact. And DO NOT pass it on without checking it first.
If you pass it on and repost it without checking it, you are further promoting the inaccuracies contained therein. Your name is now on that document as being something that you support and believe in. At best, when the facts are revealed, it makes you look like a fool. At worse, the truth is never revealed, lies are propagated and history has been hijacked for political purposes.
