By Sally Jo Sorensen
In her letter to the editor of the Hutchinson Leader, Speaker warned of perilous path, Yvonne Piker relates the dire predictions shared by South Dakota Eagle Forum President Kitty Werthmann.
This isn't the first time the 87-year-old Austrian native, who immigrated to the United States in 1950, has made the claim. Gun rights website Come and Take it has posted a version of her spiel dated 1996, although Werthmann's name isn't attached; the Wayback Machine crawled the page on February 3, 2001. Werthmann's been pitching the same line since the second Clinton administration--and possibly back to the Eagle Forum's fight
The most recent iteration of Werthmann's claims, held at the fair grounds in Hutchinson, was sponsored by the Republican Party of McLeod County MN on Monday, October 7, 2013. The invite to the fundraiser began (emphasis in original):
Help support the McLeod County Republicans efforts to bring a living survivor of Nazi-controlled Austria to speak about her observations and experiences. This will be a must attend event for young and old alike.
Please join us for this captivating personal story that reminds us that the preciousness of human freedom can be taken away by those determined to do so.
Werthmann is often billed as a "survivor of Nazi-controlled Austria," which is an odd connotation, since the speaker insists that Austria wasn't invaded by Germans, but voted in Hitler. And given that Austria had a population of 6,753,000 when it was annexed in 1938, and 6,793,000 in 1945, with an estimated 104,000 to 145,000 civilian war dead, surviving was not so rare a thing as we might imagine now.
Her take on the vote is a bit off as well, since German tanks rolled into Austria on March 12 and Germany annexed the country on March 13, after being greeted by mostly cheering crowds. Nearly a month later, as the Encyclopedia Britannica notes, a "controlled plebiscite of April 10 gave a 99.7 percent approval" to Hitler's actions. Sounds like a rigged election, with tanks in the streets.
Since the speaker was only 13 at the time (or 12, according to some accounts), perhaps she doesn't quite remember the order of events, although since she's been delivering variations of her stump speech beginning in 2007 at the latest, (and as we noted, there's evidence that the written short version of her tale was circulating no later than 1996) one would think she might have time to fact check her memory.
Hutch Leader Letter: Remember The Sound of Music
Piker writes in Speaker warned of perilous path:
So many good people and I had the opportunity last week to be at the McLeod County Fairgrounds and hear the story of a wonderful lady, Kitty Werthmann. She vividly and honestly told us about her childhood and what she saw before her eyes: the horrors of those years watching her country, Austria, be deceitfully destroyed.
I was a child at that time but I remember some of the stories I overheard the oldsters talk about. Remember “The Sound of Music”?
Hitler’s fear was going through all of us and throughout the world. He wanted the whole world to be at his feet and obey his every word.
She compared those incidents to present day and our country. It is almost uncanny, the very thoughts and actions our government is taking from us and the path we have just gone through with the banks, health care plans now being dumped on us, crosses and flags taken out of our schools, as well as being deprived of public displays of Bibles, prayer, the Ten Commandments, Christmas scenes and even not being able to wear a cross necklace.
. . .Let us all get involved and vote these people out of office and work hard and help your neighbors. Be careful who you vote for.
That speech was recognizable as early as 2007:
From her own experience, Mrs. Kitty Werthmann will help you see we are walking the same path as the Nazi’s. She was 12 years old living in Austria. At that time, there was order, prayer and pictures of Jesus. Hitler took over and all that was removed! Unemployment rose to 35%, bank loans rose to 25%, unions called strikes, all this with 98% of the people claiming to be Catholic!
Soon there was massive welfare. Cries went out for equal rights for women. Socialism took women out of the home, raising the children, and into the factories. They took the children away from the family and raised them by the state. . . .
Hear her tell how the U.S. is going the same way!
Poor George W. Bush. And here Bluestem thought only progressives drew that unfair comparison between Hitler and Dubya.
In both instances in which Werthmann compares the Nazification of Austria with whatever handbasket is carrying America to hell, causality and chronology are as scrambled as her memories of Anschluss. The Supreme Court, not an elected American president, ruled in 1962 that no state-sponsored prayer could be offered in public school classrooms.
Likewise, American women started entering the workforce long before Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack Obama occupied the White House. While the Equal Rights Amendment may have crashed, state and federal laws extended rights to women. Bluestem can't name many women who would equate that development to a sign of Nazi hegemony in America.
One could go on, but as Skeptoid pop culture critic Mike Rothschild wrote in January 2013:
. . .[T]he real message of Kitty Werthmann’s speech is that that same tyranny is taking hold in another time and place: America, right now. Like others in a small but vocal fringe movement, Ms. Werthmann believes that the US is being consumed by a slowly building socialist takeover, and she’s using the story of the Anschluss and its aftermath to prove that what happened there is happening here.
We're not at all convinced that her version of annexed Austrian--which Bluestem has a hunch mayhave grown out of the Eagle Forum's work to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States--is an accurate account of the Anschluss and its aftermath, especially with regard to the assertion about "equal rights" for women being the brainchild of Adolf Hitler.
2010 Wright County Visit
This isn't the first time Werthmann shared her glum assessment of America's state of decline. She was the guest speak for Camp America, a Wright County Tea Partyesque group in 2010. The Howard Lake Herald Journal reported in Survivor of Nazi-controlled Austria speaks in HL:
This line is repeated in most Werthmann Youtubes; indeed, much of the material is her stock speech. One other detail from the Herald Journal article:He promised to bring jobs, equal rights, help for the poor, a changed health care system . . . . It all sounded so good.
“Hitler was a very clever politician,” said Kitty Werthmann, a survivor of Nazi-controlled Austria.
The master of ceremonies for the evening was retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Repya, who served in three wars – Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom....
Here's the Youtube of her speaking in 2010 (at 12:42-12:44, she talks about Hitler bringing, "equal rights, the Equal Rights Amendment")
Many of the same elements are present in talks given this year (see here and here).
Critics: Hell no! Kitty
As one might expect, Werthmann has her critics. RightWing Watch looked at her 2007 tour in Eagle Forum: Nazi Hunters:
For months now, Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum have been shopping around a conspiracy theory about a proposed “North American Union” that would, in the words of the John Birch Society, create a “full-blown economic and political merger of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the US is also apparently at risk of being taken over by Nazis, at least according to Kitty Werthmann, head of the Eagle Forum’s South Dakota chapter . . .
Two years later, Right Wing Watch looked at the How to Take Back America Conference held in St. Louis this Friday, Sept. 25, and Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009 in How To Take Back America ... From the Nazis:
Back in 2007, I wrote a post about a DVD produced and sold by Kitty Werthmann, the head of the South Dakota chapter of the Eagle Forum, called "Freedom to Dictatorship in 5 Years". . .
Given that Phyllis Schlafly, head of the Eagle Forum, is co-chairing the upcoming How To Take Back American Conference along with Janet Porter, I guess it comes as no surprise that Werthmann has been tapped to speak at the conference, along with various members of Congress and former presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, to explain how America is becoming just like Nazi Germany:
In the past weeks you've heard me talk about the How to Take Back America Conference being held in St. Louis this Friday, Sept. 25, and Saturday, Sept. 26, with speakers like: Gov. Mike Huckabee, "Joe the Plumber," U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Steve King, R-Iowa, Tom McClintock, R-Calif., Dr. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Three-Star Gen. Jerry Boykin. But someone who'll be there that you didn't hear about is Kitty Werthmann. Kitty was 12 years old when Adolf Hitler was elected fuhrer of Austria.
She is 83 with a "vivid memory" of what happened in her homeland next. She witnessed the government take over the banks and the auto industry. Sound familiar? In the last nine months, Obama and the Democrats in Congress have successfully orchestrated the government takeover of Chrysler and General Motors along with countless banks. . . .
Good thing Werthmann was already on the Nazi case during the Bush administration, when the New York Times reported late in 2008 that Bush Aids Detroit, but Hard Choices Wait for Obama, and the banks were bailed out earlier in October 2008. Otherwise, Obama would so be Hitler.
The Right Wing Watch post by Kyle Mantyla concluded:
Allow me to ask one last time: what are members of Congress and people like Mike Huckabee doing associating themselves with this type of insane right-wing rhetoric?
Bluestem wonders why that question needed to be asked, since Bachmann and Steve King were among of the members of Congress at the conference. Huffington Post commenter Allison Kilkenny observed in Nazipalooza:
The cause du jour for the Republican Party is to make as many rapid-fire comparisons between the Democrats and the Nazis as humanly possible. . . .
Beyond being insulting, the comparisons are also dangerous. The Washington Independent's David Wiegel reports on this rising fear of fascism as demonstrated at the "How to Take Back America" conference in St. Louis that took place this past weekend. I highly recommend taking the whole bizarre journey yourself, but here are a few choice nuggets to wet your appetite for lunacy.
The article's protagonist is Kitty Werthmann, an 84-year-old native Austrian survivor of the Third Reich. Kitty was one of the keynote speakers at the conference.
"What would you suggest we do," asked one activist, "if we are asked to give up our guns?""Don't you dare give up your guns!" thundered Werthmann. "Never, never, never!"
"Give them back one bullet at a time!" called out another activist. The tense atmosphere melted a little bit; the room broke up with laughter.
Call the doctor. You see, Republicans are always very quick to say that liberals also altered posters of former President Bush to look like Hitler, and that liberals also drew comparisons between the Republicans and Nazis. Except, liberals were also called treasonous and threatened with arrest for doing harmless things like showing up to Bush's speeches dressed in anti-war t-shirts, or sporting anti-war bumper stickers on their cars. There were many of these kinds of stories. Meanwhile, those who show up to President Obama's rallies with loaded guns are called patriots.
Others responded to the conference. Based on a Think Progress article by Lee Fang, Alan Colmes gave Werthmann his Wingnut of the Day award. Fang reported in Right-Wing Conference Tells Activists To Get Their Guns Ready For ‘Bloody Battle’ With Obama The Nazi:
At the How To Take Back America Conference last weekend, conservative speaker Kitty Werthmann led a workshop called “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists.” Announcing the panel in a column preceding the conference, talk show host Janet Porter gushed how Werthmann’s description of Austria in the 1930s is a “mirror to America” today — noting “They had Joseph Goebbels; we have Mark Lloyd, the diversity czar.” The room was packed over capacity to hear Werthmann, who grew up as a Christian in Austria and serves as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum South Dakota President.
During her session, Werthmann went through a litany of examples of how President Obama is like Adolf Hitler. She noted that Hitler, who acted “like an American politician,” was “elected in a 100% Christian nation.” Although she failed to once mention Antisemitism or militarism, Werthmann explained how universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, and increased taxes were telltale signs of Nazism. . . .
Montana From Eternity to Here blogger D Gregory Smith published a briefing paper from the Montana Human Rights Network outlining the Family Foundation’s formation and activity in Family Foundation Features Speaker Comparing Obama to Hitler. The briefng paper inluded an overview of Kitty Werthmann. Some points:
The Montana Family Foundation is featuring a speaker at fundraising events in Bozeman and Billings this week who is popular with Tea Partiers, because she compares Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich to President Barack Obama’s policies. Kitty Werthmann has claimed President Obama is seeking to finish what Hitler started, and she has admitted that many people think she’s “a wacko.” . . .
Werthmann is a native of Austria and the South Dakota state leader for the Religious Right’s Eagle Forum. She’s experienced a spike in her right-wing popularity over the past few years because of her comparisons between current events and Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich. Her credibility rests on her living for seven years under Nazi rule in Austria as a child. . . . She draws parallels between Austria under Nazi occupation and the United States under President Barack Obama. The Family Foundation encourages people to attend its fundraising events to hear Werthmann’s “stern warning as America drifts towards socialism.” . ..
Werthmann gives an almost identical presentation wherever she goes. Advertisements for a Freedom to Dictatorship video featuring Werthmann stated she helps people “see we are walking the same path as the Nazis.” The video cites as proof such things as women in the workplace, euthanasia, and rising unemployment. On the Eagle Forum website, Werthmann claims that liberals in America are promoting national identification cards and gun control, which she identifies as Nazi programs. . . .
Her comparisons of America under President Obama and Austria under Hitler have made her a favorite on the Tea Party speaking circuit over the past few years. She’s been featured at Tea Party rallies in her home state and was the keynote speaker at the 2010 South Dakota Tea Party Summit. A recap of the event stated she described “the parallels between the step by step loss of freedom in Austria and developments that have been in motion in the United States for years.” She’s even been featured at Tea Party rallies on the East Coast, including in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. . . .
In the “Shad Olson Show,” Werthmann has compared what she views as favorable media coverage of President Obama to how Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich Minister of Propaganda, ran the German media. “History is coming back,” she warned. “To me, it’s frightful, frightful seeing things coming back.” On another program, Olson and Werthmann criticized comments President Obama made regarding Israel. Olson said Obama was abandoning Israel and that it was important for America to keep Muslim countries in the region from annihilating the country. Werthmann chimed in that Arabs and the Third Reich worked together to kill Jews. “What Hitler couldn’t finish,” she said, “that is what Barack Obama is doing now.” Olson agreed, saying that both were focused on “exterminating the Jewish race.” . . .
Bluestem's surprised that Bradlee Dean didn't include that tasty morsel of madness in his rant about Obama wanting to eradicate "the Hispanic and the Negro race."
Snopes lists the Kitty Werthmann email about the German takeover of Austrian as "Undetermined" with "Research in Progress." Bluestem believes that Werthmann is indeed the author, but her version of the events is the product of an unreliable witness.
Bluestem will take part of Piker's advice in the Hutch Leader. The Sound of Music is a tremendous movie, worth watching as a film adaptation of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Would we use it uncritically as a historically accurate document? No more than Birth of a Nation or Inherit the Wind.
Update: Werthmann also spoke in at the Hutchinson VFW and middle school in Howard Lake. Both events were sponsored by Camp America, according to a Facebook event page created by Emily Gruenhagen, wife of state representative Glenn Gruenhagen. Emily Gruenhagen also listed herself as organizer on a wherevent post.
Movie Still: Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
Taking flags out of schools?
Bluestem Prairie: Yeh, we don't get that one either.
Posted by: Max Hailperin | Oct 15, 2013 at 04:41 PM