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. Like others in a small but vocal fringe movement, Ms. So why would I accuse Kitty Werthmann of grossly distorting history in a way that actually marginalizes the victims of Nazi oppression? How could anyone find fault with an elderly woman telling a vitally important story of how her country was overtaken by tyranny?īecause the real message of Kitty Werthmann's speech is that that same tyranny is taking hold in another time and place: America, right now. One of my favorite books on World War II, Guy Sajer's autobiography about fighting for Germany on the Eastern Front, The Forgotten Soldier, has numerous historical, geographical and military-related errors, yet doesn't suffer in the slightest for it. And while it's entirely possible that 70 years later, she's gotten some of the details wrong, that certainly wouldn't invalidate her story. Taking a historical anecdote as fact is usually pretty bad science, but it's not like the misery of life under the Nazi boot isn't something we're still debating about. With the email confirmed, there was no reason to think anything untoward about Ms. She really did live through the Nazi occupation of Austria, and since emigrating to the US in the 50's, she's given hundreds of speeches, written a book, produced a DVD and made television appearances, all in the service of spreading a laudable message that must be repeated, lest it ever be forgotten. But to my surprise, both the email and Kitty Werthmann are perfectly real. Snopes itself was still researching the matter, listing it as "undetermined" as of January 6, 2013. Like most of us do with these kinds of forwards, I was ready to assume it was fake or misattributed and move on. The long email is a transcribed speech that describes how Hitler brought the promise of repairing Austria's faltering economy, boosting employment and ensuring the happiness of the people, and how these promises curdled into a slow stripping of freedom, encroaching of malicious bureaucracy, the cleansing of those deemed inferior and eventually, a rain of Allied bombs brought on by total war. When doing my usual check of "What's New" on, I came across a recent entry for an email from one Kitty Werthmann, purporting to tell her story of living through the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, also known as the Anschluss.
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