Adolph Hitler did not conquer Austria with bullets and bombs. He took it by ballot. Kitty Werthmann was 12 years old when voters Austria elected Hitler as their leader by 98 percent of the vote.
Werthmann, who lived under Hitler's rule for seven years, will be the featured speaker in North Platte on Wednesday, Oct. 3, at the North Platte Public Library at 6:30 p.m. She will also speak in Lexington earlier in the day, at Kirk's Restaurant at noon.
Now 86 years old, Werthmann travels across the country from her home in Pierre, S.D, talking about growing up under the thumb of the Nazis.
"You probably think it's crazy, the Austrian people electing Hitler," she said. "How could a Christian nation elect such as monster?"
In 1938 Austria was in a deep depression, with more than 30 percent unemployment and 25 percent inflation.
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"Farmers were going broke, the banks had reclaimed their farms. In the business world, they were closing up one by one," she said. "They couldn't afford to pay interest. It wasn't unusual in my home to have about 30 people a day knocking on the door asking for a bowl of soup and a slice of bread. My own father was hanging on by a thread. The economy was so bad, we could almost not exist."
The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party, the party of Hitler, were fighting in the streets, she said.
Austrians heard that in Hitler's Germany, where they spoke the same language and shared the same culture, life was better.
"He didn't talk like a monster, he talked like an American politician," Werthmann said. "We didn't hear anything bad, about him arresting people and persecuting people. We thought he was a great leader. We got a new government where no one was elected, they were all appointed. We didn't question it."
Little by little, freedoms were stripped from the Austrian people.
"We got free radios, then he nationalized the radio stations," she said. "We were told if we listened to foreign broadcasting we were an enemy of the state. Then he nationalized the banks, after he looted all the Jewish banks."
The public is invited to hear Werthmann first-hand account of living under Hitler's rule.
Kathy Wilmot, of Beaver City, met Werthmann several years ago and has heard her speak several times.
"I contacted her and asked if I could take her through Nebraska on a whirlwind tour," Wilmot said. "She had major surgery a month ago and I was worried she wouldn't be able to make it. When I asked her, she said she would be here. 'My life is limited,' she told me. We must tell people what this is like."
After liberation by America and the Allies, Werthmann had the opportunity to immigrate to America.
"I was the youngest in my family and my father told me sooner or later all of Europe would fall under Communism, to go where there is freedom," she said. "America is the last free country in the world. We have unbelievable freedom here."
Dictatorship in Austria didn't happen overnight, she said.
Knowing the terrible price a nation pays when they fail to keep a vigilant watch on their liberty, Werthmann reminds her audiences that each American has a responsibility to prevent the erosion of those freedoms.
"The fact is, America is the greatest country in the world," she said. "Anybody with hard work can achieve and make American dream. If you don't work and are dependent on government for handout, you do not achieve the American dream."
