Before the COVID invasion, a story appeared in a magazine called “Military,” no longer published, about an Austrian woman who grew up under Hitler’s Nazi regime.
I saved it and, in reexamining it, found that its relevance for us is greater than before. What the woman had to say presents parallels to current times that are, to say the least, astonishing. I shall call the woman Betty.
Hitler did not take Austria with tanks and guns, said Betty, he was elected by the Austrian people. In 1938, a third of Austria’s workforce was unemployed and inflation made life extremely difficult. Businesses and farmers declared bankruptcy daily and the young went begging for food, door to door. Betty’s mother, a devout Christian, helped feed some 30 poor people every day by cooking soup and baking bread for them.
Cities like Vienna and Linz were being destroyed by the fighting between communists and National Socialist activists. (National Socialism was Hitler’s Naziism.) The people petitioned their government for a voice in what kind of government they wanted. They had heard that in Germany, their neighbor to the north, there was no unemployment, the people had a high standard of living, and everyone was happy. (The reports did not mention the persecution of dissidents, whether Jew or gentile.)........Living Under Nazi Dictatorship
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