Austrian complacency
We once made the grave mistake of handing too much power to the state, and now we're doing it again.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
“Common Good before self” was the postulate that led all state and corporate institutions to be synchronized under the Nazi Regime, including the trade unions, functions were transferred to the German Labor Front (DAF).
Immediately after the National Socialists came to power, the leadership of the Social Democrat-oriented General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) declared its political neutrality towards the Nazi regime in early February 1933. In order to save the organization and to be recognized as a legal employee representation, by far the largest umbrella organization of German trade unions distanced itself from the political goals of the SPD. In addition, the ADGB expected a program to combat unemployment from the new leadership. Despite the onset of street terror by the National Socialists against union officials and the unauthorized dismissal of union work councils, the ADGB willingly took part in the celebrations for "National Labor Day" in 1933.
On May 2nd, members of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) and the NSBO( National socialist Company Cell Organization) occupied offices, banks, and editorial offices of the free trade unions organized in the ADGB in a precisely prepared action. Leading officials were taken into "protective custody" and union assets were confiscated. The other employees were asked to continue working loyally among NSBO commissioners.
In addition to road construction, the Nazi regime reduced unemployment through housing construction programs, tax breaks, the implementation of advanced training courses for the creation of state-subsidized employment opportunities, for example as farm and harvest workers or welfare workers. Hitlers’ Social programs were popular at the time, most major highway systems that exist in the area to this day were built under the Nazi regime.
As for the Jews? Right from the start, the NSDAP pushed for the exclusion of the Jewish population from the economy, trade, and commerce. The state-tolerated boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933 led to numerous business closings and destroyed the confidence of foreign investors. Through the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service", thousands of Jewish civil servants and employees were dismissed from the public service, and their positions were given to applicants who could prove their "Aryan" origin through the "Aryan certificate"( papers, please!) The traditional store chain Hermann Tietz with over 10,000 employees was one of the first companies to be expropriated in August 1934.
Large corporations were titled “Reichswerke”, they belonged to the “Reich”, (the empire). Some of them included Krupp, Siemens, and Rheinmetall. Back then, as now, the state demanded complete political and ideological compliance and “papers” proving one was in the group that was permitted to work.
Years after the National socialist party had accomplished the synchronization of all aspects of life with the state, Hitler went to a famous location in Vienna by the name of “Heldenplatz”. There he stood, on the infamous balcony, and proclaimed that Austria would now be part of the German empire. The people cheered.
Recording the materials of the optimism and enthusiasm of the people that day, was very important to the Nazi propaganda goals. The day was reportedly coordinated and planned in a military fashion, everything was on point, the shops closed early in the morning, and people were guided to the event.
But there was also another March 15th beyond Heldenplatz. It is probably no coincidence that the pogrom-like attacks on the Jewish population increased in the hours after the Hitler speech. Jewish People were forced to wash the Austria slogans from the streets for the referendum planned by Schuschnigg. These "friction games" turned into real popular amusement, the humiliation and humiliation of the Jewish population - in contrast to the November pogrom - happened without orders from above.
In the 80 years that followed WWII, including my own childhood there, any reporting of these days was washed in shame. I recall countless interviews with Holocaust survivors, documentaries about poverty during the War, children, like my own grandparents, that grew up starving because their parents had fallen for a false promise.
Here is the big question that I can barely bring myself to write because it is filled with such intense emotion that I want to explode: After everything the filmmakers showed, the interviews said, and the horrific shame we were even made to feel as children about our nation’s past, HOW on earth are we right back here again, falling for false promises of potentially even worse long-term ramifications?
Are we really about to relinquish the most sacred of human rights, bodily autonomy, to our Government in a newly found technological surveillance state, where only propaganda is valid, and any dissenting opinions are not burned, but simply deleted and censored with a click?
Just like on many historic days during the Nazi regime, today, November 15th of 2021, the Austrian government implemented a house arrest for those that will not, or cannot take a potion they title the golden ticket to “freedom” ( for 6 months, anyway). The fine print reads that the side effects of the drug can kill you, and any of your loved ones who take it. But who reads the fine print anyway? Just give me my conveniences back. For months the Austrian regime has bullied the population by forcing them to submit to the EU overlords “green pass”. Having to test daily to work, eat at a restaurant, attend gyms, or stay at a hotel for a vacation simply isn’t appealing to the masses.
Similar to the WWII crimes, the injection in question this time is in an experimental stage, Emergency Use Authorization, during phase 3 clinical trials. Many have asked, how Governments can get away with coercing their citizens into taking experimental stage drugs when this is explicitly covered in the Nuremberg code from the trials that followed the Nazi experimentation?
Unfortunately, the best answer I can come up with, is that the fear-driven propaganda has deceived many, including very smart individuals.
One example is the “Approved status” of the Vaccines themselves, something I have written about in the past. One Vaccine candidate was officially marked as FDA approved and (in theory) safe enough for public consumption under strict evaluation. But it turned out that that very candidate was not available to the public, mostly “for show” and for the deception of the public, to be able to legally claim that employers and the federal government could mandate all of them.
Sounds like something out of the Nazi propaganda playbook.
It was yesterday, Sunday the 14th, that people in several locations in Austria took to the streets to chant “Freedom”, and “Resist”. Maybe that should give us hope. That maybe this time, there will be a part of the population that recognized the dangers of giving up their fundamental freedoms in exchange for a false sense of safety.
More and more the population is realizing that something isn’t quite right. There may not be an intricate understanding of all the many data points, but people are aware that their Freedom status will not last more than 6 months at a time while segregating others from public life entirely. Those who dissent are made to seem like the fringe minority, while anyone in favor of such harsh measures is highlighted on TV and social media.
The reality of Austria’s Covid case rates is similar to other European nations that relied exclusively on mask and vaccine mandates.
To further highlight the unscientific basis of the current Austrian atrocity that they call “health policy”, one can also observe the outcome mortality rate in the control group country (Sweden), and gather that they made superior choices, using freedom and recommendations.
I hope that Austria will remember, and wake up to see the strong historic parallels, currently even noticed by descendants of the last World War’s victims.
Charlie Chaplin famously remarked in his famous speech from The great dictator:
“Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!”
-TamiCam
It gets very frustrating trying to draw parallels with that time given how obvious it seems to me. Current state dictator is even now introducing permanent pandemic legislation by using 3 very low voter count 'independents" to get his legislation through.
This is the guy that had his police force to use rubber bullets on peaceful protesters and pepper sprayed children and grandmas. A police force that has run out of funds despite being funded to the tune of $2B per year for the last 2 years while we were all locked down. A police force that wanted to arrest, interview + fingerprint dodgy politicians for rorting the system and were told to stand down by higher ups. A police force that did not breathalyse his wife when she hit a cyclist while driving. A police force that then denied FOI access to the arrest documents as it was "not in the public interest".
People who are 30 years old get so offended and demand you stop making the comparison, so thank you for sharing this.
I am sharing it on twitter now.
Thanks for writing this chilling account of Austria and the rise of the NSDAP. The personal touch makes the story all the more compelling. I’ve read a lot about these events and what is happening today is incredibly alarming. Perhaps the 5th circuit ruling can turn the tide of this madness. We have so far to go to find our way out.