“For much of my life, America has been the place people could flee to when freedom disappeared elsewhere.” This is the starting point for the Austrian author and freedom of speech advocate Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in her essay ‘When History Stops Being a Warning’.
She then poses a question to which many are seeking an answer in our time – an era characterised by political polarisation, demographic changes and the curtailment of freedom of expression: What happens if America itself ceases to be that place? Where would people go then?
After America, there is nowhere left to go …
She draws her answer from Kitty Werthmann, an Austrian emigrant who survived both the Nazi era and the subsequent Soviet occupation. Werthmann, who later became an American citizen, spent much of her life warning Americans. She described how freedom in Austria did not disappear overnight, with tanks and soldiers, but gradually – through elections, crises, economic promises and step-by-step curtailments of rights. Her conclusion was: ‘After America, there is nowhere left to go!’
This statement highlights a historical reality: for generations, the free West has had one last refuge, one country where fundamental rights were regarded as natural, not as gifts from the state that could be taken away. If America, too, is lost, there is no safe haven.
Kitty Werthmann’s testimony
Kitty Werthmann was born in Austria in 1926. She was a child and teenager when the country transitioned from democracy to dictatorship. Later, she emphasised time and again in speeches that Hitler did not conquer Austria with tanks and soldiers alone. The Austrians voted him into power. In 1938, an overwhelming majority – officially 98 per cent – gave their support to the Anschluss.
This did not happen in a vacuum. The country was characterised by a deep economic crisis, high unemployment, political polarisation between communists and National Socialists – and a widespread longing for order, jobs and national pride.
Werthmann described how the changes came about. First came promises of work and prosperity. Then came restrictions on freedom of speech. Criticism of the government became dangerous. Priests, journalists and ordinary citizens who spoke out began to disappear. The school system became politicised. Youth organisations became compulsory. Gradually, society was reorganised from top to bottom. What had previously been freedom was redefined as loyalty. What had previously been private life became a matter of public concern.
Freedom rarely disappears through a dramatic coup
Had totalitarianism arrived overnight, people would have resisted. It came as a series of seemingly reasonable measures taken during a crisis. By the time people finally realised the extent of it, it was too late. Their weapons had been taken from them. Resistance had become impossible.
After the war, Werthmann experienced Soviet occupation. She then emigrated to the USA. For her, America became not only a new home, but the symbol of the very opposite of what she had left behind: A country where the individual still had rights that the state could not simply take away, where freedom of speech was still defended – and where the opportunity to build a life did not depend on ideological correctness.
In the decades that followed, she travelled around the US, sounding the alarm. She compared these developments with what she herself had experienced. She pointed to the gradual centralisation of power, the politicisation of institutions, the erosion of national sovereignty and a growing tendency to regard dissent as a threat to ‘unity’. Her message was consistent: freedom rarely disappears through a single dramatic coup. It is eroded through a series of small steps, each of which is defended as necessary, sensible or temporary.
Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff’s perspective
Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff belongs to a different, yet related, tradition. She is Austrian and the daughter of a diplomat, which meant she spent parts of her childhood and youth in Islamic countries, including Iran during the Islamic Revolution, and later Kuwait and Libya. She has herself described how her encounters with Sharia societies shaped her understanding of what is at stake when an ideology that makes no distinction between religion, politics and law gains a foothold.
In 2009, Sabaditsch-Wolff held a seminar on Islam in Austria. She quoted Islam’s own sources regarding the marriage between Muhammad and Aisha and questioned what it means that Muhammad’s practices are still used to justify child marriage. For this, she was convicted of ‘defamatory remarks against an established religion’.
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Famous Austrian Hero, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, was charged in 2009 with “hate speech” for factually accurate assertions she made regarding statements in the Hadith on child marriage during a seminar on Islam
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The case went through the Austrian legal system and ended up at the European Court of Human Rights, where the 2018 judgement was upheld. Truth was not a sufficient defence when the statement was deemed to offend religious feelings, threaten social peace or social cohesion within the constraints of multiculturalism.
Ideological pressure, censorship and demographic change
For Sabaditsch-Wolff, the ruling was a concrete example of how freedom of expression in Europe has been relativised. It is no longer enough for something to be true. It must also be ‘responsible’, ‘inclusive’ and not ‘disruptive’. When truth must be weighed against social peace, the standard has already changed.
In her essay, she links this to Werthmann’s warning. For several decades, Europe has been moving in a direction where historical experiences of totalitarianism and ideological oppression are increasingly treated as closed chapters rather than as permanent warnings. ‘Never again’ has become a ‘liturgical phrase’ rather than a guiding principle. At the same time, new forms of ideological pressure, censorship and demographic change have made it even more difficult to discuss these realities openly.
Where history is transformed into museum exhibits and memorials
The crux of Sabaditsch-Wolff’s argument is that history only serves as a warning as long as people are able to recognise patterns. When historical parallels are dismissed as ‘exaggerations’, ‘conspiracy theories’ or ‘hate’, the past loses its educational value. It is transformed into museum exhibits and memorials – something one honours ritually, but does not learn from.
Sabaditsch-Wolff points to several areas where this is happening. Freedom of expression is one. Demographics and immigration are another. A culture’s willingness to defend its core values is a third.
In Western European countries, it has become increasingly difficult to discuss the consequences of mass immigration from cultures with a fundamentally different view of the individual, gender, religion and the state – without being labelled. This is despite the fact that, at the same time, violence is on the rise in our streets, parallel societies are emerging, and anti-Semitism is given virtually free rein. When facts become controversial, it is not the facts that are the problem, but the willingness to engage with them.
Two prominent defenders of freedom and Western civilisation appeared at a major international ‘human rights’ conference organised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), warning of an insidious plan to undermine critical liberties, including freedom of… pic.twitter.com/jqj0i4OxaE
— The New American (@NewAmericanMag) 29 October 2026
Werthmann’s point about the gradual erosion of freedom is central here. Very few societies have experienced what the Iranians did: waking up one morning to discover that their freedom is gone.
The deprivation of freedom usually occurs through a series of adjustments: first, self-censorship to avoid discomfort; then formal restrictions to ‘protect vulnerable groups’. Next comes the institutionalisation of political correctness in schools, the media and the public sector. Ultimately, overt repression is no longer necessary – most people have already internalised the boundaries.
America, the last refuge
For generations, the US has occupied a unique position. It was here that Europeans fled from religious persecution, political oppression and poverty. It was here that Jews sought refuge. It was here that dissidents from communist regimes went. America’s self-image has been linked to the idea that the country is built on principles rather than on blood and soil alone – as well as on the inviolable rights of the individual.
Sabaditsch-Wolff asks what will happen if America loses its liberal character.
If freedom of expression is undermined, if dissent is treated as a threat, if demographic and cultural changes take place without open debate, if trust in institutions is eroded – then there is no free country left to go to.
Europe is already characterised by the trends she describes, and other continents do not offer the same freedoms.
This is the chilling gravity of Werthmann’s observation that ‘after America, there is nowhere left to go!’. It is a tribute to the America we have come to know. At the same time, it is a warning about just how unique the American position is – and how vulnerable it is.
Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff’s essay is no doomsday prophecy. It is a warning against failing to take history’s warnings seriously. Our freedom demands that we defend our principles and refuse to accept their gradual erosion.
