THE PULPIT: Ousted speaker
says academy caved to pressure

Maria Anne Hirschmann seems like a sweet 82-year-old woman.

True, she repeatedly says that President Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler hold similar ideas, and that Obama is paving the way for the Antichrist.

The evangelical Christian also says Muslims will do whatever it takes, including violence, to spread Islam, and that if the U.S. military did not invade Iraq, terrorism would be rampant in America.

But given her kind, grandmotherly disposition, it's hard get angry with her.

It's much easier to get riled at the Air Force Academy for booking Hirschmann as a keynote speaker for a February symposium for cadets -- in spite of long-time allegations that the academy favors evangelical Christians and discriminates against nonevangelicals and people of other faiths.

The academy never specified why she was invited, though Hirschmann thinks it was for her love of America and American troops. She had planned to talk about freedom, not religion, she said.

But it doesn't matter; she never got a chance to speak. Lt. Col. Brett Ashworth, an academy spokesman, said Hirschmann's appearance was canceled when the vetting process discovered that her "views were not compatible" with those of the academy. "It had nothing to do with her religious views," he said.

Hirschmann, however, says she was canceled because of an outcry from First Amendment advocacy groups and threats from "a lawyer who said if you let that woman speak, we will sue the academy."

Hirschmann said she was asked in December to speak at the academy's "2009 National Character and Leadership Symposium." The academy bought her round-trip plane tickets from her home in Hawaii, Hirschmann said, but canceled her in mid-January.

It's possible that the academy vetted her during the intervening weeks, but Hirschmann doesn't buy it. "I have been speaking for 30 years for the U.S. military," Hirschmann said. "They knew my message of freedom. They could have asked for a tape or CD to hear my talks, but they never did."

And she does create controversy. Consider what she told me:

"Islam is a religion that believes it has a calling to make the world Muslim and do it violently and nonviolently - whatever way to spread Islam will be done," Hirschmann said.

Some have accused the U.S. military of turning the war on terror into a holy war between evangelical Christianity and Islam. Hirschmann is OK with that, too.

"If the U.S. military does what God tells them, he will bless America," she said.

Regardless of why the academy canceled Hirschmann's appearance, the fact that she was invited in the first place shows the academy still doesn't get it, said Arshad Yousufi, the spokesman for the local Islamic community.

Exposing cadets to "one-sided, unbalanced views," he said, leaves them unprepared for "dangerous global situations, where correct understanding of friends and foes is of strategic importance."

To read more of my interview with Hirschmann, go to my blog, The Pulpit.

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Canceled AFA speaker certainly
has her opinions

Friday, May 1, 2009
By Mark Barna

In my May 3 column, I write about Maria Anne Hirschmann, who was invited to speak in February at an Air Force Academy symposium but was then canceled. The reason, according to the academy, is that the vetting process turned up some unsettling things.

Hirschmann, 82, was born in Czechoslavkia and attended a Nazi youth camp in her teens. Once a follower of Hitler, she renounced the Nazi leader soon after World War II after meeting American soldiers in Europe who, she said, “were so kind to her.” Hirschmann moved to America in 1955, and for the first time her life,  she “understood what freedom was.”

Hirschmann founded Hansi Ministries in 1974.  She told me she’s been giving speeches at U.S. military institutions for 30 years.

But Hirschmann also hold some controversial views.  She paints Muslims as evil,  sees U.S. military  might as divinely inspired, and compares President Barack Obama to Hitler again and again. I recounted some of this in my column.  Below is an edited excerpt from my interview with Hirschmann.

MARK BARNA: You were a Nazi youth leader?

HIRSCHMAN: The Nazis brainwashed me. I believed it was the way to save the world.

BARNA: How to did you become a Christian?

HIRSCHMANN: The first human beings who were nice to me were American soldiers in 1945. I was trying to find answers because everything was so confusing. I became a Christian in western Germany in 1946.

BARNA: You’ve been a critic of President Barack Obama

HIRSCHMANN: Obama is the result of a trend in America that is going away from the Judeo-Christian ethic. Obama is a socialist, one step from communism.

He could pave the way for a future Antichrist. Obama scares me because he has no record and people flock to him. Hitler also had no record, people flocked to him and both wrote a book. Christians laid flat and Hitler came to power, just like with Obama.

Obama is the result of the secular news media brain washing America. The media put Obama into power.  He is so inexperienced …

BARNA: What was your impression of America when you arrived in the 1950s?

HIRSCHMANN: I got so excited about freedom. I had never experienced it before. The good Lord sent me to America.

BARNA: When did you start speaking at U.S. military institution?

HIRSCHMANN: I started in 1974.

BARNA: You have a great love for U.S. troops.

HIRSCHMANN: If it wasn’t for those American soldiers, I wouldn’t be here today.