If you ’ve never heard ofMildred Harnackthat ’s about to change . By any measure , the free - thinking young woman from Wisconsin is an American hero .
DuringWorld War II , Mildred and her German hubby Arvid lived in Berlin , where she became the only American — male or distaff — to attend to as a loss leader in the hush-hush German resistance against Adolf Hitler .
Mildred pay the ultimate Mary Leontyne Price for her brave enemy to the Nazis . She was condemn to six years of hard undertaking for the crimes of treason andespionage , but ultimately Hitler in person ordered her to death in 1943 .
But instead of being hailed as a freedom fighter back home , Mildred and her co - conspirators were falsely painted as " communist spies " working for Soviet dictatorJoseph Stalin . Mildred ’s own family burned her letter for fright of being mark as communistic comforter .
Eighty class after her execution , Mildred ’s remarkable lawful story is being secernate , thanks in large part to her great - dandy - niece , authorRebecca Donner .
We spoke with Donner about her accolade - come through biography of Harnack , " All the Frequent Troubles of Our twenty-four hours , " to read how a literature professor from Milwaukee dared to stand up to Hitler and the Third Reich .
Forming the Underground Resistance ‘The Circle’
Mildred and Arvid Harnack met and hang in love as graduate students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison . A hebdomad after Mildred received her master ’s stage , she and Arvid married and in 1929 , at the age of 26 , she moved to Germany . Mildred follow a PhD and taught American lit at the University of Berlin ( where Albert Einstein was on the faculty ) . The young couple get together a vivacious community of intellectual , artist and writers in cosmopolitan Berlin .
But soon the political situation in Germany began to devolve . As Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers ' ( Nazi ) Party consolidate more and more might in the early thirties , Mildred had to make a choice .
" She could have boarded a boat and gone back to the U.S. , " Donner say . " But Mildred wanted to fight , to civilise and to inspire the great unwashed . As an American , she mat up very invested in this . "
Mildred and Arvid started hold meetings in their flat . Once Hitler was name chancellor in 1933 and Germany quickly slipped from a parliamentary republic into afascist dictatorship , the meetings took on a young urgency and the group take on a new name : the Circle .
" They were Social Democrats and Communists , nihilist , Jews , Catholics , atheist and Protestants , " say Donner . " What united the mathematical group was their opponent to Hitler . " Their intent was to undermine Nazi propaganda , so they compose pamphlets criticizing Hitler and urge Germans to join the underground .
From Education to Espionage
In Nazi Germany , any opposition to Hitler was violently suppressed and the media was tightly control . One of the primary target of the Circle was simply to educate the German public about what was really going on .
The Circle ’s first underground maneuver was to put out underground leaflets ( here ’s one from 1942 ) that expose the prevarication peddled by the Nazi Party . At a time when extraneous ( non - German ) radio broadcasts were banned , Mildred translated radio address by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt that criticized the Nazi authorities .
This was dangerous work . Anyone caught with an underground leaflet would be drop in prison or incarcerated at a concentration clique , Donner state . But by the mid-1930s , Mildred and the other member of the Circle realized they needed to take even greater endangerment .
" fight a dictator with composition was a piteous weapon , " Donner says . " They shift their scheme and decide to undermine the regime from within . "
Arvid , Mildred ’s husband , posed as a loyal Nazi and get under one’s skin a chore at the Ministry of Economics . Arvid had connections to the Soviet Union , and he used his government position to collect intel on Hitler ’s operation and secretly go past it to the Soviet embassy in Berlin .
Mildred did the same undercover agent piece of work for the Americans ( the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were ally in WWII ) . She tutor a young male child , Don Heath , who was the son of an American diplomat at her flat double a calendar week for two years .
" At the end of each lesson , she ’d slue a slice of composition into his packsack , which he ’d land back to his father at the embassy , " Donner say .
Mildred and the other member of the Circle used their connective at alien embassy to facilitate Jews break loose the homicidal anti-Semitism of the Nazi government . They even discuss act of sabotage against the German government .
By 1940 , the Circle was the with child underground group in Berlin , Donner says , and by 1942 more than 100 members were risk their animation to undermine the Nazis while constantly watching their backs for the Gestapo , Hitler ’s pitiless secret law .
The End of the ‘Red Orchestra’
unbeknown to the Harnacks and their resistance champion , the Gestapo was already closing in . German tidings intercepted message sent from member of the Circle to the Soviet Union . The Nazis had call their group the " Red Orchestra , " believing the Circle was a communist plot .
In former August 1942 , the Gestapo swoop . After one of their close acquaintance was arrest , Mildred and Arvid tried to fly the country , but they were tracked down and trance in Nazi - occupied Lithuania . cart in shackle to the cellar prison of the Gestapo home base , Mildred and Arvid were among 119 members of the Circle who were arrest and would be tried as two-timer .
Mildred and several others were tortured by a sadistic Nazi inquisitor named Walter Habecker in hope they ’d give up info about the resistance . Donner allege that several captive committed suicide rather than confront Habecker ’s brutal treatment . They were force to support trial before a five - jurist panel of Nazi judges .
Mildred was found guilty and sentenced to six years in a hard labor pack . Arvid and several other member of the Circle were execute in December 1942 . Many were hang , include Arvid , while others were beheaded .
But Hitler , fume after Germany ’s defeat at Stalingrad , wanted to send a message to would - be communist plotter . He personally ordered that Mildred be executed , as well .
On Feb. 16 , 1943 , 40 - class - old Mildred Harnack was transported from the Charlottenburg Women ’s Prison to the ill-famed execution center of attention at thePlötzensee Prison . Of the thousands of prisoner put to death at Plötzensee , Mildred Harnack was carry through by closure by compartment . She is the only American to be executed on direct orders from Hitler .
Restoring Mildred’s Legacy
At the close of WWII , as Allied investigators tracked down Nazi war felon , they learned about the destiny of members of the so - called " Red Orchestra . " Investigators were repeatedly distinguish by seize Nazis that Mildred and her conspirators were Stalin spies .
Mildred , Arvid and other extremity of the Circle had indeed shared word with the Soviet Union , but Mildred and Arvid had also done the same for the Americans . Nevertheless , they were branded as communists , not freedom fighters who courageously resisted Hitler within Germany .
" Mildred ’s oldest baby order everyone in the family to burn her letters after she was executed , " says Donner . " She was implicated that the whole family would be tainted by their ' radical ' sister . "
It was n’t until 1998 that the U.S. Congress passed theNazi War Crimes Disclosure Act , which declassified ream of top - secret documents go out to WWII . Donner describe a long - lose correspondence between an American intelligence officer and his higher-ranking upon learning that Mildred had been executed .
" The military officer fundamentally said , ' This is an American hero and we should reward her . Also , this looks like a war crimes case and we should pursue it , ' " Donner say . " But his superior wrote back and said that Mildred ’s execution was justify and to forget the case . That ’s why we did n’t hear about this for over 50 days . "
Donner herself only read about her heroic great - large - aunt as a teenager , when Donner ’s grandmother handed her a bundle of Mildred ’s pull round varsity letter and pep up her to recite Mildred ’s account one day . Since Donner published " All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days " in 2021 ( the title comes from a Goethe poem , one of the last matter that Mildred translated in prison house ) , she ’s oft asked if Mildred and Arvid gave their lives in vain .
" My solution is always no , " enounce Donner . " Yes , it ’s a tragedy that Mildred and others lost their lives , but they teach us about the grandness of have the braveness of your convictions and fighting for what you believe in , even if it ’s an unpopular position . "
In recognition of Mildred ’s fearlessness and sacrifice , there is a school named after her in Milwaukee . In Berlin , a school and a street also behave her name .
