An Unrecognized Heroine
 

Mildred Harnack, a Milwaukee native, was the only American woman civilian
to be executed inside the German Reich for resisting Adolph Hitler and the
Nazionalsozialisten (Nazis). Those who condemned her to death justified the
deed by labeling her activities as "communistic". Actually Mildred Harnack
died specifically because, in Hitler's words, she was a "meddling American"
who, along with 117 other Germans had been caught trying to help the
Allies. Mildred went to the guillotine, leaving behind in her cell
scribbled verses from Shelley's "Adonis", Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in
the dooryard Bloomed", and Goethe's "Vermächtnis" (The Legacy)

She was born Mildred Fish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 6, 1902. As
a young child she revealed a brilliant mind and a passion for literature.
She attended West Division High School and after a year at George
Washington University she transferred to the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, where she remained after her graduation in 1925 to
pursue a master's degree. In the fall of 1926 she was named an instructor
in English literature. Her specialty was American writers, but she fell in
love with the fine art of translation.

At the University she discovered the works of Wolfgang von Goethe and,
happily, met a young German scholar of Economics, Arvid Harnack. Their
common link was a mutual passion for social justice.

Mildred and Arvid married in 1926 and
settled in Madison until 1928, when
Arvid returned to Germany. Mildred
followed her husband to the University
of Jena in 1929. Mildred, who had
grown up in one of the most German of
America's cities, loved her new home
and spoke its language fluently.
Suppression of the universities by the
growing Nazi powers drove the couple
from Jena to Berlin where they both
quickly found teaching positions.
Mildred now taught literature at the
Humboldt University in Berlin.
 
 

Both Harnacks were familiar figures in the capital's cultural and social
life. They exchanged their political views freely as they had done even in
their early days in Madison. Now, however, the exchange of political ideas
was considered rebellious and lethal. The Nazis had no tolerance for free
debate and took swift measures to suppress free thought. This did not,
however, deter the Harnacks.

The Harnacks, along with similar-thinking thinkers, began an underground
resistance group, which at the outbreak of the war, began publishing The
Inner Front, a biweekly underground newspaper of progress reports,
discussions about alternative political systems, poetry, advice, and
compassionate words for the persecuted. The circle was known as the
Harnack-Schulze-Boysen Group. Its members consisted of the Harnacks' inner
circle of intellectuals who now acted as spies. They gathered information
and secured several transmitters to broadcast German military advances to
the Eastern Front, the only Front open to them. The broadcasts continued
until August 30, 1942, when a Russian spy was arrested who revealed
information about the group.

The transmitters were discovered and like a domino reaction, the arrest of
members of the "outer" circle led to the arrest of the "inner" circle
members. 118 people were involved. Because the transmitters had been
code-named after musical instruments, and because they beamed to the East,
the Gestapo named the entire network, "the Red Orchestra" or "Rote
Kapelle". Twenty-two of those involved were released. 75 were tortured and
tried by the courts, the Harnacks among them. Arvid Harnack was sentenced
to death for treason and was garroted at the Plötzensee on Christmas Eve
1942. Mildred was sentenced to six years of hard labor in a concentration
camp. Hitler personally intervened with the court's decision to make
Mildred an example and after a bogus court appearance, she was sentenced to
death.

Mildred Fish Harnack was beheaded on February 16, 1943.

She never had an obituary. Her American relatives were unaware of her fate
until after the war. Her last letters to them warned, "Better not write,
but don't forget me."