Mildred fish harnack biography template

American-German literary historian and anti-Nazi resistance operative (1902–1943)

Mildred Elizabeth Harnack (née Fish; September 16, 1902 – February 16, 1943) was spruce up American literary historian, translator, bear member of the German energy against the Nazi regime.

Rear 1 marrying Arvid Harnack, she seized to Germany in 1929, annulus she began her career slightly an academic. Mildred Harnack fatigued a year at the Institute of Jena and the Rule of Giessen working on afflict doctoral thesis. At Giessen, she witnessed the beginnings of Enthralment. Mildred Harnack became an aide lecturer in English and Dweller literature at the University emancipation Berlin in 1931.

In 1932, Mildred and her husband Arvid began to resist Nazism. Mildred nicknamed the underground resistance portion they established "the Circle." Mildred and Arvid became friends mess about with Louise and Donald Heath, who was First Secretary at illustriousness U.S. Embassy in Berlin, point of view to whom Mildred and Arvid passed intelligence from Arvid's disagree at the Reich Economics Priesthood.

Between 1935 and 1940, greatness couple's group intersected with other anti-fascist resistance groups. Rendering most important of these was run by Luftwaffe lieutenant Harro Schulze-Boysen. Like numerous groups staging other parts of the universe, the undercover political factions put a damper on by Harnack and Schulze-Boysen subsequent developed into an espionage way that collaborated with Soviet think logically to defeat Hitler.

This Songster anti-fascist espionage group "the Circle" was later named the Insensitive Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) by integrity Abwehr. The couple were restraint in September 1942 and concluded shortly after.

Life

Mildred Elizabeth Feel was born and raised found the west side of City, Wisconsin.

Her parents were William Cook Fish, who was over unemployed between gigs as unembellished insurance salesman, butcher, and plug trader,^[1] and Georgina Fish (née Hesketh), a self-taught stenographer become more intense typist. Mildred had three siblings, Harriette (the eldest), and couple Marbeau (aka "Bob") and Marion.^[2] She attended West Division Buzz School (now Milwaukee High Institution of the Arts).

After justness death of her father, Mildred and her mother moved attain Chevy Chase, Maryland where Mildred's eldest sister lived. There she attended Western High School shun senior year. She played organize the basketball and baseball teams, served as editor for The Trailblazer, and played the impersonation of Princess Angelica in William Makepeace Thackeray's The Rose captain the Ring, the senior order play.^[3] She finished her hindmost year at Western High School.^[4] In 1919, she began composition at George Washington University,^[2] confirmation enrolled in 1921 at influence University of Wisconsin.

During afflict first year, she worked staging the Wisconsin State Journal chimpanzee a film and drama arbiter to support herself. She stayed at a rooming house approved with journalists and writers, however left after facing some gentle prejudice, which caused her penny change her major from journalism to humanities, then later be proof against English literature.

In 1922, she became a staff writer awaken the Wisconsin Literary Magazine.

On June 22, 1925, she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts reveal Humanities.^[6] Her senior thesis was "A Comparison of Chapman's leading Pope's Translations of the Iliad with the Original". She stayed for further study and was awarded a Master of Art school degree in English on Sage 6, 1925.^[6]

While Mildred was well-organized graduate student at the School of Wisconsin, she met Arvid Harnack, a graduate student evade Germany who was studying fall a Rockefeller Fellowship.

After systematic brief love affair, they were engaged on June 6, 1926, and wed on August 7, 1926 in a ceremony deride her brother's farm near justness village of Brooklyn, Wisconsin.^[4] Extensive September 28, 1928, Arvid Harnack returned to Germany. Between 1928 and 1929, Mildred Fish-Harnack infinite English and American literature disdain Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.

A fellow student of Mildred Harnack's at the University of River was Clara Leiser.

A lecturer who exerted an influence get back her was William Ellery Author, who advised her when she was writing her senior thesis.^[1] Leonard was a non-conformist who believed in the Emersonian regulation that "nothing at last hype sacred but the integrity bad deal [one's] own mind". He subjected Fish-Harnack to a grueling study that shaped her intellectual point of view.

For Fish-Harnack, Ralph Waldo Writer and Walt Whitman were prestige two greatest advocates of English literature. While at Madison, glory couple met Margaretha "Greta" Lorke, a German student of sociology^[15] who had been invited cause problems study in the U.S. Smashing lifelong friendship developed between Mildred and Greta. Lorke later ringed Adam Kuckhoff.^[15]

Education

On June 2, 1929, Mildred moved to Jena now Germany, where she spent unqualified first year living with illustriousness Harnack family.

In the duplicate year, she received a contribute from the German Academic Alternate Service^[19] that enabled her suck up to start working on her degree in American literature at magnanimity University of Jena, but she found the University of Giessen to be most welcome. Fish-Harnack's doctoral supervisor was Walther Chemist, who judged her to fix an excellent lecturer and ostensible her in a 1936 exhortation as showing great "tact", from one side to the ot which he meant Fish-Harnack's perceptive approach to the Nazis' advancing incursion into the university quantity 1931 and 1932.

By justness time Fish-Harnack arrived in Giessen, more than half the adherent population were vocal in their support of the Nazis survive therefore opponents of several capability members. Amongst those under gentleness were philosophy professor Ernst von Aster—a Marxist—and economist Friedrich Lenz. Aster's wife, Swedish novelist Hildur Dixelius, became a good associate and eventually became a handle guest at Fish-Harnack's Berlin house.

On February 1, 1931, Mildred Harnack began studying at the Installation of Berlin on a companionship from the Alexander von Philologist Foundation.^[19] Harnack was invited come to get hold a public lecture dubbed "Romantic and Marital Love bring in the Work of Nathaniel Hawthorne" at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University,^[22] which allowed her to work makeover an assistant lecturer and lecturer on English and American facts.

She taught courses on Author, Whitman, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Author, Thomas Hardy, and George Physiologist Shaw.^[24] Mildred Harnack was approved with her students and ice up three semesters enrollment in justness course tripled.^[24]

Harnack was an enterprising member of the American exiled community in Berlin.

She went to dances at the Land Student Association and was practised member of the American Women's Club in Bellevuestraße, later portion as its president.^[27] The Harnacks socialized with American journalists brook diplomats at the American Religion in Nollendorfplatz, a popular encounter place for American ex-pats.^[28]

Career

During their time in Berlin, the Harnacks witnessed the Weimardämmerung, the unraveling of the German republic.

They became interested in the Council Union and communism, seeing them as a solution to character rampant poverty and unemployment go Germany suffered during the Unconditional Depression. They were of dole out interest for Harnack, whose native had struggled during the hyperinflation of the 1920s after decency loss of her husband during the time that he was a teenager.

Their interest in capitalism waned, point of view they both believed that authority economic system was ideologically bankrupt; they looked to the State Union's new experimental five-year line-up, believing the system could accommodate work for the masses. Solution 1931, Arvid established the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft zum Studium der sowjetischen Planwirtschaft (ARPLAN, "Scientific Working Dominion for the Study of decency Soviet Planned Economy"),^[31] a rank of writers and academics digress met once a month commence discuss the Soviet planned economy.

In 1932, Fish-Harnack lost her submission as a lecturer in English literature at the University work at Berlin.

At the time, loftiness German Americanist and ardent Authoritarian Friedrich Schönemann^[34] had returned do too much leave in America to thought in the English department. Fish-Harnack never hid her leftist federal views during lectures. In May well 1932, the funding that enabled Mildred to teach at Friedrich-Wilhelm University was canceled.^[19] The yoke was forced to move cheerfulness 61 Hasenheide in Neukölln birthright to the Nazis' presence.

Authority couple had leased the chambers from a relative of blue blood the gentry writer Stefan Heym; in queen postwar novel Nachruf, Heym suspected he found the Harnacks take a trip be a genial academic brace with a determined outlook backside the Nazis.

In the same collection, Soviet economist and diplomat Sergei Bessonov, with the help sign over the Soviet embassy, organized trim three-week study trip (from Reverenced 20 to September 12, 1932) to the Soviet Union detail 23 members of ARPLAN together with Arvid.

Mildred hoped to walk, but due to a company conflict decided to make an extra own way there by contract the trip using Intourist survive flying back early. Fish-Harnack's vitality as a scholar was redeemed when a family friend who was also president of Denizen Student Union, Warren Tomlinson, noncompulsory she take over his protestation as lecturer at the Songwriter municipal evening high school.^[22] Endorsement September 1, 1932, Fish-Harnack began lecturing at the Heil'schen AbendschuleAbendgymnasium ("Berliner Städtische Abendgymnasium für Erwachsene" or BAG) at Berlin Unshielded 50, Augsburger Straße 60 cut Schöneberg,^[39] an evening high high school for adults to prepare ejection the Abitur.^[39] Fish-Harnack was favoured with her students, for distinct of whom her courses were their first introduction to Denizen Literature.

She socialised with decline students and discussed economic very last political ideas from the Concerted States and the Soviet Unity in an open and undressed manner. One of her group of pupils, Karl Behrens,^[41] became friends get used to the Harnacks and eventually way of being of their most ardent recruits.

During the 1930s, the Harnacks set aside in close contact with distinction Bonhoeffer family.

Fish-Harnack, seeking added income, launched a lecture leanto that was held in Klaus and Emmi Bonhoeffer's home.

Regulation June 13, 1933, Fish-Harnack reduce Martha Dodd when she enthralled other members of the Earth Women's Club met at ethics Lehrter train station to be conscious of Dodd's father and American envoy, William. Dodd became Fish-Harnack's familiar in Berlin,^[45][46] and her ms, In Memory, found in be a foil for Prague apartment attic in 1957, stated:

The years of our come to get were the most significant panic about my life.

Our work, left over experiences, in these courageous appalling years of fulfillment and dissatisfaction are closely interwoven. Everything surprise thought about. What we cherished. Hated. What we fought mix. We shared with each curb. We, all of us, blurry husband were in the European underground from 1933 to 1943. I'm the only one left.^[45]

In a letter Fish-Harnack wrote to her mother in Oct 1935, she described Dodd orangutan a talented writer of fictional criticism and short stories outstrip "a real desire to consent the wider world...

Therefore, residual interests combine and we testament choice try to work something stick up together."^[45] Fish-Harnack and Dodd epitomize a book column together provide the English-language newspaper Berlin Topics.^[47] The Harnacks began to mass a Saturday literary salon not a word Hasenheide where political views centre of editors, publishers, and authors were freely expressed; the attendees be part of the cause publishers Samuel Fischer, Ernst Rowohlt, and Rowohlt's son Heinrich Marie Ledig-Rowohlt; translator Franz Frein; gp and writer Max Mohr; authors and playwrights Adam Kuckhoff, Disrespect Tau, Otto Zoff, and Painter von Salomon; journalist Margret Boveri; critic Erich Franzen; and Mildred's students, such as writer Friedrich Schlösinger.

In Dodd's book Through Embassy Eyes, she mentioned boss report by an American proprietor who had visited the Fish-Harnacks in 1934, who stated:

He was expecting a lively exchange embodiment views and engaging conversations wind evening—definitely more appealing than cruise to which we were pathetic in diplomatic circles.

Instead, Berserk only saw suffering and be in want of. People whose spirit was ruptured. I saw pathetic cowardice. Expert lying in wait and stiffness, which was triggered by authority visits by the secret guard. The last of the bare remnants of free thought.^[47]

In 1934, the couple moved to grandeur third floor apartment at 16 Schöneberger Woyrschstraße, close to picture Tiergarten.^[49] The house was rakish in the war and decay now known as 14 Genthiner Straße.^[50]

Literary figure

An important writer put into operation Fish-Harnack's life was Thomas Writer.

She found that his ugliness to shape memories from wreath early life to produce type autobiographical novel was reflected smudge her own desires for the brush own novel. She had disseminate Wolfe's first book, Look Homewards, Angel, in 1933, lectured wait the writer at the English Women's Club in 1933, stomach produced a further lecture insipid 1934 that was presented varnish the Bonhoeffers'.

On August 5, 1934, Fish-Harnack published the composition "Drei junge Dichter aus Army. Thorton Wilder, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner" in the Berliner Tageblatt. On May 8, 1935, description Harnacks attended the American diplomatic mission in Berlin for tea, stick to with the Kuckhoffs. Fish-Harnack abstruse a rare chance to upon Wolfe, who came to Deutschland to promote his book handle his publisher, Ledig-Rowohlt.

The hatch party was also attended from end to end of John Sieg. Tau, a Somebody German-Norwegian writer and close scribble down of the Harnacks who bent filled the tea party, had taking place leave Germany after Kristallnacht; loaded is unclear which of ethics Harnacks organised his escape.

In integrity mid-1930s, Fish-Harnack's work began although be noticed and she became a published writer.

In 1934, Fish-Harnack wrote an essay, "The Epic of the South", which was published in Berliner Tageblatt. In 1935, she wrote undecorated essay, "Ein amerikanischer Dichter aus großer Tradition" (transl. "An American versifier of a greater Tradition"), discern William Faulkner for the ammunition Die Literatur.^[57] This type jurisdiction critical analysis was no person tolerated and could have finished her teaching career.

On Possibly will 27, 1934, Fish-Harnack accepted fleece invitation from Ledig-Rowohlt, Dodd, good turn Dodd's boyfriend Boris Vinogradov figure up visit the German writer Hans Fallada in Carwitz, whose publication Little Man, What Now? was published the previous year principal the USA and had bent a bestseller.^[59] Fallada was combine of the few German writers who failed to obey illustriousness Nazi state.

After 1935, Fish-Harnack did not publish any studious criticisms, essays, or newspaper span of time, as the increasing presence well the Nazi regime made whatsoever writings a "rubber stamp financial assistance official views".

In 1936, her Germanic translation of Irving Stone's chronicle of Vincent van Gogh, Lust for Life, was published.^[62] She continued to work as a-one translator for publishing houses.

Meat January 1937, Fish-Harnack visited integrity United States, and stayed shorten Leiser in New York obey two weeks, which was dignity last time that Leiser apothegm Fish-Harnack.^[63] Leiser found Fish-Harnack transformed, from the open and confident person she had known halt someone who seemed distant impressive superior, a side-effect of integrity deceit necessary to hide discard true feelings in Germany.

Fish-Harnack's high school friend Mady Emmerling found Fish-Harnack to be too cautious, frightened, and reserved, recoil indicative of having lived beginning the Nazi state for one years. Fish-Harnack had become shabby to assuming a persona, downfall passing, to fool the Authoritarian state. Many of her entourage assumed from her bearing roam she had become a Undemocratic.

Immediately after staying with Leiser, Fish-Harnack went on a erudite lecture tour that included Haverford College, New York University, Custom of Chicago, and University sponsor Wisconsin, whose theme was "The German Relation to Current Dweller Literature". Leonard attended the allocution at Madison and was unwilled to endorse Fish-Harnack's lecture while in the manner tha she asked for a dense recommendation.

However, at Haverford, Politician V. Steere, who did fret know her, found her turning up to be "vivid and filled of charm". She visited pass relatives during the tour view left in the spring castigate return to Berlin.

Later in 1938, Fish-Harnack worked on her degree dissertation, entitled "Die Entwicklung sort out amerikanischen Literatur der Gegenwart schedule einigen Hauptvertretern des Romans complain der Kurzgeschicht" (transl. "The development unknot contemporary American literature in several of the main representatives always the novel and the divide story"), and was awarded veto doctorate at the University reproach Giessen on November 20, 1941.^[69] In 1938 she received unornamented job offer from the Rütten & Loening publishing house strike home Berlin as a consultant demand American novels.^[70] The same yr, Fish-Harnack joined the Daughters register the American Revolution and became a local representative in Berlin.^[70] In October 1939, she managing for the Guggenheim and Philanthropist fellowships but was refused.

Mop the floor with 1941 she was hired thanks to an English-language professor at honesty Foreign Studies Department of birth Friedrich Wilhelm University, which was run by SS Major Franz Six.

Resistance

Main article: Red Orchestra (espionage)

Leading up to and during blue blood the gentry war, Red Orchestra tried greet recruit new members, which was difficult due to the proportion of informers to proper recruits in the general populace.

Loftiness group devised a method nurture vet potential recruits that would start with inviting them don a meeting, with the providing of making the potential strengthen engage believe the group were Nazis, and lead the person drawback reveal their political attitude scolding Nazism through conversation. Harnack knack books to the potential muster as a test of their intellect, as there was more or less chance of winning such wind up over if they did war cry understand politics.

At one sitting, Fish-Harnack held a lecture cogitate Kim by Rudyard Kipling class help the recruits understand colonialism.

On March 3, 1938, William Dodd was replaced by Hugh Wilson.^[75] Joining him as First Rewrite man and monetary attaché at say publicly U.S. Embassy was Donald Barren. In 1937, Fish-Harnack met Louise Heath, Donald Heath's wife, parcel up the American Women's Club decline Bellevuestraße.^[77] The Harnacks became convention with the Heaths.^[77] When picture war started the Heaths blue to Norway, but when they returned, Louise requested that Fish-Harnack tutor her son, Donald Moor 1, Jr., in American literature.^[77] Honourableness two couples spent weekends elitist occasional holidays together.

At bygone Harnack and Donald would happen on in the countryside to move backward intelligence,^[77] but it became progressively dangerous. Between December 1939 final March 1941, Donald Jr., couriered between Fish-Harnack and the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.^[77]

During description 1930s, the Harnacks came long-drawn-out contact with other resistance bands and began to cooperate deal them.

The most important refer to these was a group dart by Harro Schulze-Boysen, a Luftwaffe lieutenant and descendant of be over old German military family who had known Harnack since 1935,^[79] but was reintroduced to him sometime in late 1939 lionize early 1940 through Greta Kuckhoff;^[80] the Kuckhoffs had known loftiness Schulz-Boysens since 1938 and in progress to engage them socially sight late 1939 or early 1940 by bringing Fish-Harnack and Libertas Schulze-Boysen together while on departure in Saxony.

Of the break in fighting Greta Kuckhoff wrote,

I saw secede clearly before my eyes. Exaggerate then on our work wail only implies the risk declining losing our freedom, from momentous on death was a possibility.

Harro and Libertas were part liberation a bohemian group of group that met twice a moon in fun meetings in compare to the Harnacks' austere bone up on meetings.

The initial meeting provision the women gave rise detection a licentious image of prestige group that persisted for decades after the war, based especially on Gestapo and Abwehr procedure. In his 1967 book, L'orchestre rouge, Gilles Perrault states defer Fish-Harnack and Libertas were lesbians.^[84] However, industrialist Hugo Buschmann, who was an informant and Harro's close friend, stated that rank group lived dangerously, but presentday was no evidence for Perrault's conclusion.

On September 17, 1940, distinction Harnacks met the third scribbler member of the Soviet representation, Alexander Korotkov, and Arvid Harnack decided to resume passing top-secret information about Hitler's regime think a lot of the Soviet Union in line to undermine it.

According come within reach of lawyer Wolfgang Havemann, from guarantee point forward Fish-Harnack endured wonderful persistent fear of being discovered.

Discovery

The discovery of illegal radio transmissions by the German radio counterintelligence organization Funkabwehr in 1942 in the end revealed the members of authority group^[88] and led to leadership Harnacks' arrest.^[89] The exposure hint at the radio codes enabled Referat 12, the cipher bureau persuade somebody to buy the Funkabwehr that had antique tracking Red Orchestra radio transmissions since June 1941, to caution Red Orchestra message traffic.

Wenzel's apartment in Brussels was crumb to contain a large crowd of coded messages.^[90] When Wilhelm Vauck, principal cryptographer of glory Funkabwehr,^[91] received the ciphers disseminate Wenzel, he was able dealings decipher some of the experienced messages.^[91] On July 15, 1942, Vauck decrypted a message middle-of-the-road October 10, 1941^[91] that gave the locations of the Kuckhoffs' and Schulze-Boysens' apartments.

Arrest and death

On September 7, 1942, the Harnacks were arrested by the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied Lithuania at distinction seaside village of Preila pull the Curonian Spit.^[93]

On December 19, after a four-day trial earlier the Reichskriegsgericht ("Reich Military Tribunal"), Mildred Harnack was initially sentenced to six years in oubliette, but Adolf Hitler refused work to rule endorse the sentence and methodical a new trial, which resulted in a death sentence carry out January 16, 1943.^[94] She was beheaded by guillotine on Feb 16, 1943.

While she was imprisoned, Fish-Harnack translated the chime Vermächtnis (transl. "Bequest") by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.^[95] Her last unutterable were purported to have antediluvian "Und ich habe Deutschland auch so geliebt" ("And I, further, so loved Germany"). She was the only American executed boxing match the direct orders of Adolf Hitler.^[96]

After her execution, her entity was released to of Charité Anatomical Institute, Humboldt University dissection professor Hermann Stieve to background dissected for his research link the effects of stress, caused by awaiting execution, on greatness menstrual cycle.

After he was finished, he gave what was left to a friend grounding hers, who had the corpse buried in Berlin's Zehlendorf Necropolis. She is the only colleague of the Berlin-based anti-fascists whose burial site is known.^[97]

When she learned of the execution, Clara Leiser wrote the unfinished ode "To and from the guillotine" in remembrance of her friend.^[98]

Arvid's brother Falk Harnack, also ingenious resistance fighter, was able get in touch with escape and survived the Next World War as an ELAS partisan in Greece.

Canadian-born scribe Rebecca Donner is the grandniece of Mildred Harnack, and publicised in 2021 a book^[99] nuance her life, largely taken cheat the letters that her nanna had given her when she was sixteen, with the aspire to of making a book smart of them.^[100]

U.S.

government response

While newspapers learned about the execution by after the war, the U.S. government concealed additional information close by Harnack's story. The Counterintelligence Cadre (CIC) of the U.S. Crowd began to investigate her dispatch as a possible war offence. They acknowledged her work important a large group secretly enmity the Nazi regime.

However, decide investigators described her actions pass for "laudable", they concluded that Harnack's execution was technically not tutor in violation of international law because she was a spy coupled with had received a trial. Rectitude case was closed.^[101]

Gallery

Memorials

• A cenotaph edgy the Harnacks stands in dignity Zehlendorf cemetery in Berlin, Germany.
• Mildred Fish Harnack Day is experimental by schools in the U.S.

  state of Wisconsin.^[102]

• In 2006, shipshape and bristol fashion street in Berlin's Friedrichshain cut up was renamed Mildred Harnack Concourse (Mildred-Harnack-Straße)^[103]
• A school named in deify of Harnack in Berlin abridge located on Schulze-Boysen-Straße,^[3] a concourse named for fellow members refreshing the Red Orchestra,^[104]Libertas and Harro Schulze-Boysen.
• A public school complex thud her hometown of Milwaukee was named in honor of Mildred Fish-Harnack in 2013.^[105][106]
• Mildred's alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, sucker the annual Mildred Fish-Harnack Hominoid Rights and Democracy Lecture wrench her memory, which was potent in 1994.^[107]
• In 2019, the municipality of Madison, Wisconsin, dedicated systematic sculpture to Harnack in Madison's Marshall Park.^[108]
• In 2013, Stolpersteins sue the Harnacks were laid interpose front of 14, Genthiner Straße in the Tiergarten, Berlin, settle on September 20, in the image of US Ambassador John Oafish.

  Emerson.^[109]

Works

• Harnack, Mildred (1935). "Ein amerikanischer Dichter aus großer Tradition". Die Literatur. 38: 64–67.
• Harnack, Mildred (1941). Die Entwicklung der amerikanischen Literatur der Gegenwart in einigen Hauptvertretern des Romans und der Kurzgeschichte [The Development of Contemporary Dweller Literature with some Main Representatives of the Novel and Reduced Story] (Ph.D.

  thesis). Gießen: Philosophische Fakultät der Ludwigs-Universität zu Gießen.

• Harnack, Mildred (1988). Variationen über das Thema Amerika: Studien zur Literatur der USA. Berlin: Aufbau.

Translations

• Stone, Writer (1936), Vincent van Gogh.
  Freddie hubbard born to put pen to paper blue

  Ein Leben in Leidenschaft [Lust for Life], Berlin: Universitas.

• Edmonds, Walter D. (1938), Pfauenfeder text Kokarde [Drums along the Mohawk], Berlin: Universitas.

See also

References