Mildred Harnack née Fish

Mildred Fish grew up in a merchant family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the USA. She was the youngest of four children. After studying English philology and history of literature, she became a lecturer in literature at Madison University, where she met her future husband, Arvid Harnack. They married in summer 1926. In 1929 Mildred followed her husband to Germany on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, gaining a post as a lecturer in American literature at Berlin University in 1931. After her dismissal in 1933, she started teaching English literature and history of literature at the Berlin municipal night school. Her students Karl Behrens, Bodo Schlösinger and Wilhelm Utech took part in a seminar on economic and political topics, led by Arvid Harnack. Mildred Harnack took advantage of her connections at the American Embassy to obtain speeches by Roosevelt and other politicians, news about the Spanish civil war, commentaries on Hitler’s policies and other information, which she compiled and passed on to like-minded acquaintances. She sought contact with others holding oppositional or Nazi-critical views and tried to persuade them to perform resistance work. She supported her husband Arvid Harnack’s underground activities. In November 1941 she gained a PhD from the University of Giessen and became a lecturer at the Berlin University again. On 7 September 1942 Mildred Harnack was arrested with her husband and on 19 December 1942 sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. On 21 December 1942, however, Hitler revoked the sentence and on 16 January 1943 Mildred Harnack was condemned to death. She was murdered on 16 February 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee.