Mildred Fish Harnack could’ve stayed safely in Wisconsin. She grew up in Milwaukee, studied literature at the University of Wisconsin, earned her bachelor’s degree in 1925 and her master’s in 1926, and met a German law student named Arvid Harnack in Madison. They fell in love, married, and eventually moved to Germany. Adolf Hitler was on the rise, and Mildred would soon become part of the resistance that tried to stop him.
By 1931, Mildred was teaching American literary history in Berlin. After losing that position, she taught English literature at a night school, and helped gather people who were willing to question the Nazi regime. She used contacts at the American embassy to obtain speeches, news, and commentary, then passed the material to others who opposed Hitler.
Their network became part of what the Gestapo called the Red Orchestra. The label was meant to make the group sound like a Soviet spy operation, but the people inside it were far more varied. They circulated anti-Nazi material, helped persecuted Jews escape, and passed information to foreign embassies. Arvid and others even warned the Soviet Union about preparations for Germany’s 1941 invasion.
Resistance, for Mildred, wasn’t one dramatic moment. It was a long accumulation of dangerous choices made while the Nazi state grew more ruthless around her. Every conversation, leaflet, recruited friend, and piece of information carried a cost if the Gestapo discovered it.
She kept going anyway.
The Gestapo caught up with Mildred and Arvid in September 1942. Arvid was sentenced to death. Mildred faced the Reich Court Martial, and received six years in prison on December 19. For a moment, it appeared she might survive the war.
Hitler wouldn’t allow it. Two days later, he personally revoked Mildred’s sentence and ordered another trial. The second proceeding ended on Jan. 16, 1943, with a death sentence. Her crime wasn’t battlefield violence: she had taught, recruited, carried information, distributed ideas, and helped build resistance inside a dictatorship that understood how dangerous those things could become.
Arvid had already been executed in December 1942. Before his death, he wrote Mildred about their years in Madison, and asked whether she remembered Picnic Point, where they became engaged. He told her she remained in his heart. Mildred apparently didn’t receive official confirmation of his death before her own execution.
On Feb. 16, 1943, Mildred was taken to Berlin-Plötzensee. Even in prison, she had continued translating Goethe into English. She worked on one of those translations on the day she died. At 6:57 that evening, the Nazis strapped the 40-year-old Wisconsin woman to a bench beneath a guillotine.
From the UW Alumni Association:
Unfortunately, the group was exposed when the German High Command broke their secret communications code. The Gestapo arrested Mildred and Arvid in September 1942 while they were on vacation at the Baltic Sea.
Arvid was convicted by a military tribunal of high treason and espionage. That tribunal also convicted Mildred as an accessory to espionage and sentenced her to six years hard labor. However, Adolf Hitler refused to endorse that decision and ordered a new trial, which resulted in a death sentence for Mildred. On February 16, 1943, Mildred Fish-Harnack became the only female American civilian to be executed on the direct order of Hitler. Her last words were, “And I have loved Germany so much.” She was only 40 years old.
Her final words were remembered in German: “And I have loved Germany so much.” There wasn’t hatred in those words, only heartbreak. She had loved a country enough to oppose the men destroying it, and Hitler considered her dangerous enough to intervene personally when six years in prison didn’t satisfy him.
Her story didn’t immediately receive the honor it deserved back home. Cold War suspicions surrounding the Red Orchestra and its Soviet contacts clouded Mildred’s reputation for years. Over time, Wisconsin and Germany recovered the fuller story of a woman who resisted a dictatorship from inside and paid with her life.
Wisconsin finally gave her story a permanent place at home. Since 1986, September 16, her birthday, has been recognized as Mildred Fish-Harnack Day. She left Milwaukee as a student and teacher, crossed an ocean, and found herself facing one of history’s most murderous regimes.
Hitler wanted Mildred Harnack dead because she wouldn’t surrender her conscience to him. Eighty-three years later, Wisconsin still remembers the woman he could kill, but couldn’t persuade to be silent.
