Resisting Hitler: Canadian-born author tells the story of her great-great aunt
Mildred Harnack-Fish was part of the resistance against Hitler and ultimately gave up her life for it
Originally published on Sept. 29, 2021.
Mildred Harnack-Fish gave her life to resisting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and now her great-great niece Rebecca Donner is telling that story through the book All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days.
The idea to write the book first started taking shape when the Canadian-born author was nine. She was visiting her great grandmother in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and like many before her, Donner had her height measured and marked down against the kitchen wall in the house.
Among the many names, there was one that was one that was faded and unfamiliar, so Donner asked her great grandmother about it.
"My great grandmother said, 'Oh, well, that's Mildred,'" said Donner. "Her voice was clenched in a way that at nine I thought, 'oh, there's a story there.' She seemed sad or angry or both. And so I think the mystery of Mildred began for me right then."
When Donner was 16 years old, her grandmother and Mildred's niece Jane gave her some of Mildred's letters, and urged her to tell Mildred's story.
Donner learned a lot from her grandmother, who spent time with Mildred in Berlin before the Second World War. Mildred kept her work in the underground resistance a secret, but her grandmother Jane figured parts of it out.
With Mildred's letters, what she learned from her grandmother, and extensive archival research, Rebecca Donner began writing about her great-great aunt.
Who was Mildred?
Mildred Fish came from an impoverished family in Milwaukee, but was able to go to university and graduated with a masters degree. She married a man named Arvid Harnack, and in 1929, when her husband wanted to do his PhD in Berlin, she followed and did the same.
In Berlin, she was shocked by the number of swastikas she saw, and how many people supported Hitler.
In 1932, Mildred was teaching at the University of Berlin, and the couple started hosting meetings at their apartment with like-minded students who were also against Adolf Hitler.
But Mildred's outspoken views wound up getting her fired. From there, she taught night classes to adults, and continued to recruit people to the resistance.
"Their primary weapon against the Nazi regime at first was paper. They produced leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution," said Donner.
"But if you were caught with one of these leaflets, you could be sent to a concentration camp for a year, and this is indeed what happened to several of her recruits."
Stories of resistance
In 1935, Arvid and Mildred changed tactics. They made contact with people in the resistance outside of Germany.
"Arvid Harnack got a job at the Ministry of Economics with the express purpose of gaining access to top secret documents about Hitler's operational and later his military strategies, which then he would pass on to Hitler's enemies in the Soviet Union, as well as the United States," said Donner.
Mildred began tutoring the son of an American diplomat named Donald Heath. Mildred would slip the son a piece of paper with information on it, and then Heath would write a report based on her covert message.
Rebecca Donner was able to speak with Donald Heath before he died, and hear about all the work he did with her great-great aunt.
"After we concluded our interviews, he looked into my eyes and said, 'well, Rebecca, now I can die,'" said Donner.
It was stories of people such as Heath, Mildred and Arvid that led Donner to writing the book. She wanted to tell the story of people in Germany who fought against Hitler.
"These were brave men and women who risked and nearly all of them lost their lives in opposing the Nazi regime, and I think it's tremendously important for people today to know that these people existed."
A chance at escape
Mildred Harnack-Fish had the chance to leave Germany. In 1937 she went back to the United States to visit her mother, who was sick. There she visited Donner's great grandmother, and stayed at the house in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where Donner would one day learn about her work.
While Mildred was there, her friends and family urged her to stay. When she did return to Germany, her husband also wanted her to go back home to America. Arvid even bought her a ticket for a boat home that she could use anytime.
When she was arrested in 1942, she still had that ticket with her.
Mildred Harnack-Fish was placed into solitary confinement, and was interrogated and tortured. But when it came to the trial, when her husband and other resistance fighters were given death sentences, she was given six years in prison.
Two days later, Adolf Hitler found out about her sentence. He ordered she be sentenced to death. She was executed by guillotine.
But Rebecca Donner isn't letting her great-great aunt's story end there.
"I think we need a history lesson right now. I think that it's important to hear the stories of those who stood up to bullies and who basically tried to preserve the democracy that Germany very much enjoyed until Hitler became chancellor," said Donner.
Written by Philip Drost. Produced by Vanessa Greco.
