Narrator: Germany, 1933.
Hitler has seized control of the country
but not all Germans are under his spell.
Anne Nelson: A lot of people felt the Nazis
were like a bad dream and it was going to blow over.
Narrator: Mildred Fish-Harnack is a Milwaukee native
living under the Nazi regime.
Along with her German husband, Arvid
she chooses to fight back.
Donald Heath, Jr.: Mildred says, "Well, it's not a question
of how dangerous it is, I've got work to do."
Narrator: They enter into a world of espionage.
The stakes are incredibly high.
Rainer von Harnack: They saw the brutality
and they saw what happened to the Jews.
Heath: He would become a Nazi
in order to penetrate the German government.
Narrator: A twist of fate will set Mildred and her husband
on a collision course with Adolf Hitler.
At that point, they knew the Gestapo was on their trail.
Nelson: The rage drove a thirst for vengeance
that Hitler felt personally.
Shareen Blair Brysac: He didn't want any martyrs. He wanted her dead.
Narrator: The only American woman
ever executed on the direct order of Adolf Hitler.
Support for Wisconsin's Nazi Resistance
includes principal gifts
from the Frances and Laurence Weinstein Family Foundation
and the L.E. Phillips Family Foundation;
and major gifts from Mildred and Marv Conney
and the Wisconsin Humanities Council
with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities;
and additional contributions
from the Herbert and Elsbeth Weichmann Foundation
and the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
John Gurda: At the turn of the century
Milwaukee was unlike any other city
because no other city was as German
as socialist, and as fond of beer.
Narrator: Born into this city in 1902, Mildred Elizabeth Fish
family and friends would affectionately call her Mili.
Brysac: Mildred, as the youngest
was very much loved, as a lot of younger children are.
She was the pet of everybody.
So I think that kind of security
gave her a lot of self-confidence
all of her life.
And she was a bit of an extrovert personality.
Gurda: Where she grew up, on the west side
26th and Highland, was very close
to what they called "Sauerkraut Boulevard"
which was these very wealthy Germans, the Millers
and the Pabsts, and the Usingers.
Narrator: The Fish family was not wealthy
and moved frequently when the rent went unpaid.
Brysac: They moved a lot of times because her father
was lowering himself by his bootstraps.
Every job he had was down a peg
from where he started.
Narrator: William Cooke Fish was estranged from his family
and would die alone when Mildred was in high school.
Despite the darkness and storm of her parents' unhappiness
Mildred excelled at West Division High.
She was active in Athena, a club devoted to women's issues
and a student Bible study group.
Grace Carlsruh, one of Mili's best friends
considered her a soul mate.
Grace later wrote:
It's been many, many years since Mili and I thought alike
dreamed alike, wrote poetry on identical themes
without consulting each other.
I was perhaps the first Jewish person whom she knew.
Narrator: With Grace, Mildred began a lifelong passion for writing.
For the yearbook, Mildred wrote "Our Boys"
about soldiers in World War I
a foreshadowing poem, perhaps of her own fate
later in wartime.
They saw the need and went;
their life narrowed in a sterner living
stripped of its tinsel leaving the bare intent:
to fight and love.
Narrator: World War I triggered a monumental backlash
in Mildred's hometown.
Gurda: When Milwaukee becomes part of this huge juggernaut
of the Americans kind of jumping into the war in 1917
then just German culture is just cut off at the knees.
People were very afraid of being
identified as German
and were really interested in proving their loyalty.
And Mildred would have picked that up.
Narrator: And while Mildred wasn't German
she was immersed in the culture
in this, the most German of American cities.
The end of World War I
proved to be a turning point for Mildred's mother Georgina.
Brysac: She taught herself shorthand
She taught herself typing.
When they moved to Washington, she was really able
to get a good secretarial job and support the family.
Narrator: Following the move to Washington, DC
Georgina's priority?
Getting Mili through her final year of high school
and on to college.
Brysac: She joined all of these activities.
She was something of what we would call a jock.
She loved athletics.
She loved nature. She loved hiking.
But again, that comes out of Wisconsin.
Narrator: Mildred started college out east, but was homesick.
She wanted to follow family tradition
and follow her sisters to the University of Wisconsin.
Brysac: She always felt like she was a Wisconsin girl
and wanted to return to Madison and go to the university
in Madison, which is what she did.
Narrator: She arrived in Madison to find a seismic shift in politics.
Women now had the right to vote.
With dreams of a writing career
Mildred moved into Journalism House.
As a student, she worked for the Wisconsin State Journal
and joined The Wisconsin Literary Magazine
with its art deco covers distributed nationwide.
Mildred stood out at the university.
One professor invited her back to his class
where she impressed students learning Greek.
( woman reciting in Greek )
Brysac: She memorized the first book of The Iliad in Greek
which is no small feat, and she recited this.
People that heard her never forgot that.
Narrator: Mildred Fish would graduate
from the University of Wisconsin
in the Class of 1925.
She stayed on as an English instructor
during graduate school.
Love, life and lecturing took a dramatic turn
when Arvid Harnack, a Rockefeller Scholar
arrived from Germany.
As the story goes, Arvid went to the wrong building
and by mistake ended up in a class taught by Mildred Fish.
Brysac: He saw this radiant teacher with this blonde hair.
Everyone says that Mildred
was the most beautiful girl on the university campus.
She was absolutely gorgeous.
He went up and introduced himself.
He apologized for his faltering English
and she apologized that she didn't speak German very well.
He proposed he study English with her
and she study German with him.
And that was the beginning of the romance.
Narrator: A romance sparked by accident or fate
soon included canoe rides
out to Picnic Point.
Mildred and Arvid would talk about their hopes
over lunch on Madison's State Street.
In her memoirs
Arvid's sister Inge described what happened next.
I still remember how a letter arrived for my mother
with the laconic sentence
"I've met a girl with the beautiful name, Mildred."
My mother read it
and said with assertiveness, "That's her."
Meaning, that wilbe his wife.
Narrator: The invitations went out
announcing an August 7th wedding.
Always an independent thinker, Mildred Fish-Harnack
chose to hyphenate her married name.
Jilly Allenby-Ryan: She married into an elite family
in an academic sense.
Almost everybody excelled at whatever it was they did
in one way or another.
Narrator: Arvid's father, Otto Harnack, was a noted literary historian.
Like Mildred, Arvid lost his father at a young age
and grew-up under the strong guidance of his mother.
von Harnack: He was a very gifted child.
He wrote poems.
He painted. He wrote dramas.
Later, he became the so-called "streng"
serious and analytic mind.
Narrator: Arvid's mind would be challenged
at the University of Wisconsin by John R. Commons
a well-known professor of economics.
It was at Professor Common's house
where Arvid and Mildred would gather with a circle of friends
to discuss social, economic and political policy.
Brysac: These were very progressive people that were in fact
inventing very significant legislation.
Unemployment Insurance Workman's Compensation, Social Security.
These people were
the heart of the progressive movement and the Wisconsin Idea.
Narrator: These students became known as the Friday Niters
and included another German student named Greta Kuckhoff.
Nelson: The University of Wisconsin in Madison
played an absolutely unique role
in creating the intellectual outlook of this group.
Arvid and Mildred Harnack, Greta Kuckhoff
all had a formation here.
Narrator: And what they learned in Madison
was about to be tested in a fight against the Nazis.
Arvid booked a passage back to Germany in 1929
at the end of his fellowship.
When Mildred joined Arvid, she was welcomed with open arms.
Genie Allenby: I knew that she loved
being a part of the Harnack family.
She must have been very lively
and very interested in the things
that the Harnacks were interested in.
Narrator: Arvid's sisters and Mildred became good friends.
Allenby: Inge and Mildred were sometimes
or perhaps quite often taken for sisters.
And it was not only the fact that they looked alike
but I think they had very much in common.
Narrator: Education was a common bond, and both Arvid and Mildred
enrolled at Justus Liebig University.
That's where Arvid submitted his thesis
"The Pre-Marxist Labor Movement in the United States."
Brysac: The Harnacks all had multiple degrees.
Arvid had two-and-a-half doctorates.
Mildred immediately started to work on a doctorate.
She embarked on a degree in American Literature.
Narrator: In a move out of financial necessity and scholarly ambition
Mildred would join the intellectuals
at Berlin University
to teach Modern American Literature.
She was one of the first Americans on a faculty
that included Albert Einstein.
She was somebody who wrote
about the spirit of democracy in American literature.
Narrator: In 1933, Mildred wrote home about being a free woman
a busy life in Berlin, and hope for the future.
The very next day
Hitler took over.
Her correspondence soon changed.
Brysac: The importance of those letters was that they described
the coming to power of Hitler in her own words
so you know how she felt
with all these demonstrations, beatings in the street
and book burnings, because she was a witness to this in Berlin.
For Mildred, in the early stages of the Nazi period
I think a lot of people felt that the Nazis
were like a bad dream, and it was going to blow over.
Stefan Roloff: They underestimated them.
These were thugs.
They were different people
and suddenly, everybody was under their control.
Narrator: With the rising Nazi tide
suddenly Mildred lost her teaching job.
She was a woman. She was a foreigner.
And she wasn't Nazi enough.
The Harnacks began to hear the steady Nazi drumbeat
grow louder in their neighborhood
so they moved to an area of Berlin
more in step with their ideals.
Nelson: Certainly they had extremely liberal, progressive
and in some ways Marxist ideas.
Arvid Harnack believed in centralized economic planning.
He'd just lived through a stock market crisis.
Arvid Harnack was an economist
and he said capitalism isn't working terribly well right now.
Narrator: It was the great depression, and to Arvid, the Soviet
planned economy seemed to be an interesting alternative.
Arvid founded a study group
similar to the Wisconsin Friday Niters
to discuss the Soviet economy.
It included a trip to Moscow in 1932.
During that trip, most likely the first contact with Arvid
was made by Soviet Intelligence.
At the same time, Mildred became engaged in all things Soviet.
Mildred booked her own trip
to see a tourist's version of Joseph Stalin's empire.
Mildred discovered radical new concepts
unheard of in the United States.
Soviet women had maternity leave
equal pay, and education about birth control.
When Mildred returned to Berlin
she did find another teaching position.
Brysac: It was not a prestigious university.
So, she had jobs like that until the war started.
Narrator: Mildred wasn't paid much and took odd jobs.
She wrote freelance articles about America for Die Dame
Germany's leading women's magazine.
They had no money, the Harnacks. They never hadny money.
She wanted to get free books.
One way of getting free books was to review them.
Narrator: The Harnacks didn't have much money
but they were welcomed into the embassy crowd.
Ambassador Dodd was very sympathetic
to anti-Nazi elements in Berlin.
His daughter Martha was a very good friend of Mildred Fish's.
They held parties together.
They wrote articles together.
And so, Arvid and Mildred
were very much central figures in the U.S. Embassy.
Narrator: But with the Nazi crackdown
ties to the U.S. Embassy became more risky.
Even more dangerous?
Any Communist connections.
So Arvid's group that studied the Soviet planned economy
disbanded
and he destroyed his thesis on the Marxist movement.
The Nazis also continued to target Jews.
Nelson: Arvid and Mildred Harnack
had Jewish friends and progressive friends
who were, in some cases
put in the new concentration camps
right down the road from their house.
Narrator: That just added to Mildred's agony
when she joined the Nazi party in order to survive
in order to get work.
Joining the Nazi party
meant she had to sign official documents
with the phrase "Heil Hitler!"
Privately, the Harnacks used their apartment
as a base for a small circle of friends
to discuss literature and politics
in the face of the Nazi regime.
Nelson: So they went from this
kind of broad social policy focus
to saying we're in a political emergency
and we have two choices.
We can either hide from it or we can engage.
Narrator: The Harnacks' circle moved from discussion.
to resistance to warn other Germans.
Their resistance work reconnected the Harnacks
with Greta Kuckhoff
the German friend from their days in Madison.
Mildred Harnack was in a group of people
a circle of friends, her husband
Adam Kuckhoff, Greta Kuckhoff.
And I think Mildred was involved
in all the activities of her husband.
Narrator: At great risk, Mildred used her teaching job
to recruit students into the Nazi resistance.
The resistance network also included Lutherans, Catholics
Jews, social democrats, Communists, and aristocrats
anyone who objected to the Nazi dictatorship.
As their resistance work increased
the Harnacks took a new address, on the outskirts of Berlin
in a house less likely to draw Gestapo attention.
Johannes Tuchel: We have evidence that they lived their daily life
and they lived their life
their evening life or their night life
as preparing actions, leaflets
dealing with material for anti-Hitler actions.
Here were Mildred and Greta
who were professional women, educated women
ready to go out and change the world, and work hard.
And they get to the Nazi period and were told
go back to the kitchen, put on the apron
and have lots of nice Nazi babies.
Narrator: These women refused.
And under the cover of darkness, and in the shadow
of Berlin's landmarks, organized resistance meetings
and transported secret documents.
They were seeing the first signs of the Holocaust
and trying to rouse the German public to respond.
The Nazi's had an absolute control
a lock on public information.
One activity that the group did
was illegally get foreign radio broadcasts.
President Roosevelt: The blunt fact
is that every single person in the United States
is going to be affected by this program.
Narrator: Mildred and Greta translated speeches from foreign leaders
then distributed those translations illegally
in leaflets around Berlin.
As a cover, Mildred also used her job translating books
and traveling for a publishing firm
to help her Jewish friends.
Brysac: She had an American passport
and she could travel to France, and Norway, and Denmark.
And she seems to have used these connections, it was said
to help Jews escape.
Max Tau was one of them. He was a writer in Germany.
And he said, "Mildred Harnack helped me escape Germany."
We don't know how.
Narrator: Mildred's friendship with the U.S. Ambassador's daughter
most likely proved valuable.
The one thing we can probably speculate on
was her connections with Martha Dodd
in the American Embassy.
She was in a position to get visas for people.
So Mildred would have said to Martha
hey there's this person who really needs to get out
can your father give him a visa?
They definitely helped Jews.
They shared the last piece of bread they had.
When they had nothing, Mildred's mother
also from time to time, sent a check from the States.
Narrator: That assistance was needed
despite Arvid having a good job in the Economics Ministry.
Arvid's work put him in close contact
with the U.S. and Soviet embassies
and created an opportunity.
He decided early in the game that he would become a Nazi
in order to penetrate the German government.
And so, he was famous in the Economics Ministry
as being a hard Nazi.
Secretly, he was meeting with Soviet intelligence officers
and providing information to them.
The Soviet Union, at a certain point
tried to enlist them as traditional Soviet agents
who followed orders.
And this conversation was held with Arvid Harnack
who said, "No, that's not who I am.
"I am doing this for Germany.
"I'm doing this for my country.
"And I think that helping the Soviets
"will help to overthrow Hitler.
So, those are my terms, and I will not follow your orders."
Narrator: The Harnacks were also open to assisting the Americans
and took a trip to the U.S. in 1937.
Arvid on government business, Mildred went on a lecture tour.
She also wanted to see her mother.
Brysac: Her mother was dying
and she hadn't been to the United States
in nearly ten years.
So she came back
and she toured around.
She gave some lectures at various colleges.
She really worried that there was a Gestapo tail on her
so she was very, very careful about what she said.
Arvid was, I think, quite cold-blooded.
I think with his arrogance
he kind of believed he was smarter
than these idiots in the Gestapo.
He'd do anything to achieve an objective, you know.
I mean, like joining the Nazi party when he hated it so much.
Narrator: Representing the Third Reich
Arvid had been tasked to travel to Washington.
Brysac: Arvid was trying to get
aluminum and copper supplies from the United States
in the run-up for the war
that was his official mission.
Narrator: But not his only mission.
His value to the Americans
was that he knew where all the German companies were
and where their assets were.
And he told them that, that the war was coming.
The Americans were not ready to believe that in 1937.
Americans just thought they were being duped
because here was this perfect Nazi.
They assumed he was a Nazi.
He was working a high level job in the government.
They didn't really do much with this information
which Arvid really risked his life in telling them.
Narrator: A risk if discovered that could result
in severe consequences
when the Harnacks returned to Germany.
In 1937, the Germans passed a law which said
any revealing of economic secrets to anyone
was a matter of treason.
Narrator: Despite that danger
a changing of the guard at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin
presented Arvid another chance to help the Americans.
Donald Heath, Sr., arrived in Berlin
as the embassy's new First Secretary.
His covert mission, infiltrate the German Economics Ministry.
Heath: President Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Treasury
were both worried that Hitler would do something
that would precipitate another Wall Street.
They were more interested
in my father's reports on economic matters
than they were on what Hitler was doing to the Jews
or what he planned to do to the Russians.
I had no idea what my father was really doing
except that I noticed that he was seeing a lot of people
in the Ministry of Economics
and one of them was a man named Arvid Harnack.
Narrator: The Harnacks and the Heaths became fast friends.
Brysac: Heath would tell Arvid what he needed to know
about what was happening in America.
But more importantly, Arvid was passing on all these secrets
about German rearmament.
Narrator: Arvid met regularly with Donald Heath, Sr.
but in order to not rouse suspicion
they devised another way to relay information.
Mildred started tutoring a young Donald Heath, Jr.
Heath: I would go back and forth with messages
from the Harnacks to my father
messages from my father to the Harnacks.
Narrator: By this time, Arvid had lost touch with his Soviet contacts
but 1939 would prove to be a pivotal year.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
This man, Korotkov, appeared at his apartment
and said, "I bear messages from your Soviet friends."
And "Can you help us?"
Narrator: Arvid agreed, but laid out his three goals:
topple Hitler, end the war, and preserve German independence.
The missing link, military information.
Mildred took advantage of an opportunity
to tutor a German soldier.
Nelson: He apparently met with Mildred to get his English lessons
liked her a lot, and talked too much.
So it was said that she became a recipient
of military information.
Narrator: But the real military cache came when the Harnacks
joined forces with Harro Schulze-Boysen
in a network the Gestapo nicknamed the Rote Kapelle
or Red Orchestra, because of its Soviet connections.
Brysac: What we now know as the Red Orchestra
really took off in 1939
when Arvid Harnack and Schulze-Boysen
got together.
Now, Schulze-Boysen was a young Luftwaffe Lieutenant
from a very distinguished German family.
When Arvid first met him
he said this guy is much too dangerous
and didn't want anything to do with him.
Arvid was very secretive.
Arvid was extremely careful.
Narrator: Using code names, this larger resistance network
now began spiriting military and economic secrets
to the Soviets and Americans.
In order to meet with Arvid and Mildred
my mother and father and I would go out on weekends
into the countryside
and they would meet us at some set agreed upon point.
My father and Arvid would walk along
arguing over Arvid's pro-Russian attitudes.
Narrator: Despite the arguing, the men became close friends
and trusted allies.
In August, 1939, the U.S. Embassy advised all Americans
to get out.
Arvid was worried
and bought Mildred a boat ticket to America
a ticket with no expiration date.
Arvid asked my father to speak with Mildred
and tell her, "You've got to go
because you just don't know how dangerous it is."
And Mildred said, "Well it's not a question
"of how dangerous it is, I've got work to do.
I'm not going."
I think more amazing it must be to Americans
knowing she could have left.
And she said, "No, I'm going to stay here.
"I'm going to fight by your side.
This is where I belong," and "I'm with you."
Narrator: Mildred couldn't leave Germany without Arvid.
And he couldn't leave Germany to the Nazis.
Arvid's sister saw Mildred's struggle
and wrote about it in her memoir.
She chose her words very carefully when she spoke
about the fear and turmoil that filled her life
and also about her longing
for her distant American homeland.
Narrator: The pressure only mounted
when the Germans invaded Poland.
Newsreel Announcer: Arrogant and well-trained
the Nazis marched through Warsaw Streets.
Narrator: In 1940, as bombs fell on Berlin
the resistance ratcheted up another notch
when the Soviets provided radio transmitters
to speed the flow of information.
They had been given some radios
but they didn't have any training as radio operators.
The radios were plugged into the wrong kind of current.
Narrator: The radios didn't work.
But as air raids pierced the night
Arvid continued to frantically code secret material
not knowing the magnitude of the radio failure.
But the resistance had other ways
to relay vital intelligence from Harro Schulze-Boysen
that could change the war.
Brysac: At the time, May-June 1941, was when Harro
gave very specific information about the fact
that the Germans were going to invade the Soviet Union.
He was not the only one.
Many books have been written about the number of times
Stalin was warned that he was going to be invaded.
Narrator: The Germans did storm into the Soviet Union
catching Stalin's troops off guard.
The resistance network was dazed.
How could Stalin have ignored secret warnings
for the past nine months?
Secrets the resistance had risked their lives to get.
Mildred may have also put a young
Donald Heath, Jr., at risk.
At just 13 years old, she asked to use Donald as a lookout.
My mother and father really weren't
keyed into how dangerous a situation it was.
Narrator: His covert operation?
Follow Mildred on a train to the city of Potsdam.
His instructions involved a rendezvous in a park.
"You're going to follow me, and see me join this lady
"but if somebody else seems to be following us
you walk by, and you have to whistle a tune."
( whistling )
"And I'll know we're being followed."
Narrator: Soon after that, the Heaths got pulled out of Germany.
Suddenly, the State Department transferred Donald Heath
to Santiago, Chile
just as the war was about to engulf the United States.
Narrator: December, 7, 1941
the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
President Roosevelt declares war
on Japan, Italy and Germany.
The American people and their righteous might
will win through to absolute victory.
( crowd cheering )
Narrator: With Donald Heath, Sr., gone and the U.S. Embassy empty
the Americans lost contact with the Harnacks.
The resistance also saw its ties to Moscow get severed.
The Soviets, desperate to get information
radioed a spy in Brussels with a message that said...
That they should send someone to Berlin
to contact Schulze-Boysen, and Harnack, and Kuckhoff.
And they gave the addresses in that message.
Narrator: In a fatal breach of security, the Soviets transmitted
the real names and addresses of its Berlin contacts.
Tuchel: One of the addresses and the names was of Harnack
Arvid Harnack.
Narrator: The Nazis had been eavesdropping.
In summer of 1942, the Gestapo
was able to decipher this message
and they had the name of Harnack
and they had the name of Schulze-Boysen.
Narrator: One of the network's leaders
its military source, Harro Schulze-Boysen
was captured first.
Brysac: Once Harro was arrested
Libertas, his wife, tried to flee.
She was picked up on a train.
And she warned some of the other people.
Narrator: The Harnacks took a sudden trip to the Baltic coast
with their good friends the Zechlins
where storm clouds signaled trouble.
This is an interesting aspect, Egmont Zechlin
whom I interviewed, said he thought that maybe
they were intending to escape.
At that point
they knew the Gestapo was on their trail.
So, they maybe were trying to escape to Sweden.
Narrator: But escape was no longer possible.
What happened next seared into the memory of Egmont Zechlin.
He chronicled Mildred and Arvid's arrest
at this fisherman's cottage.
Harnack walked over to me and said calmly
"We're going with the gentlemen to Berlin.
They need me in the Ministry."
At that moment, a Gestapo agent stepped between us.
The highest ranking Gestapo officer
said to me in a changed tone
"Professor, I would like to inform you
"that you are not to tell anyone, anything.
Otherwise, we will have to come back to you."
Narrator: When she was arrested
Mildred still had the boat ticket to America in her purse.
The Secret Police brought the Harnacks
to one of the most feared addresses in the German capital
Gestapo headquarters.
Walter Habecker, known for his brutal torture techniques
was assigned to break the Harnacks.
We know that in the case of the men
including Arvid Harnack
there were extreme forms of torture.
Narrator: Mildred was incarcerated
at Charlottenburg Women's Prison
and taken daily for questioning.
Other resistance fighters
including Helmut Roloff
overheard Mildred's interrogations.
Roloff: And this day that my father had a brief view of her
he was sitting in front of the interrogation room.
And he heard a terrible, terrible amount of screaming
and yelling inside of that room.
And Mildred must have had a breakdown
because she was brought out on a stretcher.
Narrator: More than 100 Germans had been arrested.
Their resistance network stunned the Nazis.
These were Germans
who could have benefited from the regime.
Hitler was shocked.
Hitler thought he had the entire nation behind himself.
He was sure of that.
But when he saw the diversity of this group
the oldest person arrested was 86 years old
the youngest was 16, 40% women, every walk of life.
Narrator: Three weeks after the Harnacks' arrest
Arvid's cousin Axel von Harnack
was summoned to Gestapo headquarters.
Axel later wrote about his ordeal.
I was told it concerned a very serious matter
and the whole thing must remain absolutely secret.
I was to explain their absence
as an "official trip to foreign countries
of indefinite duration."
It was too dangerous to get anybody else
from the family being involved.
If they can't get you
the Gestapo, they get the family.
And Sippenhaft is something like a collective punishment
of the family members.
Narrator: The Harnack relatives took the risk.
Dr. Falk Harnack, the younger brother of the prisoner
had come to Berlin several times.
He alone had been permitted to speak to his brother twice.
No one ever received permission
to speak with Mrs. Harnack.
Narrator: Mildred did manage to get one note to Arvid's family.
Dear Axel, Mother and Falk
Thank you a thousand times
for everything you are doing for me!
Many greetings and kisses, Mildred.
Narrator: Arvid's mother replied.
Not a day passes that we don't think of you
and your beloved Arvid time and again.
I don't know what you have done, but I'm quite certain
that you could not do anything from selfish-based motives
dear Mildred.
Narrat: During its investigation
the Gestapo labeled the resistance network
the Rote Kapella or Red Orchestra
"Red" being a Communist moniker.
Tuchel: The Gestapo only linked the group to the Soviet Union.
But the Gestapo has no idea that Arvid and Mildred Harnack
also have close contacts
to members of the United States Embassy here in Berlin.
Arvid Harnack was not going to admit
he passed on information to the Americans.
Why would he do that?
They were not going to admit, that since it was illegal
to get Jews out of the country, they were not going to say
well yeah, and by the way, we helped a number of Jews escape.
Narrator: The trials began in December, 1942
at the highest military court, where justice wasn't blind
and a death sentence was almost assured.
Nelson: An Air Force prosecutor named Manfred Roeder
was called "Hitler's Bloodhound."
He even shocked the military judges
with how blood thirsty he was
in demanding the death sentence for every possible case.
Narrator: The trials, shrouded in secrecy
often family members weren't even told.
Nelson: The entire process was a joke, a very bad, tragic joke.
In many cases, they met with their lawyers for five minutes
before they were tried.
Mildred and Arvid Harnack were tried early on.
It was pretty clear
that they were going to be dealt with harshly.
Narrator: Arvid would be sentenced to death
for high treason and espionage.
The defense would argue Mildred
simply acted on her husband's orders.
Mildred's sentence, six years in prison.
With the help of eyewitnesses
Arvid's cousin documented what happened next.
Dr. Harnack, looking straight at his wife, was radiant.
He insisted that because of that sentence
her life had been saved
for she would be able to serve that term
or even surely be liberated before then.
Narrator: Arvid's sister Inge waited outside
to get details for the family.
Narrator: Two days later
Hitler personally signed Arvid's death sentence.
The night before his execution, Arvid wrote a farewell letter.
Within the next hours, I will depart this life.
I would like to thank you all again
for all your love which you have shown me.
So, I am calm and happy.
Tonight, I will hold a small pre-Christmas celebration
and I will read aloud the Christmas Story.
And then comes the moment of departing.
Your Arvid.
Narrator: The next day, Arvid was handcuffed
and taken into a small building at Ploetzensee Prison.
The prosecutor, Manfred Roeder
witnessed the special punishment Hitler had ordered.
He decided to have these meat hooks
put up in Ploetzensee at the prison.
Narrator: Overhead, the newly-installed meat hooks.
Arvid would hang by a short rope.
A Nazi torture tactic to prolong his suffering.
Roloff: It was a private revenge of Hitler against these people.
Narrator: Arvid's petition to see Mildred one last time
had been denied.
Arvid went to his death not knowing
Hitler refused to sign Mildred's prison sentence
and had ordered a retrial.
I think that the rage drove a thirst for vengeance
that Hitler felt personally.
He wanted this American woman.
He didn't want any martyrs. He wanted her dead.
Narrator: Manfred Roeder wanted to make a name for himself
so it was extremely embarrassing
when Hitler demanded a new trial.
Determined to follow orders
Roeder cautioned the Harnack family not to interfere.
I urgently warn the Harnack family
not to undertake anything whatsoever
in favor of this woman.
She no longer belongs to your family.
Narrator: Especially hard words for Arvid's sister
who recalled Mildred's journey into the resistance.
She shared his turbulent life
waited for him for nights on end
filled with fear, anxiety
she even ran through the dark city streets to meet him.
She became an active member
of her husband's resistance group
to which she dedicated her life.
Narrator: So had Libertas Schulze-Boysen, now isolated and alone
prison proved harsh for Libertas and Mildred.
Tuchel: She tried to give some letters
to Libertas Schulze-Boysen who was there at that time.
These small letters, small illegal letters were found
and used as evidence at the trial against Mildred Harnack.
Narrator: Mildred appeared to buckle under the pressure without Arvid.
And with a little new evidence, she was sentenced to death.
Mildred Harnack, Prisoner 228
returned to the bricks, bars, and now a death row cell.
I think she was treated very harshly.
She tried to commit suicide at one point by swallowing pins.
She became very thin. Her hair turned white.
Narrator: Mildred was assigned a cell mate to keep an eye on her.
Gertrude Lichtenstein lived to write Arvid's mother
about Mildred's time in prison.
Sometimes she wept
when she talked about Arvid and his fate.
I had to leave Mildred for a concentration camp
the same day she went to trial
where she received the death sentence
and that was the very moment she needed me most.
Brysac: She almost lost her mind, I think.
She was running around the courtyard, someone reported
just sort of scurrying around at one point.
The only evidence against losing her mind
was that she was translating Goethe in her cell
maybe to keep her mind.
Narrator: Mildred has sustained herself with a stub of a pencil
translating a book of Goethe poems.
Probably, she felt happy
to have these Goethe poems.
Narrator: Mildred's final translations
scribbled in the margin
are from the poem "Vermaechtnis" or the "Legacy."
She crossed out things.
You feel she was in a rush.
And I could imagine that this is her legacy.
Narrator: And the final line Mildred translated...
Narrator: As a cold rain blanketed Berlin,
a prison van delivered Mildred
down a cobblestone street to Ploetzensee Prison
where the Nazi tools of death were housed.
The prison chaplain, Harald Poelchau, was a family friend.
He was deeply touched by her personality
by her confidence.
Narrator: The pastor described how at age 40
Mildred was so starved, so broken
after five months of Nazi interrogations
she could no longer stand upright.
He gave Mildred a Bible and she read...
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
Narrator: Pastor Poelchau brought Mildred an orange
he had smuggled into prison
along with a picture of her mother.
Mildred remained strong until she saw this photo.
Her eyes filled with tears.
Mildred kissed the picture again and again.
On the back, she wrote:
The face of my mother expresses everything
I want to say at this moment.
This face was with me all through these last months.
Narrator: The chaplain broke the news to Mildred
Arvid had been executed on December 22
her mother's birthday.
Brysac: He told Mildred about Arvid's death
and how he died, and what were on his lips
and that he believed he prayed to the power of love.
von Harnack: Mildred remembers in her death cell.
Arvid remembers in his death cell.
When they're rowing boats, reciting Goethe and Whitman.
They shared this happiness
till their very last moment on this planet.
Maybe they still share it.
Narrator: With hands cuffed behind her back
two guards led Mildred into a brick shed.
A curtain was pulled back revealing the guillotine.
On February 16, 1943, inside an execution room
that looked more like a chapel
Mildred Fish-Harnack was strapped to a bench
and guillotined at 6:57p.m.
The Nazi's would note
it took Mildred seven seconds to die.
The only American woman ever executed
on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler.
Her last words:
Und ich habe Deutschland so geliebt.
Narrator: "And I have loved Germany so much."
Exactly three months to the day after her execution
a Milwaukee Journal article announced Arvid's death.
Mildred's fate, still unknown.
Through the help of a Vatican emissary
Mildred's family sent a message to Berlin.
Narrator: After months of anxious waiting
a letter from an archbishop arrived
confirming their worst fears.
Mildred had been executed seven months earlier.
Following the defeat of Hitler
the Heath family returned to Berlin.
My father had no idea what had happened to Mildred and Arvid.
Falk explained it all.
And my father suddenly raised his hand
and walked out in the garden and wept.
In my whole memory of my life with my parents
I can't think of times
when we didn't talk about Mildred and Arvid.
They were just our best friends.
Narrator: But friends and family
would have to defend the Harnacks' honor
especially through a Cold War lens.
In May 1945, Greta Kuckhoff, the Harnacks' friend
and fellow resistance fighter
was freed from prison by Soviet troops.
Greta and the Harnack family
fought to bring Nazi prosecutor, Manfred Roeder to justice
for crimes against humanity.
The Americans treated Roeder in an interesting way.
At first, they put a gun to his head
and they asked him
"So how does it feel to be like that?"
But once they asked him why he had killed these people
and he had said they were all Communists
in the Cold War climate
they thought that he was their friend.
Narrator: At Nuremberg, Germany, Nazis were put on trial.
Manfred Roeder would go free
protected by the Americans
who wanted his help tracking Soviet spies.
If you can imagine the reaction
of people like Greta Kuckhoff, and Falk Harnack
who had such terrible loss, and then they're told
that the Americans are protecting this man, this Nazi.
They were angry.
They were angry at the United States.
Narrator: The CIA took the Nazis at their word
and investigated surviving members of the resistance
as Communist spies.
The Americans had really dropped the ball.
They were looking at people
like Falk Harnack and Greta Kuckhoff who were in Berlin
and they made visits to them.
They were trying to finger them.
Narrator: All based on Gestapo reports
that had no mention of assistance to the Americans.
As a result, the lines between reality and fiction
begin to blur.
In 1947, the University of Wisconsin "Alumni Magazine"
meant well when it published an article
putting Mildred in the spotlight.
The Harnack story in the United States
really broke in the UW alumnus magazine.
It was very interesting.
And so they found lots of good things
and reasons why she should be recognized.
Narrator: But as the Cold War heated up
a move to honor Mildred was halted because
her pro-Communist sympathies could not be ruled out.
Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy and his hunt for Communists
may have been a factor.
So instead of honoring Mildred
the university's inquiry triggered an FBI investigation.
Tuchel: The people had no idea at that time
of the real story of the Red Orchestra in Berlin
and what Mildred Harnack and Arvid Harnack really did.
At that time, they were seen as Communists in Germany
in the United States, and also in the Soviet Union.
All I can tell you, is Arvid Harnack
was very wary of Stalin, totally, he did not trust him.
He did not want anything to do with him.
Narrator: Even so, the Soviets had posthumously
awarded the Harnacks medals
and enshrined them as Communist heroes.
They retrofitted a lot of people
like Greta Kuckhoff.
They predated their Communist membership cards.
So they kind of retrofitted the Harnacks and the Schulze-Boysens
into being much better Communists
than they might have been
much more Stalinist than they might have been.
Narrator: Part of the propaganda included
putting Mildred and Arvid's pictures
on a series of stamps honoring the resistance.
Even though they were all dead
the stamps became part of a CIA Top Secret file.
The Harnack family also learned the East German Secret Police
engraved Arvid's image on a medal.
von Harnack: They were abused in this
so-called German Democratic Republic with this medal.
Narrator: And used it as a reward for informants.
von Harnack: From the Ministry of State Security
they got Arvid's medal.
Narrator: By 1976, an East Berlin high school
is named after Mildred Harnack.
The first school honoring an American in Eastern Europe.
But in America, sentiment toward Mildred was slow to shift.
The State Department, in 1961
ruled out any recognition, explaining...
The Harnacks were killed twice.
They were executed by the Nazis
and their characters were assassinated
in the postwar period.
Narrator: Those judgments all came
during the height of the Cold War
before the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism.
Brysac: There wasn't a lot
of really factual information, documents.
Until really, the wall came down
and we now, then had access to what the East Germans knew.
Narrator: And what the Americans knew.
Brysac: When I got those files declassified
that we ever saw what had happened.
There was rumor that there was a Gestapo Final Report
but nobody had seen it.
Somehow the Gestapo Final Report ended up
in the American National Archives for all those years.
Narrator: That's when it came out.
The Gestapo had exaggerated the facts.
The Communists had distorted the truth.
And the Americans had sheltered Nazis
while suppressing the story
of the Harnacks' help to the United States.
In 2011, the CIA still refused
to release all of its records in this case.
And FBI files are still heavily redacted.
I think ultimately, the connection to America
was much closer than to the Soviets ever was.
To the Soviets, it was an attempt at telling them
"Hitler is going to attack you."
With the Americans, it was family.
Narrator: Mildred would be the forgotten
daughter of Wisconsin until 1986
when the State Legislature named a day in her honor
based on the efforts of Milwaukee civil rights lawyer
Art Heitzer.
The State of Wisconsin recognizes
Mildred Fish-Harnack, you know, as a Milwaukee native
and the only American woman executed under Hitler
for being a part of the German Resistance.
Narrator: September 16th, Mildred's birthday
by law is now a day of observance
in Wisconsin public schools.
The first major honor for Mildred in the United States.
Mildred Fish-Harnack will be remembered
as a Milwaukee-born University of Wisconsin grad
who became a Nazi resistance fighter.
She loved America, loved Germany and loved her husband.
They shared their work.
They shared their joys. They shared their sorrows.
It was really this wonderful
wonderful love story.
Narrator: And it showed.
While in prison Arvid wrote a farewell letter to Mildred
and his thoughts were on Wisconsin.
My most beloved heart
if I had the strength in these past months
to be calm and composed within myself
and if I face what is to come with calm composure
it is due most of all to the fact
that I feel connected to the good
and beautiful things in this world.
As far as people are concerned
it was those closest to me, and especially you
who embody both of these things.
Last night, I let my thoughts roam
through many of the most beautiful moments
of our marriage.
The more I thought about it, the more there were.
It was as if I was looking into a starry sky
in which the number of stars
grows constantly the closer one looks.
Do you still remember Picnic Point
when we got engaged?
I sang with joy early in the morning in the club
and even earlier
our first serious conversation on State Street?
This conversation became my guiding star
and has been so ever since.
I have also thought regularly about you
and all my loved ones at 8 o'clock at night.
They are thinking about both of us
at the very same time.
Do it as well
then one knows that the feeling of love in the world
flows into each other.
You are in my heart. You shall always be within.
My dearest wish is that you are happy when you think of me.
I am too, when I think of you.
Lots and lots of kisses!
I am hugging you tight!
Your A.
Support for Wisconsin's Nazi Resistance
includes principal gifts
from the Frances and Laurence Weinstein Family Foundation
and the L.E. Phillips Family Foundation;
and major gifts from Mildred and Marv Conney
and the Wisconsin Humanities Council
with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities;
and additional contributions
from the Herbert and Elsbeth Weichmann Foundation
and the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.