Posted on 11/22/2004 4:09:03 PM PST by Calpernia
MADISON Wis., Dec 1.--(AP)-- The story of a Wisconsin girl who was beheaded on February 16, 1943, as a personal reprisal by Adolf Hitler is published in the current issue of the Wisconsin alumni T.W.A. magazine.
The magazine, which will appear this week, said it obtained from records of the United States office of the military government the full story of the death by guilloting [sic] at Brandenburg, Germany, of Mildred Fish Harnack. She was a 1925 graduate of the university....
Several weeks after Mrs. Harnack's trial, Hitler, going through the court records came across the woman's dossier and immediately ordered her trial reopened as she was the only American then in his power, the magazine reported.
Manfred Roeder, the Nazi chief judge who had decreed the original sentence, at Hiter's command, changed it to the death penalty and Mrs. Harnack was guillotined.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/historys_wild_women/87018
W.C. and Georgina Fish welcomed their daughter Mildred into the world on September 6, 1902. Born and raised in Milwaukee, WI, then primarily a German city, Mildred grew up surrounded by German customs and learned to speak both the English and German languages fluently. As a young girl she showed a high amount of intelligence driven by her lover of literature.
While attending the University of Wisconsin, Mildred fell in love with Arvid Harnack, a German exchange scholar majoring in economics. The two shared a love of Germany and an abhorrence of social injustice. She graduated in 1925, and a year later was named an instructor in English literature. Though her specialty was American writers, her passion was the art of translation.
In 1926 the couple wed and settled in Madison. Two years later Arvid returned to Germany. Mildred adored her husband’s homeland and eagerly followed him to the University of Jena in 1929. A few years later, nazi suppression of the universities forced them to leave Jena for Berlin. There, Mildred began teaching at Humboldt University.
The Harnacks were well-known in Berlin’s social and cultural life. Arvid’s job as a mid-level official in the Economics Ministry enabled him to keep abreast of the country’s political schemes and because of Mildred’s friendship with Martha Dodd (daughter of the American ambassador the couple frequently appeared on the guest list of the American Embassy. Since their days in Wisconsin, they spoke their political views freely, but here such activity was considered rebellious.
Undeterred by the actions of the Nazi’s to suppress free thought, the Harnacks began a discussion group at their home to exchange opinions on the National Socialist regime. Subjects danced around whether citizens should submit, leave the country, or fight back. Soon the discussion group evolved into the underground resistance group the Gestapo would dub “The Red Orchestra.” At the outbreak of the war, the group began publishing The Inner Front, a biweekly newspaper covering progress reports, commentaries on Hitler’s rule, and other information not available in the German press. They also assisted in the escape of Jews and political dissidents as well as acting as spies. They gathered intelligence on German military advances to the Eastern Front and beamed the information to Russia over transmitters. The name “Red Orchestra” came about because the transmitters were code-named after musical instruments.
The fact that the group beamed to Russia would link them for years tot he communists. It was this accusation the Nazi’s used in order to try and execute members. The reason they aided the Soviets was due to a lack of opposition by the U.S. and Britain at the onset of Hitler’s reign. They believed the only way to stop Hitler was to help Russia.
On August 30, 1942, the Gestapo arrested a Russian spy who revealed information about the resistance. Soon after, the transmitters were discovered and the arrests of circle members began. A total of 118 people were involved. Of them, 22 were released and the courts tried 75, including the Harnacks.
Arvid was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. He was garroted at the Plotzensee on Christmas Eve, 1942. Mildred was also found guilty, but being a woman, was sentenced to 4 years of hard labor in a concentration camp. At some point, Hitler decided to make an example of Mildred, most likely because she was an American. He personally requested the court reconsider their sentence. On January 16, 1943, the Senate of the Reichs war tribunal, without any new evidence, sentenced Mildred to death.
Mildred spent the last month of her life translating works by Goethe in her cell. She was beheaded on February 16, 1943. Her last words were, “And I have loved Germany so much.” Her family did not discover her death until after the war was over, but they had known she was in trouble since she sent a letter saying, “Better not write, but don’t forget me.”
As the only female American executed inside the German Reich for opposing Hitler, Mildred Harnack is remembered by a date of honor (February 16) observed by Wisconsin school children. Her intelligence and bravery have also been honored by a school in former East Berlin named after her and at the memorial in Berlin’s former political prison, Topogratie des Terrors.
Ping to the article you found :)
This reminds me of Margaret Hassan.
So the Rote Kappell was only communist because no one else
would help?
Pish.
No, probably because the agents were planted by the Soviets
pre war and the NKVD handlers weren't about to incorporate westerners into the ring.
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/mufti4.htm
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/mufti4.htm
(snip)
The Mufti in Berlin
The Mufti had blamed the Iraqi Jews for the unsuccessful coup d'etat in Iraq. He called them "the fifth column in Iraq", the very ones whose ancestors had lived there since the Babylonian captivity. Some Iraqi soldiers and civilians agreed with the Mufti and attacked the Jews who had gathered in public to cheer the new government. The results were horrifying: around 600 Jews, some say 179, were killed, thousands injured in the farhud and 586 shops and warehouses looted. A committee of inquiry, appointed by the Iraqi government, discovered that Haj Amin had been one of the main figures behind the pogrom. Since Haj Amin had adopted the policy of blaming Jews for everything that went wrong, there was no surprise that he allied himself with the Nazi government in Berlin.
On 20 November 1941 the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, received him in Berlin. Their talks were the basis for the meeting with Hitler the following day. Details of the Mufti's conversation with hitler were documented in the Mufti's diary and by the Germans, given in the appendix. The main themes were:
The Mufti... The Arabs are Germany's natural friends... They are therefore prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in a war, not only negatively by the commission of act of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion... In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and the unity of Palestine, Syria and Iraq. ... The Führer... Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time direct a similar appeal to non European nations as well.
The Führer did not give, however, official support to the Arab cause, mainly because of "military reasons". He proposed, however, as soon as the German armies would pass into the Southern Caucasus the Arabs would be liberated from the British yoke and
Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power... The moment that Germany's tank divisions and air squadrons had made their appearance south of Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti could go out to the Arab world.
The master plan of Hitler and the Mufti was, thus, first to solve the Jewish problem in Europe and subsequently tackle the problem in the Middle East. The Mufti raised no objections, he fully and gladly participated in the destruction of European Jewry. However, he had to wait until the German armies would enter the Caucasus for the destruction of the Mizrachi Jews who had been living in the Middle East since time immemorial.
The Mufti's part of the deal was to raise support for Germany among the Muslims in the Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East. For that purpose the Germans founded the "Arab Bureau", under his leadership, in Berlin.
(snip)
Ping
Did you see that URL I added to the other article you found this morning?
I will ping you back.
I have seen photos of the Mufti with Adolf Hitler, among them sitting down with each other and shaking hands. Another was with Heinrich Himmler, an admirer of Islam. I know the Mufti helped many Nazis escape to Muslim countries, like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Wasn't the Mufti originally an Iraqi? I know Iraq during World War II collaborated with the Nazis, many of them became Baathists.
Coming full circle.
Thank you for the article.
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