THEIR STORIES WOMEN MAKING OUR LEGACY HISTORY www.womeninwisconsin.org MILDRED FISH HARNACK

1902-1943 City: County: Milwaukee

Mildred Fish Harnack was the only American woman to die by direct order of for spying on Germany during World War II.

Harnack was born in Milwaukee. She both studied and taught at the Milwaukee State Normal School, which is now known as the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 1929, Harnack and her husband Arvid moved to Germany, where she worked on her doctorate at the and he took a job in the government. During her time in , Harnack became interested in the and in Communism, which !she saw as a solution to poverty. During the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, Harnack and her husband joined a small resistance group, which the Nazi Gestapo would later call the Red Orchestra. The group smuggled important secrets about the Nazis to the U.S. and Soviet governments. Their espionage cost them their lives. Harnack’s husband was hanged in December 1942, and in February 1943 she was executed as well. Harnack was the only American woman ever put to death !on the direct order of Hitler for her involvement in the Berlin resistance movement. LEARN MORE "Wisconsin’s Nazi Resistance: The Mildred Fish-Harnack Story." Wisconsin Public Television. http://www.wpt2.org/ naziresistance/. "Mildred Fish-Harnack: Germany's Secret Hero." Wisconsin Biographies, Wisconsin Media Lab. http://wimedialab.org/biographies/harnack.html. Bazelon, Emily. "What Happened to the Remains of Nazi Resister Mildred Harnack? Now We Know." Slate. http:// www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/11/07/mildred_fish_harnack_was_executed_by_hitler_for_resisting_the_nazis_now.html. "Mildred Fish-Harnack." Traces. http://www.traces.org/mildredfishharnack.html. "Mildred Fish-Harnack Part I." Badger Biographies, Wisconsin Historical Society. http://badgerbios.blogspot.com/p/ mildred-fish-harnacks-story-beginsin.html.

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