Resisting Hitler is a biography of the only American woman to have been executed for treason against Germany during World War II. Mildred Harnack was born in Wisconsin but moved to Germany with her husband in 1929 where she taught American literature. Both Mildred and her husband, Arvid (a professor of philosophy and a native of Gemany), socialised with the intellectual elite of Berlin. Appalled by the rise of Hitler, they joined with others to resist fascism by any means they could. Brysac''s exhaustive reasearch has found evidence to support the theory that both Mildred and Arvid gave classified information on Germany to both the Soviets and the US in an effort to sabotage the Nazis. Before and during the war, the Harnacks were founding and leading members of the Red Orchestra, an important covert intelligence group that transmitted messages of resistance with the use of contraband radios. In 1942, Hitler personally ordered their execution.That the heroic efforts of Mildred Harnack''s life have not been chronicled before now is due to the immediate post-war anti-Communist sentiment in both the US and Western Europe. Resisting Hitler is the only book to draw on intelligence files from three countries to profile its subject: KGB files from Russia; Stasi miltary intelligence files from Germany; CIA and FBI files from the US. The examination of these and many other documents relevant to the case in East and West Germany, including the testimony of Harnack''s prosecutors, only became possible after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This book also provides a look at the operational procedures of the NKVD, leading up to the invasion by Germany of the soviet Union in 1941. Up to 1993, when the KGB files of the Harnack group became available, the only information about it came from Gestapo sources. In addition, it was never known by espionage scholars that the Red Orchestra maintained close contacts with US diplomats during the years 1933-41.
Industry Reviews
"How [Mildred Harnack] got from middle America to Berlin in the 1930s is the fascinating story Brysac tells in Resisting Hitler."--The New York Times Book Review
"[This] well-researched, fair-minded and moving account of the Harnacks and their fate should go a long way toward restoring the reputations of these idealistic and heroic resisters."--Los Angeles Times
"A beautifully written, enthralling and moving book...Answers provided in Shareen Blair Brysac's superb biography illuminate important aspects of both German and American history of the period."--Times Literary Supplement
"A balanced narration of the life of Mildred Fish-Harnack and her times...Brysac is able to put a very human face on these troubled times."--Library Journal
"Among the millions of Hitler's victims was a young woman from Wisconsin who married a German, joined the resistance, played an important role in the Soviet spy network known as the Red Orchestra, was caught and on Hitler's personal order was executed--by guillotine. So much was known about the faith and sacrifice of Mildred Fish-Harnack when the war ended; now, more than half a century later, Sherry Brysac with tireless research and a gift for vigorous
narrative has brought this sad and inspiring story brilliantly to life. Secret operations have rarely been recorded with the passion and detail they receive in Resisting Hitler. No one who reads it will soon
forget the courage of this woman who risked and lost her life to do the decent thing."--Thomas Powers, author of Heisenberg's War: The Secret History Of The German Bomb and The Man Who Kept The Secrets: Richard Helms & The CIA
"In telling Mildred Fish-Harnack's neglected life story, Shareen Brysac extends our knowledge of German anti-Nazi resistance, and of the landscape of Nazism in general. She also illuminates a great deal of German and American intellectual and cultural history. This is an extraordinarily valuable study."--Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., author of The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide
"The twists and turns of wartime politics and espionage provide a gripping background for the tragic life of this doomed American woman in Nazi Germany. It is a fine contribution to contemporary history and biography."--Deirdre Bair, biographer of Simone de Beauvoir, Anais Nin, Samuel Beckett
"By detailing the life of Fish-Harnack, whose guillotining in 1943 made her the only American woman executed for treason during World War II, Brysac is able to put a very human face on these troubled times."--Library Journal
"Brysac does a good job recreating the literary and academic atmosphere of 1920's Berlin and stresses the influence of neighboring Russia on the German capital's political climate...A sensitive and in-depth portrait of two 'good Germans' who have remained unrecognized for over half a century."--Kirkus Reviews
