The true story of Mildred Harnack, February 16, 1943 RIP
As I recall, the year was 1930, and Berlin was a glorious, if slightly unhinged, symphony. I, Arthur Bly, an American attempting to pass off a series of dreadful short stories as “modernist literature” – mainly to justify my extended stay – found myself adrift in its bohemian currents. My primary goal was to avoid anything that required a steady income or robust physical exertion. My secondary goal involved perfecting the art of eating a single streusel roll over two hours, maximizing café table occupancy.
I first encountered Mildred Harnack in one such establishment, the Café Komet, amidst a cloud of cigarette smoke and the clatter of porcelain. She wasn’t holding forth on socialist theory or debating the merits of Expressionism, as many did in those days. Instead, she meticulously reviewed a stack of index cards, occasionally muttering to herself in a precise, almost clinical German. To put it mildly, she looked like a librarian on a particularly studious holiday. Which, considering her background from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was probably not far off.
“Arthur, you simply must meet Mildred,” my friend, Klaus, a perpetually exasperated philosophy student, had insisted. “She’s American, like you. Though mercifully, she reads.”
Mildred, upon introduction, offered a firm handshake and a smile that was less a flash of teeth and more a quiet affirmation. She spoke with an accent that made “Goethe” sound like a particularly sophisticated cheese brand. She was pursuing a PhD in literature, deeply earnest, and seemed utterly ill-suited for the chaotic, increasingly febrile atmosphere of Weimar Berlin. I remember thinking she’d be far more comfortable organizing a polite book club. Life, as it often does, had a grander, more tragic joke to play.
The political winds shifted with an almost comical speed. One day, everyone was arguing about art; the next, about uniforms and flags. Hitler rose, and suddenly the cafes were emptier, the laughter more strained. It was like watching a terrible opera, only the stage was the city itself, and the audience was slowly herded into designated, less comfortable seats.
Mildred, to my bewildered observation, did not pack her bags. Instead, she seemed to unfurl, like a tightly furled umbrella refusing to be cowed by an impending storm. Her quiet intensity, once focused solely on the nuances of Schiller, began to seep into the discussions of the day. Her German husband, Arvid Harnack, a man whose intellect was as formidable as his spectacles were thick, was, on the one hand, precisely the academic you expected to get swept up in grand ideals. Mildred, on the other hand, was a shock. She was the one who, when a particularly pompous Nazi orator began shouting near the university gates, didn’t simply tut or roll her eyes, but instead started, quite audibly, reciting a lengthy passage from Faust in a clear, carrying voice, effectively drowning him out and scattering his bewildered audience. It was a small act of defiance, entirely unexpected, and utterly hilarious in its academic audacity.
Then came “the Circle.” I never saw it officially convened, of course. My involvement was more as a peripheral, slightly confused observer, occasionally roped into what seemed, at first, like the most bizarre academic study group ever assembled. There was Arvid, naturally, always with a stack of papers. Then there was Otto, a burly factory worker who looked like he’d rather be wrestling bears than discussing Marxist theory, yet listened to Mildred with an almost childlike reverence. And the artist, Greta, who insisted on sketching everyone during their whispered conversations, lending an oddly artistic, if compromising, record to their clandestine meetings.
Mildred, the former quiet librarian, was suddenly coordinating the passing of what she vaguely referred to as “alternative scholarly commentaries.” These “commentaries” often looked suspiciously like hastily typed political leaflets. I recall one occasion, when I was asked to deliver a “critical literary analysis” to a contact, I found myself handing a folded sheet to a man who, moments after receiving it, discreetly slipped it under an apple tart in a bakery window. My instructions had been to “avoid the Gestapo,” which, I imagined, was usually sound advice. “But what if they like apple tart?” I’d wanted to ask Mildred. Her reply, delivered with a serene gaze: “Then we hope their appetites are distracted.”
The comedy, if one could call it that, was in the sheer, bewildering amateurism of it all, clashing with the truly terrifying stakes. These weren’t suave spies from a dime novel. They were academics, workers, artists – people who argued about the proper ratio of butter to flour in a cake as fervently as they discussed the overthrow of a totalitarian regime. Mildred, who likely held strong opinions on Dewey Decimal classifications, was now discussing the most efficient way to smuggle information past border guards, often with a slight furrow in her brow, as if trying to locate a misplaced citation.
I once witnessed her attempting to recruit a particularly dour train conductor. Mildred, with her impeccable German and quiet demeanour, explained the merits of their cause. At the same time, the conductor, chewing slowly on a sausage, kept glancing at her as if she were pitching a revolutionary new brand of locomotive grease. He eventually joined, I later learned, after Mildred explained in painstaking detail how their efforts would lead to “more efficient rail scheduling and clearer signage.” Sometimes, a truly American appeal to pragmatism was the most subversive act.
Mildred helped Jews flee, disguised as researchers on obscure botanical expeditions. She edited leaflets that dared to call Hitler a “blustering opportunist” – a phrase that, while accurate, seemed dangerously understated given the severity of the punishment. She envisioned a Germany beyond the swastika, a land returning to its poets and philosophers, not its goose-stepping thugs.
For me, the humour gradually faded as the shadow deepened. The initial absurdity gave way to a chilling reality. Meetings became shorter, faces more strained. Hushed whispers and quick, furtive glances replaced the casual, almost academic, discussions of revolution. The Gestapo, for all their supposed omniscience, seemed comically inept at first, chasing phantom “Red Orchestra” figures while Mildred, the quiet American, was orchestrating her defiance under their very noses. But then, their bumbling turned deadly.
When the knock came for Mildred on September 7, 1942, I was already gone, having fled Berlin with a series of increasingly frantic, and genuinely terrible, short stories. But the news reached me. The Beheaded. The only American woman. My mind reeled. The quiet academic, who corrected my German grammar with unyielding precision, had stood steadfast against something so monstrous it beggared belief.
They feared her courage, her pen, her mind. Not her country of origin, not her passport. But the sheer audacity of a woman who, born into humdrum Midwestern decency, dared to believe that libraries were more potent than jackboots. That conscience was the only uniform worth wearing.
I imagined her final moments, not as a scream of terror, but as a quiet, thoughtful translation of Goethe, a final, poignant act of intellectual defiance. A librarian, categorizing the very process of her demise. She had loved Germany, not the Germany of the Reich, but the Germany of Schiller and intellectual freedom. In its heartbreaking purity, that love demanded she stand against it.
Mildred Harnack did not live to see fascism fall. But she did not die quietly. Her voice, though muffled by history’s grim necessities, still speaks. And it asks, with that quiet, unwavering gaze, what would you have done if it were you? Thinking back to my paltry efforts to avoid literary exertion, I often wonder what I would have done. Probably not what Mildred did. And that, I realize, is not funny at all. It is, instead, a devastating clarity.
Mildred Harnack
