E63: Mildred Fish-Harnack, part 1

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

First in a double podcast episode about Mildred Fish-Harnack, the US-born woman at the centre of the underground resistance to Nazism in Berlin during World War II. In conversation with Rebecca Donner, Mildred’s great great niece and author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days.
Our podcast is brought to you by our patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. For example, our supporters can listen to part 2 of this double episode now: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e64-mildred-fish-64573851
Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
In this part we cover the background, Mildred’s early life, the Nazis’ rise to power, the resistance, and the beginnings of her involvement in international espionage.
Get Mildred's book here: https://bookshop.org/a/80203/9780316561693
Full acknowledgements, photos, sources, more information and eventually a transcript on the homepage for this double episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e63-64-mildred-fish-harnack/
Acknowledgements

Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Conor Canatsey, Shae, James, Ariel Gioia, Stone Lawson, and Fernando López-Ojeda.
Episode graphic courtesy of the Donner family.
Our theme tune is Bella Ciao, thanks for permission to use it from Dischi del Sole. You can purchase it here. Or stream it here.
This episode was edited by Jesse French.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In 1930s Germany, despite Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the implementation of the brutal Nazi dictatorship,
0:06.0	tens of thousands of ordinary people risked their lives to fight against fascism.
0:10.0	One of them was Mildred Fisch Harnak, a woman born in the US, who became a key figure in the underground resistance in Berlin.
0:17.0	This is working class history.
0:21.6	All the matina,
0:24.6	just upen alzata, oh, bella, Before we get on with the episodes, just a reminder that our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters.
0:47.3	Our supporters fund our work and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merch and other content.
0:56.3	For example, our Patreon supporters can listen to both parts of this double episode now.
1:00.5	Join us and find out more at patreon.com slash working class history.
1:05.3	Link in the show notes.
1:07.6	While some anti-fascist resistance movements during World War II are quite well known,
1:11.8	like the French resistance, others are much less so.
1:15.3	And it might seem strange, but the underground resistance to Nazism in Germany itself
1:18.9	is spoken about very little, and within that resistance, as in most history, the role of women
1:23.7	in it is underplayed even further.
1:26.3	We're going to talk about the reasons for this later on in these episodes. In our episode 4, we spoke about the role of women in it is underplayed even further. We're going to talk about the reasons for this later
1:27.9	on in these episodes. In our episode four, we spoke about the role of working class youth movements
1:32.9	in the resistance to Nazism in Germany. With a few exceptions, these were primarily countercultural
1:38.2	rather than overtly political resistance groups as such. By contrast, Mildred Fisch-Harnack and her resistance group, or more
1:46.1	accurately, a constellation of overlapping resistance groups, were deeply political. Known to its members
1:52.1	as the Circle, the group is better known to most people today by the name given to them by the Nazis,
1:57.1	the Red Orchestra. Mildred was a leading activist in the Circle, which was the biggest resistance group in Berlin.
	...

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