Milwaukee, WI – Wisconsin Public Television has created a documentary about a Milwaukee native who was the only American woman to be executed on direct orders of Adolf Hitler.
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The film is called “Wisconsin’s Nazi Resistance” and it’s about Mildred Fish Harnack. There will be a free screening at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Joel Waldinger, the film’s producer, and others.
Wisconsin Public Television and Milwaukee Public Television will premiere the documentary statewide on Nov. 7.
The museum is also hosting a special exhibit called “Mildred Fish Harnack: The Story of a Wisconsin Woman’s Resistance,” which will run through Nov. 27.
Great project we will never forget those that were slaughtered by the Nazi regime.
“In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson also mentions this story.
Erik’s book is a fascinating read, especially for a child of survivors like me. He describes the 1930’s in Germany through the view of the American ambassador. The book is historical non-fiction with all its sources well documented.
Don’t know if she was on same view as us since her last words were purported to have been: “Und ich hatte Deutschland so geliebt” (“And I had loved Germany so much”).
In July 1942, the Decryption Department of the Oberkommando des Heeres managed to decode the group’s radio messages, and the Gestapo pounced. On 7 September, Arvid Harnack and Mildred Fish-Harnack were arrested while on a weekend outing. At this time, Mildred had been teaching English at the Foreign Studies Department of the University of Berlin. Arvid Harnack was sentenced to death on 19 December after a four-day trial before the Reichskriegsgericht (“Reich Military Tribunal”), and was put to death three days later at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Mildred Fish-Harnack was given six years in prison, although Hitler shortly afterwards cancelled that sentence and ordered a new trial, which ended with a death sentence on 16 January 1943. She was beheaded on 16 February 1943.
This was the biggest tragedy. My father A’H served in WWI ,loved Kaiser Franz Josef and was killed in the Lodz Ghetto. Austria’s percentile of top war criminals and compared to the total population was the highest, Kaltenbrunner, Eichmann, Brunner and of course Hitler. I was offered to return to Vienna and continue my study but preferred the unknown of the U.S. However there plenty strajmlach now in Vienna