On this day, 16 February 1943, US-born translator, writer and German anti-Nazi resistance activist Mildred Fish-Harnack was beheaded in Berlin: the only US woman to be executed on dictator Adolf Hitler’s personal orders.
Part of what the Nazis dubbed the “Red Orchestra” of socialist anti-fascist underground activists, she was tried and sentenced to hard labour, but then retried on Hitler’s direction and sentenced to death.
Fish-Harnack and her group assisted Jews and forced labourers, recruited other resistance activists and distributed anti-fascist propaganda.
Learn more about Mildred and her life and activism in our podcast episodes 63-64 in conversation with historian, and Mildred’s great-grandniece: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e63-64-mildred-fish-harnack/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2211264352392036/?type=3