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Name: All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
Rating: 4.5 (156 reviews)
Author: Rebecca Donner

Rebecca Donner

The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler

4.5 (156 ratings)

30 mins

Brief summary

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner is a captivating biography of Mildred Harnack, an American woman who fought against the Nazis in Germany, and her fascinating life filled with love, politics, and bravery in the face of evil.

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Political Figures Biographies Women's Stories European History Wars

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All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
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What’s in it for me? Discover a remarkable tale of resistance that took place in the heart of Nazi Germany.

They called him Young Don. He was just eleven years old. Though he was born in the US, his father worked as a US intelligence agent in Berlin, Germany. In Berlin, Young Don took English lessons from Mildred Harnack – another American expat.

But the lessons weren’t exactly ordinary. Every time he visited Mrs. Harnack’s apartment, his father would remind him to never take the same route twice. To make sure he listened, Mrs. Harnack would quiz him about the names of the streets he took. And before he went home, Mrs. Harnack would always slip a very important piece of paper in between the books in his bag.

Young Don was a courier, helping the anti-Nazi resistance in Berlin. After Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1932, rights and civil liberties in Germany were quickly erased. Some people made excuses; others felt apathetic or hopeless. Then there were those, like Mildred and her husband Arvid, who decided to fight back however they could.

This is the story of their determination in the face of overwhelming oppression.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how an American English teacher became part of a German resistance group;
why Stalin didn’t trust his own intel about the impending war; and
how German resistance leaders got entangled with Russian intelligence.

A Whirlwind Romance from Wisconsin to Berlin

Mildred Fish didn’t come from money. In fact, her family had often struggled to get by. But Mildred proved herself to be a dedicated student, earning a bachelor’s degree in humanities and a master’s degree in English. By 1926, she was teaching American literature at Wisconsin University.

That’s where she met Arvid Harnack. He’d walked into one of her lectures by accident – he was actually visiting the university to hear a talk about labor unions. But upon seeing Mildred, he was immediately smitten. When he showed up a second time, he was carrying a bouquet of wildflowers he’d picked himself. By the end of the year, the two were exchanging vows, and Mildred Fish became Mildred Harnack.

As for Arvid, his background was something else entirely. He was the nephew of the esteemed German historian and theologian Adolf von Harnack, who had helped draft Germany’s Weimar Constitution after WWI. Von Harnack was so beloved that a building in Berlin, the Harnack House, was named after him. By the time Arvid met Mildred on his trip to the US, he had a law degree and was on his way to getting his PhD. In fact, not long after their marriage, they made plans to return to Germany so he could do so. Mildred would also work on her PhD while lecturing at the University of Berlin, where she’d been hired to teach American literature.

When Mildred finally arrived in Berlin for the first time, it was 1929. It was like she’d landed in the middle of some European crossroads, where passing voices might speak German, English, French, Russian, Italian, Polish, or Dutch. But it was also clear that something was wrong. Germany was facing a severe inequality crisis; everywhere Mildred went, there were penniless and homeless families in the streets. One poor woman that Mildred passed haunted her mind. The dress she was wearing was just like one Mildred’s mother used to wear.

One of the things that Mildred and Arvid truly bonded over was a deep mutual commitment to social causes. In Arvid’s case, this meant periodically traveling to Moscow to serve as secretary for a group called ARPLAN, or the Working Group for the Study of the Soviet Planned Economy. At the time, the Soviet Union’s economy was booming. Some Germans, like Arvid, thought its ideas could help turn the German economy around as well.

The Harnacks didn’t know it at the time, but Arvid’s involvement in ARPLAN would have profound consequences in both their lives in the years to come.

Work, Freedom, Bread

By the start of 1930, Mildred and Arvid had some reasons to feel hopeful about the future. While disparity still existed, the economy had been on the mend since 1923. Plus, there were the tenets of the 1919 Weimar Constitution, which in many ways was a progressive document that guaranteed a lot of freedoms and equalities between the sexes. Women had the right to vote, censorship was largely banned, and there was religious freedom – all of which had brought about an artistic and intellectual renaissance in the country.

But, on the other hand, there was no ignoring the pulse of the street: an underlying tension was brewing. One German writer in Berlin explained that despite the “extraordinary freedoms,” there was a persistent feeling that “someday all of this will suddenly burst apart.”

A Fire That Changed Everything

There were some warning signs about the Nazi party’s true intentions. By 1932, Hitler had already published his manifesto, Mein Kampf. Though few people had actually read it, both the left- and right-wing press had dismissed it as little more than unhinged ravings. Still, it did offer insight into the antidemocratic motivations behind the Nazi party, including Hitler’s rampant anti-Semitism.

In 1932, the Münchener Post published even more worrying news about Hitler’s agenda: a story about the Nazi Party’s “Cell G,” a secret death squad created to murder Hitler’s enemies. Given alarming reports like these, as well as the mockery that Hitler had faced in the press, it wasn’t surprising that the Nazi party quickly worked to outlaw free press and free speech.

Spy Club

Once she’d left the University of Berlin, Mildred didn’t stay jobless for long. She soon found work teaching English at the Berlin Night School for Adults – or the BAG, as it was known by locals. In a way, the job suited Mildred. Both she and Arvid were dedicated to helping the working class, and BAG students were exactly that. Many were unemployed, some were Jewish, and more than a few were unhappy about the recent political shift in Germany. The school itself was pioneering; before it opened, the only schools for working-class adults had been vocational and trade schools. The BAG wanted to help people escape poverty by teaching them things like history, philosophy, literature, and science – things that could potentially broaden their horizons.

At the BAG, Mildred continued to speak openly about politics, much to the surprise of some students. Along with discussions about Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens, she sang folk songs like “John Brown’s Body,” about the abolitionist who died trying to free slaves in the American South. And she wasn’t afraid to make connections with current events in Germany; a discussion about slavery could lead to her asking a student, “Do you believe Hitler should be chancellor?”

Fighting a Dangerous Fight

In 1933, the Nazi government rounded up 20,000 political prisoners. Like many other people, Mildred and Arvid asked themselves, Should we stay or should we go? After all, with Arvid’s ties to Moscow, he could have easily been branded a communist and become a prisoner himself. Even so, they decided to stay and fight for as long as they could. They were at the center of the Circle, organizing leaflet campaigns to try and inspire people to rise up against the Nazi government.

Meanwhile, new and increasingly oppressive laws kept getting passed. On September 15, 1935, the “Reich Citizenship Law” and the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor” stripped Jewish people of their citizenship as well as their civil and human rights. Suddenly, it was against the law for a Jewish person to marry or have sex with a non-Jewish person. The growing marginalization, segregation, and confinement were all leading up to the larger Nazi plan of extermination.

The Cost of Resistance

The Circle’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed. In 1934 alone, the Gestapo confiscated more than a million of their leaflets. But by that time, more resistance groups had emerged.

One important figure in the Berlin resistance was Harro Schulze-Boysen, a young officer in the Ministry of Aviation, who led the Gegner Kreis resistance group. Another, former magazine editor Adam Kuckhoff, led a small group called Tat Kreis. And John Rittmeister, a neurologist, led one called Rittmeister Kreis. These were just a few of the resistance groups in Berlin that occasionally interconnected with Mildred and Arvid’s own Circle.

Messages Not Received

Hitler wanted “peace.” That’s what he said again and again when asked about why he was defying the orders of the WWI armistice that forbade Germany from stockpiling arms, building tanks, and making weapons of war. Of course, he was lying through his teeth. In their positions at the finance and aviation ministries, both Arvid and Harro Schulze-Boysen could see that the Führer was gearing up for a large-scale war.

The Soviet Union was becoming concerned; it wanted good intel. Alexander Hirschfeld, an old friend of Arvid’s from his days in ARPLAN, was working for Moscow Center – the Soviet foreign intelligence agency’s headquarters. Hirschfeld arrived in Berlin and tried to recruit Arvid to be a Soviet agent, but Arvid refused – for the most part. He wouldn’t take any money, and he wouldn’t be controlled or answerable to Moscow Center, but he would provide information.

No Escape

As the war escalated, the leaflet campaign continued, with anti-Nazi flyers urging arms factory workers to sabotage ammunitions and bombs. Some resistance groups also got more aggressive, targeting the railroads with explosives. And as early as 1938, high-ranking members of the German and Austrian military plotted ways to kill Hitler. Their efforts became known as the Oster Conspiracy, named after General Hans Oster, one of the group’s masterminds. Their efforts culminated in Operation Valkyrie, an attempt to assassinate Hitler by planting a bomb that, in the end, only partially detonated and left Hitler with minor wounds.

So many executions took place in Nazi Germany that beheadings were reintroduced. At one prison in Berlin in 1935, there were over 80 beheadings. These were performed with an axe, until a steel guillotine was brought in to make the process more clean and efficient. Execution was the threat that loomed large over the Berlin resistance – and it became all too real when, on July 14, 1942, Nazi decoders cracked the message. The names and addresses of three key resistance leaders were laid bare.

A Letter from Arvid

After arresting 76 people who would stand trial, the Gestapo branded them the Red Orchestra – even though the various resistance groups in Berlin were never that organized. On December 15, 1942, Mildred and Arvid Harnack began a trial that lasted four days. It was the first time they’d seen each other in months. And when the trial ended, it became the last. While they weren’t allowed to speak to each other, Arvid was able to get a letter passed along to Mildred. It contained his last words.

The trial was mostly a formality – Hitler had the final say when it came to sentencing. Oddly enough, he believed that women should be beheaded rather than hung, so many women in the resistance died this way.

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What is All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days about?

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days (2021) offers a deeply intimate look at individuals who risked their lives by establishing an anti-Nazi resistance movement in Germany. With years of research, and access to letters and declassified documents, this is a detailed story about people who have often been overlooked in the fight against fascism.

Who should read All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days?

Fans of real-world espionage stories
People curious about life in WWII-era Germany
History buffs

About the Author

Rebecca Donner is a writer whose articles and essays have appeared in many publications, including Bookforum and the New York Times. She is also the author of two novels: Sunset Terrace and Burnout. Donner has taught writing at Columbia University, Barnard College, and Wesleyan University.

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