Resistance Women Read online

  Dedication

  To the resistance women, past and present

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue: November 1942

  Part One Chapter One: June–October 1929

  Chapter Two: October 1929–July 1930

  Chapter Three: October 1930

  Chapter Four: October 1930–August 1931

  Chapter Five: September 1931–January 1932

  Chapter Six: January–June 1932

  Chapter Seven: July 1932

  Chapter Eight: April–November 1932

  Chapter Nine: December 1932–February 1933

  Chapter Ten: February–March 1933

  Chapter Eleven: March 1933

  Part Two Chapter Twelve: March–April 1933

  Chapter Thirteen: March–April 1933

  Chapter Fourteen: April–May 1933

  Chapter Fifteen: May 1933

  Chapter Sixteen: June 1933

  Chapter Seventeen: July 1933

  Chapter Eighteen: July 1933

  Chapter Nineteen: August 1933

  Chapter Twenty: September–October 1933

  Chapter Twenty-one: October–December 1933

  Chapter Twenty-two: January–June 1934

  Chapter Twenty-three: June–July 1934

  Chapter Twenty-four: July 1934

  Part Three Chapter Twenty-five: August 1934

  Chapter Twenty-six: August 1934

  Chapter Twenty-seven: August–December 1934

  Chapter Twenty-eight: January 1935

  Chapter Twenty-nine: January–February 1935

  Chapter Thirty: April–May 1935

  Chapter Thirty-one: June–July 1935

  Chapter Thirty-two: August 1935

  Chapter Thirty-three: June–September 1935

  Chapter Thirty-four: March–May 1936

  Chapter Thirty-five: June–August 1936

  Chapter Thirty-six: August–December 1936

  Chapter Thirty-seven: December 1936–January 1937

  Chapter Thirty-eight: March–August 1937

  Chapter Thirty-nine: October–December 1937

  Chapter Forty: January–June 1938

  Chapter Forty-one: March–September 1938

  Chapter Forty-two: October–November 1938

  Chapter Forty-three: November 1938–April 1939

  Chapter Forty-four: May–August 1939

  Chapter Forty-five: August–September 1939

  Chapter Forty-six: September–October 1939

  Chapter Forty-seven: November 1939–March 1940

  Chapter Forty-eight: March–June 1940

  Chapter Forty-nine: July–September 1940

  Chapter Fifty: October 1940–January 1941

  Chapter Fifty-one: February–June 1941

  Chapter Fifty-two: June–July 1941

  Chapter Fifty-three: July–November 1941

  Chapter Fifty-four: October–December 1941

  Chapter Fifty-five: December 1941–May 1942

  Chapter Fifty-six: May–July 1942

  Chapter Fifty-seven: August–September 1942

  Part Four Chapter Fifty-eight: September–November 1942

  Chapter Fifty-nine: December 1942–January 1943

  Chapter Sixty: January–February 1943

  Chapter Sixty-one: February 15–16, 1943

  Chapter Sixty-two: 1943–1946

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  November 1942

  Mildred

  The heavy iron doors open and for a moment Mildred stands motionless and blinking in the sunlight, breathless from the sudden rush of cool, fresh air caressing her face and lifting her hair. The guard propels her forward into the prison yard, his grip painful and unyielding around her upper arm. Other women clad in identical drab, shapeless garments walk slowly in pairs around the perimeter of the gravel square. Their cells within the Hausgefängnis of the Gestapo’s Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters are so cramped that they can scarcely move, and now the prisoners spread their arms and lift their faces to the sky, like dancers, like dry autumn leaves scattered in a gust of wind.

  How many of them would never again know more freedom than this?

  “No talking,” the guard reminds her, shoving her into the open yard. Stumbling, she regains her footing and begins treading a diagonal path between two corners of the high encircling walls, forbidden to walk with the others. She has done this ten precious minutes each day since her arrest two months before, and her stiff, aching limbs fall into the routine before she is conscious of it.

  Deliberately, she holds her head up and takes long, steady strides in a false show of strength that costs her dearly. She has lost weight, and from the strands she finds on her bunk each morning, she knows that her once luxuriant blond hair has gone brittle and white. Coughs rack her almost constantly. Earlier that day she brought her hand away from her mouth and nose to find her palm spotted with blood. There is no medicine to spare for people like her, traitors to the Third Reich—although is it correct to call her a traitor, since she is American?

  It does not matter, not to her jailers and not to the law, to whom she is American by birth, a dual citizen by marriage. To Adolf Hitler it matters very much that she is an American, or so she has been warned. And yet Germany is her adopted home, the birthplace of her beloved husband. It was because she could not bear to be parted from him that she had remained in Berlin even after the United States government warned its citizens to leave the country.

  Arvid. Her heart aches as she imagines him languishing in a cramped, cold, dimly lit cell like her own, somewhere not far away, but impossibly beyond her reach. Their trial is pending. Perhaps they will be reunited in the courtroom, they and all of their brave, unfortunate friends in the resistance cell the Nazis call Rote Kapelle, Red Orchestra, for the illicit “music” they had broadcast to enemies of the Reich. How strange it is that the Gestapo considered them so formidable an enemy that they merited a sinister name, like something plucked from a spy novel—and yet among their diffuse network of writers, teachers, economists, bureaucrats, office workers, and laborers, they count not one professional spy.

  They are ordinary people from every walk of life. Her dear friend Greta Kuckhoff grew up poor, earned her education, and is determined to provide her young son with a better life. Sara Weitz enjoyed wealth and privilege until the Nazis declared the Jews undesirable and robbed them of every civil and human right. Mildred’s heart aches as she thinks of Sara and the other students in their circle—brave, determined, idealistic, with their whole lives ahead of them, risking more than they can fully understand. Where are they now? Scattered, some imprisoned elsewhere, some in hiding, others fled to distant lands. If only Mildred could seek help from Martha Dodd one last time, but Martha returned to the United States after her father was relieved of his duties as ambassador. Even if Mildred could somehow get word to her impulsive, outspoken friend, what could Martha do?

  A fit of coughing seizes her. She doubles over, clutching her shoulders to brace herself until the hoarse racking stops. When she can, she straightens, inhales deeply, ignores the foreboding rattle in her lungs, and resumes her diagonal path across the yard—

  And almost stops short from astonishment. Another prisoner holds her gaze as she treads along the edge of the prison yard, her stricken sympathy plain for Mildred to see. The woman is too pale and thin to be new to the prison; surely she is aware of the grim consequences she will face if the guards see her regarding Mildred with such concern, after she has been s
et apart as a warning to others. The woman must know, for she quickly looks away. Mildred’s heart sinks, only to rise again when the woman glances back and offers her the barest trace of an encouraging smile.

  Mildred feels new strength flow through her. It is just a glance, but it nourishes her starved soul. Her heart pounds as she works out the timing of her diagonal strides and the woman’s slow circuit of the yard. She quickens her pace, not enough to draw the guards’ attention, but sufficiently that eventually her path and the woman’s will intersect in the far corner of the yard. All the while they steal glances at each other, silent messages that they are not alone, that there is always hope, that when one least expects it a shaft of light might pierce the darkest sky.

  And then they intersect, though they cannot pause long enough even to touch fingertips.

  “Take care of yourself,” Mildred murmurs as they shuffle toward each other and away. “I am in cell 25. Don’t forget me when you get out. My name is Mildred Harnack.”

  I am Mildred Harnack, she repeats silently to herself as she turns to cross the yard again. Mildred Fish Harnack. Wife, sister, aunt. Author, scholar, teacher. Resistance fighter. Spy.

  Don’t forget me.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  June–October 1929

  Mildred

  The sharp wind off the water where the North Sea met the Weser River whipped locks of hair from Mildred’s braid and brought tears to her eyes, but nothing could compel her away from the railing of the upper deck of the SS Berlin as it approached Bremerhaven. Ten days earlier the ship had set out from Manhattan for Germany—ten long days after nine lonely months apart from her beloved husband—but the last few hours had passed with excruciating slowness. As the ship came into harbor, she scanned the crowd gathered on the pier for the man she loved, knowing that he stood somewhere among them, waiting to welcome her to his homeland.

  The ship’s horn bellowed overhead, two long blasts; sailors and dockworkers tossed ropes and deftly secured knots. The passengers shifted in anticipation as the ramps were made ready for their descent. Where the pier met the shore, a brass band played a merry tune in welcome; men clad in traditional lederhosen, embroidered vests, and feathered caps; women in pink-and-green dirndls and white blouses with wreaths of ribbons and flowers in their hair.

  Hearing her name aloft on the wind above the music, Mildred searched the crowd, her grip tightening on the rail—and then she saw him, her beloved Arvid, his fair hair neatly combed back from his wide brow, his blue eyes kind and intelligent behind wire-rimmed glasses. He waved his hat in slow arcs above his head, calling her name, radiant with joy.

  “Arvid,” she cried, and he waved back, and soon she was ashore and darting through the crowd into his embrace. Tears of joy spilled over as she kissed him, heedless of the sidelong glances of the more reserved passengers and families all around them.

  “My darling wife,” Arvid murmured, his lips nuzzling her ear. “It’s wonderful to hold you again. You’re even lovelier than I remember.”

  She smiled and held him close, her happiness too great for words. If absence had made her lovelier in his eyes, he was even more handsome in hers.

  How immeasurably beloved he had become to her since the day they met three years before. In March 1926, soon after Arvid came to the University of Wisconsin on a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship, he had wandered into her Bascom Hall classroom expecting a lecture by the renowned economist John R. Commons, only to discover Mildred leading a discussion on Walt Whitman. Enchanted, he took a seat in the back row, and afterward he stayed behind to apologize for the interruption, explaining in endearingly imperfect English that he had meant to go to Sterling Hall but had apparently lost his way. Charmed, Mildred had offered to escort him to the correct building. They enjoyed a chat along the way, and in parting agreed to meet again to study together. She would help Arvid master English, and he would help her improve her German, which she had allowed to lapse after learning the rudiments as a child in Milwaukee, that most German of American cities.

  Arvid arrived for their study session bearing a lovely bouquet of fragrant white gardenias. Their language lesson over coffee at a diner on the corner of State and Lake streets turned into a long walk along the forested path on the shore of Lake Mendota. As they conversed in a mix of English and German, Mildred discovered that Arvid had earned his doctorate of law degree in 1924 and was pursuing a second doctorate in economics. He had come to the United States to study the American labor movement, and like herself he was deeply concerned about the rights of workers, women, children, and the poor. They shared a passion for education and aspired to become university professors, although Mildred also yearned to write, not only academic essays and reviews, but also novels and poetry.

  One date led to another, and soon Mildred realized she had fallen in love with him—inevitably, utterly. And in return, she found herself beloved, admired, and respected by the finest man she had ever known.

  On Saturday, August 7, 1926, two days after Mildred passed her master’s degree exams, she and Arvid married in an outdoor ceremony on her brother Bob’s 180-acre farm about twenty miles south of the university. For two years the couple worked, studied, and enjoyed newlywed bliss in Madison, but when Arvid’s Rockefeller Fellowship ended in the spring of 1928, they realized that they could not afford for her to accompany him back to Germany.

  “Let’s check the numbers again,” Mildred had said, studying the neat columns of notes and calculations written in Arvid’s precise hand on a yellow notepad, calculations of his income and estimates of their expenses, adjusted for Germany’s excessive inflation. When Arvid smiled wryly and handed her his pencil, she laughed and added, “Although I suppose a doctoral student in economics can work out a simple family budget.”

  Arvid removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. “The facts distress me too, Liebling, but they’re still facts. I can’t support you as a graduate student, and given the state of the German economy, we can’t assume you’ll be able to find work there.”

  Mildred reached across the table and clasped his hand. “Then I’ll find a faculty position here in the States and we’ll pinch pennies until we can afford to be together.”

  Until then, they would have to live apart.

  When Arvid returned to Germany to continue his studies at the University of Jena, Mildred had moved to Baltimore to teach at Goucher College. The months had slowly passed in loneliness and longing, but in the spring Mildred won a fellowship for postgraduate study at a German university of her choice. With her stipend added to the money they had saved, they could finally afford for her to join Arvid in Jena.

  Now, with her overseas journey behind her, they were reunited at last—and if it were up to her, they would never be parted again.

  They gathered her luggage and boarded the port train to Bremen, where Arvid suggested a walking tour to stretch her legs. Mildred could hardly take her eyes from the dear face she had missed and dreamt of all those long months apart, yet the charming city stole her gaze away time and again. She admired the tall peaked, half-timbered buildings lining the cobblestone streets and the sun-splashed, manicured squares, the window boxes bursting with red alpine geraniums, white peonies, and green trailing ivy. Bicycles were everywhere, their handlebar bells chiming out a ceaseless melody, but the occasional motorcar also drove sedately past, and now and then a horse-drawn wagon.

  “How picturesque it is,” Mildred exclaimed, briefly resting her head on Arvid’s shoulder as they strolled arm in arm. “And to think how Greta tried to lower my expectations.”

  Arvid’s eyebrows rose. “Greta Lorke disparaged her own homeland?”

  “Not exactly,” said Mildred, amused by his instinct to assume the worst of his former academic rival. Mildred was loyal to Arvid, of course, but she had become very fond of Greta after they met through the Friday Niters, Professor Collins’s renowned group of graduate students and faculty who studied social welfare, econo
mic, and labor policies and helped the Wisconsin state legislators draft progressive laws. Where Mildred was tall, slender, and blond, Greta was petite, curvy, and dark-eyed, and she wore her dark brown hair cropped in a wavy bob. She had high cheekbones and a full mouth fashioned for warm, beckoning smiles, but a certain wariness in her manner suggested that she was not unaccustomed to strife.

  “Greta once told me that she feared my understanding of Germany comes from your poetry, novels, and fairy tales,” Mildred explained. “She warned me that my perspective is romantic and idealized, and that I ought to read German newspapers to learn about the real Germany, for my own good.”

  “How foreboding.”

  “And yet it was good advice. Why shouldn’t I learn all I could about your home?”

  Mildred knew that Germany was not perfect, that like the United States it grappled with various economic, political, and social problems, but now, exploring Bremen with Arvid, she felt a keen sense of relief. Greta—dear, smart, serious, skeptical Greta—had painted a far too ominous picture of her country.

  Mildred and Arvid left Bremen just as the bells of St. Peter’s Cathedral rang out the noon hour. The sun shone brightly in a perfect blue sky as they set out in a gleaming cream-colored Mercedes convertible that Arvid had borrowed from a cousin, passing through forests and farmland, rolling hills and charming villages. For hours the beautiful scenery captivated Mildred’s attention, but after they stopped for lunch in Hanover and continued southeast through Lower Saxony, she felt waves of trepidation rising and receding with increasing frequency. Although Arvid never boasted, she knew that his distinguished family was admired and respected throughout Germany, especially in academic, political, and religious circles. They were, as Greta put it, intellectual royalty. Mildred had far humbler origins. Her father, a handsome, unfaithful, irresponsible dilettante who had habitually squandered his pay at the racetrack, had been temperamentally incapable of holding on to any job for long. Mildred’s mother, an intelligent, self-reliant Christian Scientist, had supported the family with domestic work and by taking in boarders, but despite her best efforts the family had moved every year one step ahead of landlords demanding overdue rent.