All the frequent troubles of our days the true story of the American woman at the heart of the German resistance to Hitler

Part biography, part political thriller, part scholarly detective story that draws on letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, and other documents, this true story chronicles the life and brutal death of Mildred Harnack, the American leader of one of the largest underground res...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Donner, Rebecca (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2021.
Edition:First edition.
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Summary:Part biography, part political thriller, part scholarly detective story that draws on letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, and other documents, this true story chronicles the life and brutal death of Mildred Harnack, the American leader of one of the largest underground resistance groups in Germany.
Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings with a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. When the first shots of the Second World War were fired she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies. On the eve of her escape to Sweden, she was ambushed by the Gestapo. At a Nazi military court she was sentenced to six years at a prison camp, but Hitler overruled the decision and ordered her execution. On February 16, 1943, she was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded. Harnack's great-great-niece Rebecca Donner draws on archival research in Germany, Russia, England, and the U.S. as well as newly uncovered documents in her family archive to reconstruct the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history. --
Physical Description:xiv, 560 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 487-544) and index.
ISBN:9780316561693
031656169X
Author Notes:In 2022, Rebecca Donner was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was a 2018-19 Biography Fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, is a two-time Yaddo Fellow, and has twice received fellowships from the Ucross Foundation. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Bookforum . All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is Donner's third book; she is also the author of two critically acclaimed works of fiction.Visit her at rebeccadonner.com .