WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Undetected: Mildred Harnack

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Megan and Alessia explore the tragic espionage tale of Red Orchestra member, Mildred Harnack.

A woman walked down the dark street. It was night, not a good time for a woman to be out alone. The once gorgeous Berlin had taken on a frightening atmosphere. Everywhere she looked, she imagined a brown shirt lurking around the corner, watching her every move. She finally reached the door to an apartment building. She unlocked it as fast as she could, running up the stairs to her door. Once inside, the woman realized she was late.

A few men she knew, as well as some unknown faces, sat before her. It was time. She pulled a book off her bookshelf and glanced over at her husband. They had taken their group of anti-Nazis to the next level. It was time to expand. She slowly walked over to one of the men she didn't know and handed him the book. Read it, she said. He looked at her, confused.

She stared back at him and said, let's begin. Welcome to Undetected on Radio Free Hillsdale. Go undercover with your hosts, Alessia Sandala and Megan Lee, as they uncover the stories of spies from every country in time. the most thrilling yet the most secret of lives in history. It's good to be back for another episode of Undetected. I'm Megan. And I'm Alessia.

This week's spy is yet another tragic tale of failed espionage. Mildred Harnack was born on September 16th, 1902, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a grad student at the University of Wisconsin, Mildred met her future husband, Arvid Harnak. He was from Germany and was studying at the university as part of a fellowship program. In 1929, Mildred moved to Germany to be with her husband. While there, she was able to earn her doctorate in American literature and soon began teaching literature classes.

The Harnax were drawn to communism after witnessing the poverty and unemployment of many Germans during the Great Depression. Mildred's husband was among other spies, such as Richard Sorge, who we talked about in a previous episode, that provided the Soviet Union with information on Hitler's coming invasion of the Soviet Union. Mildred and her husband quickly became friends with Donald Heath, who had just become the first secretary at the U.S. Embassy and his wife. The couples grew close and spent a lot of time together.

Eventually they would meet in their countryside, where the Harnax would provide them with any intelligence they had gathered. Early in the war, the Harnax were introduced to Harrow Schultz-Boisen, who was a Luftwaffe lieutenant. Schultz Boisen was a staunch anti-Nazi who had been arrested and beaten previously for editing an anti-Nazi journal. Their work became more than slipping a few small details to the Americans or Soviets. Mildred and her husband were assembling a spy ring.

On September 17th, 1940, the Harnax met with a man from the Soviet embassy named Alexander Kortkov. Kordkov reestablished the couple's connection with the Soviet Union and provided a radio for them to transmit the information they gathered. The Abwer, a German military intelligence unit, began to notice the illegal transmissions emanating from Berlin. Someone was selling Germany out from the heart of the Third Reich. The Harnax continued to recruit new members of the group Mildred dubbed the Circle. Abweer, however, had come up with another name for the ring, the Red Orchestra. The Red Orchestra had to be sure that they were not inviting traitors into their midst. After identifying potential recruits, they would bring them to a meeting where they would pretend to be Nazis to draw out the recruits' true political belief.

Mildred would provide promising recruits with books to see if the recruit was intellectual or not and whether their opinions were easily swayed. Mildred also worked as a courier for the group. The Red Orchestra that had begun with only a few members quickly grew into a huge, operation that fed all kinds of German military information to the Soviet Union. By 1942, the Red Orchestra's luck had run out. The Abwehr was onto them. They had been tracing the transmissions for long enough to determine the location of one of the group's radio operators. The radio operator was tortured, but didn't give up any useful information. And a woman who knew the code used by the Red Orchestra members committed suicide before she gave up any information.

The Abwehr did, however, have one final shot at dismantling the spy ring. Rita Arnod was the mistress of a Soviet courier who worked with the group. The few hints Arnod was able to provide proved to be just enough for the Abweir to crack the Red Orchestra's code. Schultz Boison was the first of the group to be arrested. After evading the first round of arrest, Mildred and her husband were arrested on September 7, 1942. 117 people were arrested in the massive sweep. Many of those arrested had been resisting the Nazis, but were not actually involved in the spy ring. 46 of the arrested were executed after resented.

receiving what was called a trial. Mildred was one of the 46. Her last words are said to have been, and I love Germany so much. Mildred, like so many other spies and resistance members during World War 2, stood by what they believed until the very end. Mildred never saw the end of the war, or knew whether or not her work made a difference in the course of the war. I'm Megan. And I'm Alessia. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Undetected. Tune in next week for the story of one of the most daring Russian double agents, Adolf Tolkachev, on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.