Arvid Harnack

Die vormarxistische Arbeiterbewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten: eine Darstellung ihrer Geschichte. University of Jena: G. Fischer, 1931

Harnack's family were prominent and academically gifted Protestant Germans from the Baltic region.[4] His father was literary history professor Otto Harnack[5] and his mother was Clara Harnack née Reichau,[6] an artist. Reichau was the granddaughter of Justus von Liebig, one of the principal founders of organic chemistry.[7] Harnack's siblings were Falk Harnack, his elder brother, Inge Harnack and Angela Harnack, a violin teacher. Harnack was the nephew of theologian Adolf von Harnack.[8]

In 1919 he became a member of the Freikorps, a volunteer militia.[9] From 1919 to 1923 he studied law at the Friedrich Schiller University), Graz, and Hamburg and became a Doctor of Law in 1924.[9] He completed postgraduate studies in economics at Hamburg and the London School of Economics before being awarded a Rockefeller scholarship to study at University of Wisconsin.[10]

In 1926, Harnack met American literary historian Mildred Fish, also a student at Wisconsin University, after Harnack wandered into the wrong hall.[11] After a brief friendship and love affair, they married on 7 August 1926.[12] In March 1928, at the end of the semester, Harnack returned to Germany as his fellowship had ended[13] while Mildred stayed for another year to complete her studies. On June 2, 1929, Mildred Harnack moved to Germany. In 1929, the couple were living in the small university towns of Jenna and Giessen.[14] In 1931, Harnack was promoted to his 2nd doctorate, a Doctor of Philosophy at University of Giessen with a thesis titled: Die vormarxistische Arbeiterbewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten ("The Pre-Marxist Workers' Movement in the United States")[9] that dealt explicitly with the history of the American worker's movement.[15] The thesis was sponsored by Friedrich Lenz, who founded the Giessen School of National Economics.[16]

The Harnacks, like many of their counterparts, shared an interest in the Soviet Union.[17] They decided to set up a study group in the autumn of 1931, [17] along with Friedrich Lenz.[16] At the height of the Great Depression, Harnack's hope was that Germany could serve as a spiritual and economic bridge between East and West.[9] Lenz believed that only an alliance with the Soviet Union would relieve Germany of the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles and re-establish the country's position and return it to great nation status.[16]

The Harnack group in Germany

From 1933 Harnack was appointed as civil servant in the Reich Ministry of Economics (Reichswirtschaftsministerium), eventually achieving the rank of senior civil servant (Oberregierungsrat)[33] in the American referat.[34] The same year, he also finished his legal qualifications in Jena, successfully completing the junior law examination.

With the writer Adam Kuckhoff, and his wife, Greta, the Harnacks assembled a discussion circle which debated political perspectives on the time after the National Socialists' expected downfall or overthrow. p86 brysac

By 1935, Harnack was active as a lecturer on foreign policy at the University of Berlin.

Beginning in 1937, Harnack agreed with Donald Heath, the First Secretary at the US Embassy, to inform the US about Hitler's preparations for war. In 1941, after the Americans left Berlin, Harnack was contacted by the Soviets and he agreed to supply them with information as well. Unbeknownst to him, they applied the code names Balte and Corsican to him. While Harnack's relations with the Americans had been based on a mutual friendship with Heath, his relation with the Soviets was reluctant, as he didn't trust Stalin.

In 26 January 1937, a new civil service law gave Nazi officials the power to sack tenured civil servants.[35] Walther Funk, the manager of Harnack's, persuaded him to join the Nazi party to protect himself, to become what was known as a Hamburger, i.e. Nazi brown outside, Moscow red inside.[1] In May 1937, Harnack joined the Nazi party with number: 4153569.[1]

On 8 August 1935, three months after Harnack joined the trade ministry, he met with the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Berlin, Alexander Hirschfeld in a meeting that lasted three hours.[36] During the meeting, Hirschfeld informed Harnack that his position in the trade ministry could provide useful information that could be used to defeat the Nazis, and offered to establish a system to convey the documents to Moscow.[37] Harnack agreed to be a informer[36] and was give the codename Balt, assigned a control officer, Alexander Belkin[36] and assigned a mission to increase his sources by building a network of contacts.[38] However, Hirschfeld requested that Harnack break of all relation's with the KPD and to avoid working for the resistance,[36] but he decided not to comply[37] Harnack was never interested in becoming a Soviet agent, he considered himself a communist and would supply information to anybody who would take part in anti-fascist operations that helped to destroy the Nazi's[38] According to KGB sources, between 1935 and 1938 Harnack supplied information relating to the German currency, German investments abroad and details of the German foreign debt. Harnack also provided details of secret trade agreements to Soviet intelligence.[39] During that period, Harnack circulated the same information to other groups.[37]

In 1935, Harnack had his first contact with the fervent anti-nazi Harro Schulze-Boysen,[38] however due to their different temperaments, Harnack decided not to meet again.[38]

Hans Coppi, as well as with a leading Social Democrat Adolf Grimme.[39]

In 1940, with th young and active Communist Hilde Coppi

In 1940, Harnack had access to other resistance groups and began to cooperate with them. The most important of these was a group run by Harro Schulze-Boysen, a Luftwaffe lieutenant and descendant of an old German military family. who had known Harnack since 1935,[40] but was reintroduced to him sometime in late 1939 or early 1940 through Greta Kuckhoff.[41] The Kuckhoffs had known the Schulz-Boysen's since 1938 and started to engage them socially in late 1939 or early 1940 by bringing Mildred and Libertas together while on holiday in Saxony.

On the 17 September 1940, Arvid and Mildred met the third secretary member of the Soviet embassy, Alexander Korotkow who used the alias Alexander Erdberg[42] while meeting the couple in their Tiergarten apartment.[34] Korotkov was a Soviet intelligence agent who had been operating clandestinely in Europe for much of the 1930s as an employee of the foreign intelligence service of the Soviet People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) but had been dismissed during Stalin's purges, but managed to work back into the service via help from his friend Lavrentiy Beria.[42] Initially wary and suspicious of the uninvited guest, Erdberg proposed to Harnack a second meeting at the Soviet Embassy in Berlin, where Erdberg could verify his bona fides[34] and prove to Harnack that he was not a decoy. Erdberg finally convinced Harnack, who was reluctant to agree.[43] Several reasons have been advanced as to why Harnack decided to become a spy, including a need for money, being ideologically driven, and possibly blackmail by Russian intelligence. It was known that Harnack had planned an independent existence for his friends. According to a statement by Erdberg discovered after the war, he thought Harnack was not motived by money nor ideologically driven but that he was specifically building an anti-fascist organisation for Germany, as opposed to an espionage network for Russian intelligence. He considered himself a German patriot.[43]

The resulting network was far-reaching and didn't have a name. After the arrests, the Abwehr labeled them Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle). In the Gestapo's terms, a spy hitting Morse codes was a pianist, a group of pianists formed an orchestra, and, as Communists, they were red. In reality, the resistance group had members from all walks of life. Membership included men and women from all social classes and age groups, and also from varied religious ideologies, mainly communist and National Bolshevik, and Jews and Christians.

In 1941, Harnack sent the Soviets information about the forthcoming invasion. That same year, he published the resistance magazine, Die innere Front ("The Inner Front"). At about the same time, he received information from Rudolf von Scheliha about the Final Solution.

CIC file ref. Mildred Harnack (about 1947)

In 1941, through a Soviet military blunder, addresses of members of the group were transmitted across Europe when the Soviets attempted to re-connect with the resisters. A year later, in July 1942, the Decryption Department of the Oberkommando des Heeres managed to decode the group's radio messages, and the Gestapo pounced. On 7 September, Arvid and Mildred Harnack were arrested. Arvid Harnack was sentenced to death on 19 December after a four-day trial before the Reichskriegsgericht ("Reich Military Tribunal"), and was put to death three days later at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. He and his co-conspirators were hanged from meat hooks by thin ropes, a method designed to prolong their suffering. Mildred Harnack was originally sentenced to six years in prison, but Hitler swiftly cancelled the sentence and ordered a new trial, which pronounced the desired death sentence. She was beheaded by guillotine. The Harnacks' bodies were released to Hermann Stieve, anatomy professor at Humboldt University, to be dissected for research. A cenotaph was installed for them after the war by Arvid's brother Falk Harnack, a member of the White Rose resistance group, at Zehlendorf Cemetery.

• On 6 October 1969, Harnack was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner.[44]
• In Magdeburg, a street called Harnackstraße is named after him and Mildred, as well as similar named streets in the Lichtenberg, Berlin[45] and Reudnitz in Leipzig.
• In Jena a street known as the Arvid-Harnack-Straße, is named after him.
• In the courtyard location at Unter den Linden 6 of the Humboldt University of Berlin, there is a memorial stone.
• In Neukölln area of Berlin, in the Hasenheide, corner of Lilienthalstraße, a plaque commemorates the Harnack's and their roommate Stefan Heym.

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  A Commemorative stamp honouring Mildred Harnack and her husband Arvid that was issued by the Deutsche Post of the GDR in 1964
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  A Commemorative stamp honouring Arvid Harnack, Harro Schulze-Boysen and John Sieg, from the GDR, 1983
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  Commemorative plaque at the Peter A. Silbermann School/Friedrich Ebert Secondary School in Berlin-Wilmersdorf
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  Memorial plaque for Arvid and Mildred Harnack at the Berlin building where they lived, 61 Hasenheide, Neukölln
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  Memorial stone, "NS-Opfer" by Johanna Jura erected in 1976 at 6 Unter den Linden in Mitte
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  A Stolperstein for Arvid Harnack at 14 Genthiner Straße at Tiergarten
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  Memorial stone to Arvid and Mildred Harnack at Friedhof Zehlendorf cemetery at 33 Onkel-Tom-Straße, Berlin-Zehlendorf

• Beier, Gerhard (1984). Arbeiterbewegung in Hessen : zur Geschichte der hessischen Arbeiterbewegung durch einhundertfünfzig Jahre (1834-1984). Die Hessen-Bibliothek (in German) (1st ed.). Frankfurt am Main: Insel. p. 438. ISBN 9783458142133. OCLC 1070118387.
• Brysac, Shareen Blair (2003). Mildred Harnack und die Rote Kapelle : die Geschichte einer ungewöhnlichen Frau und einer Widerstandsbewegung (in German) (1st ed.). Bern: Scherz. ISBN 9783502180906. OCLC 884470848.
• Dodd, Martha (2005). Meine Jahre in Deutschland 1933 - 1937 nice to meet you, Mr. Hitler! (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. ISBN 9783821807621.
• Lenz, Friedrich (1948). Wirtschaftsplanung. Der Deutschenspiegel, 34/35 (in German). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verl.-Anst. OCLC 250536049.
• Kuckhoff, Greta (1986). Vom Rosenkranz zur Roten Kapelle e. Lebensbericht (in German) (7th ed.). Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben. OCLC 74777195.
• Roloff, Stefan; Vigl, Mario (2004). Die Rote Kapelle : die Widerstandsgruppe im Dritten Reich und die Geschichte Helmut Roloffs [The Red Orchestra: the resistance group in the Third Reich and the history of Helmut Roloff] (in German) (1st ed.). Berlin: Ullstein Verlag. ISBN 3-548-36669-4. OCLC 1100264932.
• Rosiejka, Gert (1985). Die Rote Kapelle : "Landesverrat" als antifaschist. Widerstand [The Red Orchestra: "treason" as anti-fascist. resistance] (in German) (1. Aufl ed.). Hamburg: Ergebnisse-Verl. ISBN 978-3-925622-16-8.
• Scheel, Heinrich (1994). "Die Rote Kapelle – Widerstand, Verfolgung, Haft". In Coppi, Hans Jr; Danyel, Jürgen; Tuchel, Johannes (eds.). Die Rote Kapelle im Widerstand gegen Hitler. Berlin: Rütten & Loenig. ISBN 3-89468-110-1.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arvid Harnack.

• Arvid Harnack in the German National Library catalogue
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