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All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
The untold story of Mildred Harnack, an American woman who was the leader of the largest anti-Nazi resistance group in Germany, a role she was later executed for.
Mildred Harnack was a leader of the largest anti-Nazi resistance group in Germany. That she was a woman distinguished her from many of her contemporaries in the male-dominated leadership of the German Resistance. That she was an American was even more notable. Born and raised in Milwaukee, she risked her life to fight a murderous dictator on foreign soil, a feat of enduring historical significance. Contemporary historians identify her as the only American in the German Resistance, yet she remains almost entirely unknown.
Mildred was twenty-six when she moved to Berlin and witnessed first-hand the horrors of Hitler's ascendancy. For nearly a decade---from 1933 until 1942---she devoted herself to defeating him. She wrote and distributed leaflets exposing Nazi atrocities to incite civil disobedience, helped Jews and political dissidents escape Germany, and delivered top-secret military intelligence about the Nazi regime to the Allies.
Based on years of original research and exclusive interviews with those who knew Mildred personally, Rebecca Donner, Mildred's great-great niece, at last tells Mildred's remarkable and heroic story.
Mildred Harnack was a leader of the largest anti-Nazi resistance group in Germany. That she was a woman distinguished her from many of her contemporaries in the male-dominated leadership of the German Resistance. That she was an American was even more notable. Born and raised in Milwaukee, she risked her life to fight a murderous dictator on foreign soil, a feat of enduring historical significance. Contemporary historians identify her as the only American in the German Resistance, yet she remains almost entirely unknown.
Mildred was twenty-six when she moved to Berlin and witnessed first-hand the horrors of Hitler's ascendancy. For nearly a decade---from 1933 until 1942---she devoted herself to defeating him. She wrote and distributed leaflets exposing Nazi atrocities to incite civil disobedience, helped Jews and political dissidents escape Germany, and delivered top-secret military intelligence about the Nazi regime to the Allies.
Based on years of original research and exclusive interviews with those who knew Mildred personally, Rebecca Donner, Mildred's great-great niece, at last tells Mildred's remarkable and heroic story.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2021
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14753 people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Donner
7 books99 followersI was born in Canada and during childhood lived in a number of different places — Japan, Michigan, Virginia, and California. My love of books has remained the one constant in my life.
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is my third book, a fusion of biography, WWII espionage thriller, and scholarly detective story. I interweave letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, survivors’ testimony, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into an epic story about an American woman who was a leader in Berlin's underground resistance to Hitler.
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is my third book, a fusion of biography, WWII espionage thriller, and scholarly detective story. I interweave letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, survivors’ testimony, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into an epic story about an American woman who was a leader in Berlin's underground resistance to Hitler.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 806 reviews
November 2, 2021
A tale of a woman who had courage to resist the evil while living surrounded by it.
Mildred Harnack was an ordinary American girl whose fate brought her to Germany and who, after realising what the Nazi regime stood for, found strength to oppose it.
The book, being non-fiction, was a page-turner for me and I can only admire Mildred for what she did despite having an opportunity to escape the regime and lead a relatively safe and comfortable life in the USA.
OverDrive, thank you!
Mildred Harnack was an ordinary American girl whose fate brought her to Germany and who, after realising what the Nazi regime stood for, found strength to oppose it.
The book, being non-fiction, was a page-turner for me and I can only admire Mildred for what she did despite having an opportunity to escape the regime and lead a relatively safe and comfortable life in the USA.
OverDrive, thank you!
July 31, 2021
I am devastated. I am enlightened. I am in awe.
Rebecca Donner has taken a buried life and resurrected it in a narrative nonfiction that grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. Do
Donner is the great-great niece of her subject, Mildred Harnack, an American who traveled to Berlin to study and teach. At University of Wisconsin she fell in love with a fellow student, the German Arvid. They moved to Berlin during a time of great freedom. Mildred runs the English club where the talk is all political.
“Life is good,” Mildred writes. But it is January, 1933 and Hitler’s rise to power is just beginning.
Mildred’s passion was for equality and justice for the common man. The American Literature she taught to German Students books that shared her values. As the Nazis rose to power, Mildred and Arvid became a part of the Resistance. Arvid masqueraded as a loyal Nazi government worker, slipping confidential information into the Soviet Union. Mildred’s club became a salon for the resistance.
They were outed by an inexperienced pianist who used their real names instead of code names. The entire Circle was arrested, tortured, imprisoned, and after a kangaroo court trial, beheaded. Because they had been in communication with the Soviets, the United States had little interest in Mildred’s fate, and what information was made public was slanted and incorrect.
Mildred was an amazing woman, strong in her convictions, even when starving, even in solitary confinement and battling TB, up to her last moments which were spend translating Goethe into English with a pencil stub while shackled in a cold cell.
Donner sets Mildred’s story against the rise of Hitler. Those in power thought he was a fool, a crackpot who could be controlled. But Hitler systematically dismantled every check and balance in government, told grand lies to rally the people, affirming his desire for peace while planning for war. It is a terrifying look at history and a warning of how easily one person can topple a government.
I knew that Neville Chamberlain was fooled by Hitler. I had not known that Stalin was also duped, signing a non-aggression pact with Germany while Hitler built up his war machine to attack the Soviet Union.
Famous people appear in the story. There is Arvid’s cousin Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor famous for his involvement in the plot to kill Hitler. He was arrested because of his relationship to Arvid. Mildred was friends with the American Ambassador to Berlin’s daughter, Martha Dodd. Martha fell in love with men easily, even Nazis and Soviet spies. She had a relationship with Thomas Wolfe when he returned to Germany to spend the profits from his books that had sold so well there. The Nazi forbade money to leave the country! And, Mildred was a big fan. Later, Wolfe wrote “I Have a Thing To Tell You,” speaking of the changes he had seen in Germany, writing, “What George began to see was a picture of a great people who had been psychically wounded and were now desperately ill with some dread malady of the soul. Here was an entire nation, he now realized, that was infested with the contagion of an ever-present fear.”
Donner’s book is a stand-out not just for Mildred’s powerful story, but also for the scholarship and research that supports it, and for being a mesmerizing tale that is as emotionally impactful as a novel while making history understandable and relevant.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Rebecca Donner has taken a buried life and resurrected it in a narrative nonfiction that grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. Do
Donner is the great-great niece of her subject, Mildred Harnack, an American who traveled to Berlin to study and teach. At University of Wisconsin she fell in love with a fellow student, the German Arvid. They moved to Berlin during a time of great freedom. Mildred runs the English club where the talk is all political.
“Life is good,” Mildred writes. But it is January, 1933 and Hitler’s rise to power is just beginning.
Mildred’s passion was for equality and justice for the common man. The American Literature she taught to German Students books that shared her values. As the Nazis rose to power, Mildred and Arvid became a part of the Resistance. Arvid masqueraded as a loyal Nazi government worker, slipping confidential information into the Soviet Union. Mildred’s club became a salon for the resistance.
They were outed by an inexperienced pianist who used their real names instead of code names. The entire Circle was arrested, tortured, imprisoned, and after a kangaroo court trial, beheaded. Because they had been in communication with the Soviets, the United States had little interest in Mildred’s fate, and what information was made public was slanted and incorrect.
Mildred was an amazing woman, strong in her convictions, even when starving, even in solitary confinement and battling TB, up to her last moments which were spend translating Goethe into English with a pencil stub while shackled in a cold cell.
Donner sets Mildred’s story against the rise of Hitler. Those in power thought he was a fool, a crackpot who could be controlled. But Hitler systematically dismantled every check and balance in government, told grand lies to rally the people, affirming his desire for peace while planning for war. It is a terrifying look at history and a warning of how easily one person can topple a government.
I knew that Neville Chamberlain was fooled by Hitler. I had not known that Stalin was also duped, signing a non-aggression pact with Germany while Hitler built up his war machine to attack the Soviet Union.
Famous people appear in the story. There is Arvid’s cousin Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor famous for his involvement in the plot to kill Hitler. He was arrested because of his relationship to Arvid. Mildred was friends with the American Ambassador to Berlin’s daughter, Martha Dodd. Martha fell in love with men easily, even Nazis and Soviet spies. She had a relationship with Thomas Wolfe when he returned to Germany to spend the profits from his books that had sold so well there. The Nazi forbade money to leave the country! And, Mildred was a big fan. Later, Wolfe wrote “I Have a Thing To Tell You,” speaking of the changes he had seen in Germany, writing, “What George began to see was a picture of a great people who had been psychically wounded and were now desperately ill with some dread malady of the soul. Here was an entire nation, he now realized, that was infested with the contagion of an ever-present fear.”
Donner’s book is a stand-out not just for Mildred’s powerful story, but also for the scholarship and research that supports it, and for being a mesmerizing tale that is as emotionally impactful as a novel while making history understandable and relevant.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
March 19, 2022
In 1932, Mildred Harnack was an American graduate student in Berlin. She also taught American literature. Her husband Arvid was a German who eventually held an important position in the German government. But the couple had other lives. They were appalled by Hitler’s rise and they became active in the resistance movement - helping people escape from Germany, spying, creating leaflets to counter the Nazis. In 1942, they were arrested, tried for treason and executed. Their story was fascinating, but the author used it to tell the larger story of how Germany fell under the grip of fascism. One law lead to another and another until no freedom was left for anyone other than members of the Nazi party.
This book describes devastating events in a very intimate way because the political and military maneuvering was often described in the words (taken from diaries and letters) of the people who were actually experiencing those events. The resistance fighters had amazing courage. If they talked to the wrong person at any time, their lives could be over. When they tried to warn people about Hitler (as Arvid did on a trip to America) their concerns were dismissed. The parts of the book covering the imprisonment, executions and life in the work camps were very impactful. I thought this book was excellent and the author did a very good job narrating the audiobook.
This book describes devastating events in a very intimate way because the political and military maneuvering was often described in the words (taken from diaries and letters) of the people who were actually experiencing those events. The resistance fighters had amazing courage. If they talked to the wrong person at any time, their lives could be over. When they tried to warn people about Hitler (as Arvid did on a trip to America) their concerns were dismissed. The parts of the book covering the imprisonment, executions and life in the work camps were very impactful. I thought this book was excellent and the author did a very good job narrating the audiobook.
June 4, 2025
4,5⭐️.
Una muy buena reconstrucción, de las que te dejan con el corazón encogido más si pensamos en los paralelismos con la época actual.
Mis impresiones.
Nos dice la autora en su nota final que, ante los muchos alemanes que apoyaron a Hitler, nos olvidamos de que hubo otro grupo que se opuso a él. Esta novela habla de ellos, de los círculos de oposición, que nunca recibieron ayuda aliada y del alto precio que pagaron por intentar derrocar a Hitler. Mildred Harnack, nacida Mildred Fish, estadounidense, casada con un alemán y residente en Berlín fue una de ellos.
Rebecca Donner, nos cuenta la historia a dos bandas. Una, cronológicamente lineal, abarca desde el nacimiento de su antepasada, Mildred Harnack, en 1902 en Wisconsin hasta su ejecución en Alemania en 1943. Entremedias, capítulos dedicados a “El Chico” en 1938/39, un niño estadounidense hijo de diplomático que actuó de correo para el grupo de Mildred.
La ambientación, muy centrada en el Berlín del antes y primeros años de la guerra es de sobresaliente. La reconstrucción de la autora a partir de documentos gráficos, bibliografía y testimonios es magnífica. El libro, que se mueve casi a ritmo de thriller, pone de manifiesto aspectos de la vida de los berlineses durante aquellos años no muy conocidos, así como la tremenda represión interna de la que fueron víctimas los que por uno u otro motivo se opusieron al régimen. Opositores alemanes doblemente victimados al ser los grandes olvidados y más aún si fueron mujeres.
La recreación de los personajes igualmente buena. Personas reales inmersas en una situación imposible, que no tuvieron miedo a posicionarse y actuar. De todos ellos Mildred me ha resultado a la vez cercana y lejana, quizá porque no es un libro centrado únicamente en su biografía sino que la trasciende y refleja una época. La parte relativa a Don, el chico, se me ha quedado un poco corta.
El desenlace el conocido. No es este un libro especialmente truculento, que se regodee en describir las torturas nazis, pero la sensación de miedo, opresión y asfixia están presentes todo el tiempo. La suspensión de los derechos civiles, la arbitrariedad de las detenciones, el trato a los detenidos, los juicios y las ejecuciones, aunque no se detallen en exceso dejan el peor de los sabores de boca.
En conclusión. Un libro riguroso y bien documentado que, con el telón de fondo de la biografía de Mildred Harnack, testimonia lo que fue la vida en la Alemania nazi y los movimientos de oposición al régimen. Recomendable.
Una muy buena reconstrucción, de las que te dejan con el corazón encogido más si pensamos en los paralelismos con la época actual.
Mis impresiones.
Nos dice la autora en su nota final que, ante los muchos alemanes que apoyaron a Hitler, nos olvidamos de que hubo otro grupo que se opuso a él. Esta novela habla de ellos, de los círculos de oposición, que nunca recibieron ayuda aliada y del alto precio que pagaron por intentar derrocar a Hitler. Mildred Harnack, nacida Mildred Fish, estadounidense, casada con un alemán y residente en Berlín fue una de ellos.
Rebecca Donner, nos cuenta la historia a dos bandas. Una, cronológicamente lineal, abarca desde el nacimiento de su antepasada, Mildred Harnack, en 1902 en Wisconsin hasta su ejecución en Alemania en 1943. Entremedias, capítulos dedicados a “El Chico” en 1938/39, un niño estadounidense hijo de diplomático que actuó de correo para el grupo de Mildred.
La ambientación, muy centrada en el Berlín del antes y primeros años de la guerra es de sobresaliente. La reconstrucción de la autora a partir de documentos gráficos, bibliografía y testimonios es magnífica. El libro, que se mueve casi a ritmo de thriller, pone de manifiesto aspectos de la vida de los berlineses durante aquellos años no muy conocidos, así como la tremenda represión interna de la que fueron víctimas los que por uno u otro motivo se opusieron al régimen. Opositores alemanes doblemente victimados al ser los grandes olvidados y más aún si fueron mujeres.
La recreación de los personajes igualmente buena. Personas reales inmersas en una situación imposible, que no tuvieron miedo a posicionarse y actuar. De todos ellos Mildred me ha resultado a la vez cercana y lejana, quizá porque no es un libro centrado únicamente en su biografía sino que la trasciende y refleja una época. La parte relativa a Don, el chico, se me ha quedado un poco corta.
El desenlace el conocido. No es este un libro especialmente truculento, que se regodee en describir las torturas nazis, pero la sensación de miedo, opresión y asfixia están presentes todo el tiempo. La suspensión de los derechos civiles, la arbitrariedad de las detenciones, el trato a los detenidos, los juicios y las ejecuciones, aunque no se detallen en exceso dejan el peor de los sabores de boca.
En conclusión. Un libro riguroso y bien documentado que, con el telón de fondo de la biografía de Mildred Harnack, testimonia lo que fue la vida en la Alemania nazi y los movimientos de oposición al régimen. Recomendable.
January 26, 2022
This is the most thorough biography I've encountered of Mildred Harnack, the only American executed in Germany for resistance activities against the Nazi regime. And it is no surprise when you learn that the author, Rebecca Donner, is Mildred's great-grandniece if I've understood the relation correctly, which made it possible for her to have important primary sources that other historians didn't, such as Mildred's letters that the author's grandmother gave her, as well as much more material that's private property of family and friends of Mildred's, and an interview with the still living person who at the time was Mildred's courier, Donald Heath Jr. That's really impressive firsthand sources, and accounts for the myriad details about the Harnacks that were unknown until now.
The image that emerges is that of a conscientious and very politically involved woman, with strong opinions about political and social issues, and different from prior images of her that showed her as someone passing information to the Soviets merely because the Nazis were worse. She was politically left-leaning, and sympathised with socialism, and very involved with working-class groups. She didn't simply make a "lesser evil" choice, as this book demonstrates. Her literary lectures prioritised writers that addressed pressing social problems and injustices instead of just abstract literary analysis, and that was the reason she ended up losing her professorship at a German university when Hitler gained power. Mildred Harnack wasn't merely reacting to the rise of Nazism, she was following her convictions from before she came to Germany from a working class family and liberal-leaning educational background.
Her story, fascinating as it is, suffers from the presentation and layout Donner chose to tell it. Many others are also mentioned that were part of or linked in some way to the Circle, the loosely-linked resistance collective that the Gestapo named Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra, because they thought they were all "reds" (communists/socialists) spying for the Soviets, which is only part of the truth because not everyone shared that ideology and it wasn't a tightly-knit ring. And this name-dropping becomes tiresome, because Donner often just drops a short paragraph with names. To me personally, that's not a problem as I already knew those names, but for someone not acquainted with the history of the German Resistance, this might be confusing and unreadable. The short vignette style gives the book the appearance of a just-barely-organised collection of notes put together more or less chronologically. Almost like the short notes written on scraps of paper that are inserted within chapters, that come from Mildred, Arvid, and other resisters. Essentially, a collage of scraps and snippets.
Sometimes, these snippets end abruptly or are worded in a way that leaves the reader wondering. For example, when telling about Mildred going to Britain to get an abortion because she didn't want to have children in such difficult times, the author writes the short vignette in such a way that it leaves you wondering if Mildred hid her intent to abort from her husband, because the writing indicates that she did. But later, she miscarries a second pregnancy and there's no explanation as to what happened, just mentions of her sorrow, but even later, it's said she had an ectopic pregnancy without clarifying which one it was. Did she have the intervention in Britain to deal with the ectopic pregnancy? Or was her miscarriage a natural result of ectopic pregnancy/she got another intervention to fix it? Why frame it as if a married woman is hiding her abortion from her husband?
Of course, the above being her personal life, it doesn't impact the history of the resistance group she was a part of, but I'm putting it up as an example of how confusing Rebecca Donner's vignettes in disarray storytelling style can be, and to exemplify how it takes away a lot from this so very well-researched book.
The tone of the book is sympathetic to the plight of the German lower classes, especially the combative factory workers, labour unionists, and working class students, that did put up quite the fight when Hitler began his ascendancy, and who paid for that opposition dearly. Many of the members of the Harnacks' Circle were from this extraction, and loyally carried out their part in the lower rungs of the ladder. But the image of some from the upper class and more affluent ones isn't that good, with exceptions like the Bonhoeffer family. That airhead Martha Dodd is especially infuriating, but there's also the case of the aristocratic Libertas Schulze-Boysen, whom some have lionised in historical novels but that here doesn't look quite the same. You'll have to read this to find out the reason.
All in all, it's an engrossing book that revealed many little details that will be new to WWII history buffs, but that deserved a better presentation of the facts.
The image that emerges is that of a conscientious and very politically involved woman, with strong opinions about political and social issues, and different from prior images of her that showed her as someone passing information to the Soviets merely because the Nazis were worse. She was politically left-leaning, and sympathised with socialism, and very involved with working-class groups. She didn't simply make a "lesser evil" choice, as this book demonstrates. Her literary lectures prioritised writers that addressed pressing social problems and injustices instead of just abstract literary analysis, and that was the reason she ended up losing her professorship at a German university when Hitler gained power. Mildred Harnack wasn't merely reacting to the rise of Nazism, she was following her convictions from before she came to Germany from a working class family and liberal-leaning educational background.
Her story, fascinating as it is, suffers from the presentation and layout Donner chose to tell it. Many others are also mentioned that were part of or linked in some way to the Circle, the loosely-linked resistance collective that the Gestapo named Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra, because they thought they were all "reds" (communists/socialists) spying for the Soviets, which is only part of the truth because not everyone shared that ideology and it wasn't a tightly-knit ring. And this name-dropping becomes tiresome, because Donner often just drops a short paragraph with names. To me personally, that's not a problem as I already knew those names, but for someone not acquainted with the history of the German Resistance, this might be confusing and unreadable. The short vignette style gives the book the appearance of a just-barely-organised collection of notes put together more or less chronologically. Almost like the short notes written on scraps of paper that are inserted within chapters, that come from Mildred, Arvid, and other resisters. Essentially, a collage of scraps and snippets.
Sometimes, these snippets end abruptly or are worded in a way that leaves the reader wondering. For example, when telling about Mildred going to Britain to get an abortion because she didn't want to have children in such difficult times, the author writes the short vignette in such a way that it leaves you wondering if Mildred hid her intent to abort from her husband, because the writing indicates that she did. But later, she miscarries a second pregnancy and there's no explanation as to what happened, just mentions of her sorrow, but even later, it's said she had an ectopic pregnancy without clarifying which one it was. Did she have the intervention in Britain to deal with the ectopic pregnancy? Or was her miscarriage a natural result of ectopic pregnancy/she got another intervention to fix it? Why frame it as if a married woman is hiding her abortion from her husband?
Of course, the above being her personal life, it doesn't impact the history of the resistance group she was a part of, but I'm putting it up as an example of how confusing Rebecca Donner's vignettes in disarray storytelling style can be, and to exemplify how it takes away a lot from this so very well-researched book.
The tone of the book is sympathetic to the plight of the German lower classes, especially the combative factory workers, labour unionists, and working class students, that did put up quite the fight when Hitler began his ascendancy, and who paid for that opposition dearly. Many of the members of the Harnacks' Circle were from this extraction, and loyally carried out their part in the lower rungs of the ladder. But the image of some from the upper class and more affluent ones isn't that good, with exceptions like the Bonhoeffer family. That airhead Martha Dodd is especially infuriating, but there's also the case of the aristocratic Libertas Schulze-Boysen, whom some have lionised in historical novels but that here doesn't look quite the same. You'll have to read this to find out the reason.
All in all, it's an engrossing book that revealed many little details that will be new to WWII history buffs, but that deserved a better presentation of the facts.
September 10, 2021
I truly wanted to love this book, but the presentation was a bit dry and jumped around a lot. The story was fascinating, but I would have liked a bit more depth to the true characters I was reading about.
December 20, 2021
Through this biography of Mildred Harnack, an American living in Germany, you see how daily life changed as the Weimar Republic became a Nazi dictatorship. It happened quickly; soon, those not greeting neighbors with “Heil Hitler” could face consequences. Jews, other minorities, and any opponents of Hitler were fired, boycotted and/or removed from their homes.
Mildred and her husband Arvid, began with book discussion groups which, as time went on, became part of a “circle” of resistance. Many in their group, or tangential groups had, like Arvid (who was placed high in the Ministry of Economics), access to significant information.
Mildred was central to the “circle” of contacts who published and distributed leaflets, listened to forbidden radio programs and assisted Jews. You see Mildred and Arvid becoming aware that they were bugged and being followed. There are short chapters summarizing events followed by their effect on members of the resistance. Some of these events are:
• 1932 Hitler’s election
• 1933; Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor followed by his string of diplomatic and military successes and the Reichstag Fire
• 1934 the Night of Long Knives
• 1938: Kristalnacht
• 1941 Germany invades Russia
• 1943 Russia invades Germany
When Hitler and Stalin team up, the resistance added a new level of work: warning Stalin of Hitler’s plan to invade Russia. Boy curriers with backpacks, messages hidden in books, whispered code words, etc. were replaced by Russian supplied encryption technology. This bulky equipment had be hidden, it needed repairs and careful data entering. In the end, encryption is what exposed Mildred and Arvid.
Through the many “circles” and small kindnesses received, you can conclude that resistance was widespread. Its secrets had to be kept since the very lives of the resisters were at stake. For 10 years they successfully hid their work from not just the Nazis, and unfortunately it was invisible to the west as well. Anthony Eden, famous for not foreseeing the Polish invasion, with similar assurance (despite 2 assassination attempts and his having his own a spy network, that the US did not) said there was no resistance in Germany.
The end, with Mildred’s incarceration, trial, and execution, was so horrible I could not sleep the night I read it.
I was not surprised to see that Mildred’s apprehender and prosecutor were taken in by the Allies. By dismissing her and the opposition as communists and he and many others were brought in to the western spy apparatus. I presume this made the lives of the resisters who remained alive in Germany more difficult after the war.
The book is written by the grand-grand niece of Mildred Harnack. It is enriched by her interviews with family and friends, along with descriptions of entertainment and social life of the increasingly stressful times,to give a more complete the portrait of Mildred. I like the short chapter layout. The index was very good and the photos added to understanding.
I understand the reason for the title (from Mildred's translation of a poem by Goethe) but it does not do this work justice.
Highly recommended for those interested in Germany and/or WWII.
Mildred and her husband Arvid, began with book discussion groups which, as time went on, became part of a “circle” of resistance. Many in their group, or tangential groups had, like Arvid (who was placed high in the Ministry of Economics), access to significant information.
Mildred was central to the “circle” of contacts who published and distributed leaflets, listened to forbidden radio programs and assisted Jews. You see Mildred and Arvid becoming aware that they were bugged and being followed. There are short chapters summarizing events followed by their effect on members of the resistance. Some of these events are:
• 1932 Hitler’s election
• 1933; Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor followed by his string of diplomatic and military successes and the Reichstag Fire
• 1934 the Night of Long Knives
• 1938: Kristalnacht
• 1941 Germany invades Russia
• 1943 Russia invades Germany
When Hitler and Stalin team up, the resistance added a new level of work: warning Stalin of Hitler’s plan to invade Russia. Boy curriers with backpacks, messages hidden in books, whispered code words, etc. were replaced by Russian supplied encryption technology. This bulky equipment had be hidden, it needed repairs and careful data entering. In the end, encryption is what exposed Mildred and Arvid.
Through the many “circles” and small kindnesses received, you can conclude that resistance was widespread. Its secrets had to be kept since the very lives of the resisters were at stake. For 10 years they successfully hid their work from not just the Nazis, and unfortunately it was invisible to the west as well. Anthony Eden, famous for not foreseeing the Polish invasion, with similar assurance (despite 2 assassination attempts and his having his own a spy network, that the US did not) said there was no resistance in Germany.
The end, with Mildred’s incarceration, trial, and execution, was so horrible I could not sleep the night I read it.
I was not surprised to see that Mildred’s apprehender and prosecutor were taken in by the Allies. By dismissing her and the opposition as communists and he and many others were brought in to the western spy apparatus. I presume this made the lives of the resisters who remained alive in Germany more difficult after the war.
The book is written by the grand-grand niece of Mildred Harnack. It is enriched by her interviews with family and friends, along with descriptions of entertainment and social life of the increasingly stressful times,to give a more complete the portrait of Mildred. I like the short chapter layout. The index was very good and the photos added to understanding.
I understand the reason for the title (from Mildred's translation of a poem by Goethe) but it does not do this work justice.
Highly recommended for those interested in Germany and/or WWII.
October 11, 2021
This is a very compelling story of a truly remarkable woman. My rating does not reflect my opinion of her life, bravery, and truly selfless acts.
I found the writing style of this biography to be exceedingly off putting. It was difficult to engage with the book and took over 100 pages for me to finally be drawn into the story. Although this was obviously well researched, and I did learn new things about what was happening in Germany at the time and how Hitler was able to so quickly become a dictator, I feel like a better editorial staff could have pulled the narrative of Mildred's life together in an equally accurate, more engaging way. I also found some of the details to be unnecessary and that they only bogged down the momentum of the book.
I found the writing style of this biography to be exceedingly off putting. It was difficult to engage with the book and took over 100 pages for me to finally be drawn into the story. Although this was obviously well researched, and I did learn new things about what was happening in Germany at the time and how Hitler was able to so quickly become a dictator, I feel like a better editorial staff could have pulled the narrative of Mildred's life together in an equally accurate, more engaging way. I also found some of the details to be unnecessary and that they only bogged down the momentum of the book.
January 1, 2022
This book was so well researched and I loved learning this new (to me) piece of ww2 history. I appreciated the story of the German resistance because often we don’t hear of it and are led to believe all Germans were either Nazis or in concentration camps. Most of the writing read very smoothly though, the book got tedious at parts but I liked it overall.
August 4, 2021
The author is the great-great-niece of Mildred Harnack, an American woman who, along with her German husband. worked for the Resistance in Nazi Germany. This book highlights a group I hadn't read much about--progressive people living in Germany who are appalled by what Hitler and his cronies are doing, and do all that they can to undermine it. Mildred's husband Arvid even worked for the Reich and joined the Nazi party. Things didn't end well for these brave people; some were even betrayed by former friends and, not surprisingly, there are some very disturbing parts in the book. It reads like a novel, and reminded me of the style found in Erik Larsen's nonfiction. If you are interested in WWII history, this extensively-researched book is a must-read. Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.
September 13, 2021
Powerful, moving, and successful by whatever measure you choose. The book purports to be the story of an American woman in Nazi Germany. It is that, but Mildred Harnack (the woman to whom the sub-title alludes) is absent from the pages of the book more than she is present. That is most definitely not a flaw: Large chunks of information about her has been lost to history, some of it deliberately discarded in anger. But Donner, who is related to Harnack, does a masterful job of weaving what is known into a rich, revealing, and surprisingly suspenseful picture of life in Nazi Germany.
"All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days" (the title comes from a poem by Goethe) reads like a novel. A quite creative novel, in fact. Mildred Harnack's story is told in the present tense which has (at least to me it did) the effect of making the events being described more vivid. Donner artfully mixes short chapters with somewhat longer ones, close-ups involving Mildred and her husband/co-conspirator Arvid with scenes that step back and take in the broader milieu. This choice may have been a result of necessity, given the lack of available information on Mili, but Donner definitely makes a virtue of this necessity. We move from seamlessly family mattes and pregnancies to secret meetings, sinister block wardens, Soviet spies, we become acutely aware of what is going on around the characters -- in the streets, the building down the block, the towns and villages. ("Mildred sees swastikas on cigarette packages, coffee cans, cake pans. Every day, Nazi propaganda disseminates misinformation and false promises. Every day, Hitler wins more German hearts and minds.") We see the skies darken, the threats growing larger and larger.
We meet a lot of heroes -- some of whom we've seen before (Dietrich Bonhoffer, for example), and many more whom we have not. They are ordinary people, many of them quite young, some more cautious than others. I was struck by the incredible bravery of the people who resisted the Nazi regime; the extraordinary effort it took to resist, not only in terms of the risk involved but also because the most quotidian supplies were hard to find; the shockingly arrogant blindness of leaders in the US, England, and Russia to what Hitler was planning, no matter how many times they were warned (Ambassador Wilson believes that the American press is “Jewish controlled” and praises Hitler as “the man who has pulled his people from moral and economic despair.”; the inhuman cruelty of Nazi officials and apparatchiks, which never ceases to shock and astonish; the complicated nature of Mildred's relationship with her family who can't understand why she would go back to Germany ( [Mildred is] “slightly off.” Harriette [her mother] is studying her too. The odd rigidity, the severity in her facial expressions—it all adds up: Nazi. Harriette hasn’t the slightest idea how to handle the situation, and her husband isn’t much help. Fred keeps telling Mili, in the stern voice he reserves for disciplining their children, Don’t go back to Germany. Stay with us.). And so much more.
Some examples of how well Donner captures the reality on the ground with the kind of details that conventional history books overlook and that express so much:
Stores no longer sell shaving cream, razors, or cigars. Toilet paper is no longer white—it’s brown, and is called “unity paper.” Louise Heath shares her husband’s disdain for it; she doesn’t know how a whole family can survive on “one roll of toilet paper (more like sandpaper) for our family every 10 days.” Soap has a new name too, “unity soap.” Families are allowed a single bar a month, which “was supposed to suffice for face washing, dish washing, bathing and all laundering.” Groceries are also strictly rationed. One-pot Sundays are instituted. German women are instructed to fill a pot with old vegetables and meat scraps for the Sunday meal and calculate how much money they save. When a Nazi Party worker bangs on their doors, they must deposit this money in a can [or else]... Meanwhile, some stores in Berlin display pyramids of canned goods that are not for sale, intended to present the illusion “that there were unlimited supplies in the Reich.”
And this: The voluminous archives at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library don’t tell us that in the summer of 1939, Donald Heath informed Chargé d’Affaires Kirk that he had received intelligence indicating that “Nazi military aggression would shortly occur,” or that Kirk gave him a “pitying” look and said, “My dear Don, even somebody as stupid as myself… knows there’s not going to be any war.” There is an extraordinary moment early in the book where American Consul General George Messersmith says to a colleague in the Roosevelt White House, "With few exceptions, the men who are running the government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopathic cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment somewhere."
[In truth, the reader put down the book entirely convinced that most of the people in Hitler's government were psychopaths.]
Even so prestigious an observer as The New York Times was willfully blind, reminding its readers that Hitler was “ 'twice rejected last year' for the position he now occupies. 'The composition of the cabinet leaves Herr Hitler no scope for gratification of any dictatorial ambition.' "
I'm not saying much about Mildred herself in this review;that's by design. I don't want to do anything that might deprive readers of the experience of witnessing her evolution from an idealistic graduate student teaching American literature and language to unemployed German workers to a brave resister in the underground war against Hitler's government. We don't get all the details about her thoughts that we would like, and there is much about her that we cannot know or understand. That notwithstanding, "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days" deserves all the attention it's been getting. The words used by reviewers -- "compelling," "gripping," "evocative," "revelatory," "intimate" -- are all well deserved. It's the kind of history book/biography that readers who typically stick with fiction will enjoy. Maybe "enjoy" isn't the best word, given the subject matter, but you know what I mean. I got the digital book from the library. Now I have to decide whether to buy a hard copy for myself so I can share it with my wife and daughter.
"All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days" (the title comes from a poem by Goethe) reads like a novel. A quite creative novel, in fact. Mildred Harnack's story is told in the present tense which has (at least to me it did) the effect of making the events being described more vivid. Donner artfully mixes short chapters with somewhat longer ones, close-ups involving Mildred and her husband/co-conspirator Arvid with scenes that step back and take in the broader milieu. This choice may have been a result of necessity, given the lack of available information on Mili, but Donner definitely makes a virtue of this necessity. We move from seamlessly family mattes and pregnancies to secret meetings, sinister block wardens, Soviet spies, we become acutely aware of what is going on around the characters -- in the streets, the building down the block, the towns and villages. ("Mildred sees swastikas on cigarette packages, coffee cans, cake pans. Every day, Nazi propaganda disseminates misinformation and false promises. Every day, Hitler wins more German hearts and minds.") We see the skies darken, the threats growing larger and larger.
We meet a lot of heroes -- some of whom we've seen before (Dietrich Bonhoffer, for example), and many more whom we have not. They are ordinary people, many of them quite young, some more cautious than others. I was struck by the incredible bravery of the people who resisted the Nazi regime; the extraordinary effort it took to resist, not only in terms of the risk involved but also because the most quotidian supplies were hard to find; the shockingly arrogant blindness of leaders in the US, England, and Russia to what Hitler was planning, no matter how many times they were warned (Ambassador Wilson believes that the American press is “Jewish controlled” and praises Hitler as “the man who has pulled his people from moral and economic despair.”; the inhuman cruelty of Nazi officials and apparatchiks, which never ceases to shock and astonish; the complicated nature of Mildred's relationship with her family who can't understand why she would go back to Germany ( [Mildred is] “slightly off.” Harriette [her mother] is studying her too. The odd rigidity, the severity in her facial expressions—it all adds up: Nazi. Harriette hasn’t the slightest idea how to handle the situation, and her husband isn’t much help. Fred keeps telling Mili, in the stern voice he reserves for disciplining their children, Don’t go back to Germany. Stay with us.). And so much more.
Some examples of how well Donner captures the reality on the ground with the kind of details that conventional history books overlook and that express so much:
Stores no longer sell shaving cream, razors, or cigars. Toilet paper is no longer white—it’s brown, and is called “unity paper.” Louise Heath shares her husband’s disdain for it; she doesn’t know how a whole family can survive on “one roll of toilet paper (more like sandpaper) for our family every 10 days.” Soap has a new name too, “unity soap.” Families are allowed a single bar a month, which “was supposed to suffice for face washing, dish washing, bathing and all laundering.” Groceries are also strictly rationed. One-pot Sundays are instituted. German women are instructed to fill a pot with old vegetables and meat scraps for the Sunday meal and calculate how much money they save. When a Nazi Party worker bangs on their doors, they must deposit this money in a can [or else]... Meanwhile, some stores in Berlin display pyramids of canned goods that are not for sale, intended to present the illusion “that there were unlimited supplies in the Reich.”
And this: The voluminous archives at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library don’t tell us that in the summer of 1939, Donald Heath informed Chargé d’Affaires Kirk that he had received intelligence indicating that “Nazi military aggression would shortly occur,” or that Kirk gave him a “pitying” look and said, “My dear Don, even somebody as stupid as myself… knows there’s not going to be any war.” There is an extraordinary moment early in the book where American Consul General George Messersmith says to a colleague in the Roosevelt White House, "With few exceptions, the men who are running the government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopathic cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment somewhere."
[In truth, the reader put down the book entirely convinced that most of the people in Hitler's government were psychopaths.]
Even so prestigious an observer as The New York Times was willfully blind, reminding its readers that Hitler was “ 'twice rejected last year' for the position he now occupies. 'The composition of the cabinet leaves Herr Hitler no scope for gratification of any dictatorial ambition.' "
I'm not saying much about Mildred herself in this review;that's by design. I don't want to do anything that might deprive readers of the experience of witnessing her evolution from an idealistic graduate student teaching American literature and language to unemployed German workers to a brave resister in the underground war against Hitler's government. We don't get all the details about her thoughts that we would like, and there is much about her that we cannot know or understand. That notwithstanding, "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days" deserves all the attention it's been getting. The words used by reviewers -- "compelling," "gripping," "evocative," "revelatory," "intimate" -- are all well deserved. It's the kind of history book/biography that readers who typically stick with fiction will enjoy. Maybe "enjoy" isn't the best word, given the subject matter, but you know what I mean. I got the digital book from the library. Now I have to decide whether to buy a hard copy for myself so I can share it with my wife and daughter.
August 26, 2021
Such an interesting story, and I wanted to love it so much. But it felt too detailed and disjointed for me to go with the flow. What an amazing woman though and what a tragic time and place to live and love.
August 28, 2025
― “In 1932, she held her first clandestine meeting in her apartment—a small band of political activists that grew into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin by the end of the decade. During the Second World War, her group collaborated with a Soviet espionage network that conspired to defeat Hitler, employing agents and operatives in Paris, Geneva, Brussels and Berlin.”
― Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
Mildred Fish was born in 1902 and grew up in Milwaukee, a city with one of the largest concentrations of German immigrants in America. After her schooling, she studied and then taught English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A tall and slender blonde, she probably could have modeled women’s clothes. Instead, Mildred would be the only American woman put to death on the direct order of Adolf Hitler for her involvement in the resistance movement during World War II. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is the incredible story of how Midred Fish became a leader in the resistance movement.
While pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1926, a German graduate student wandered into a class she was teaching, apparently lost. Arvid Harnack introduced himself and apologized for the intrusion; a relationship between Fish and Harnack quickly blossomed. They would marry and eventually move to Germany in 1929. Mildred worked on her doctorate at Berlin University, where she also taught English. Arvid worked for the German government.
Mildred loved Germany. She could never have envisioned what the future held for them or the country she loved. Dire financial conditions contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler; he would be sworn in as chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, just four years after Mildred moved to Germany.
― “After Hitler became chancellor, the number of death sentences doled out in courtrooms rose sharply. Between 1933 and 1944, judges ordered 17,383 executions, the overwhelming majority of which were punishment for political crimes, including treason.”
― Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
During the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, Mildred and Arvid joined a small resistance group to fight the brutal Nazi regime. Mildred grew up wanting to be a writer, not someone passing secrets during World War II. They called their group the Circle; the Gestapo would later call it the Red Orchestra. Their group delivered important information that would help the Allies defeat Germany.
― “In the fall of 1942, the Gestapo pounced. She was thrown in prison. So were her co-conspirators.”
― Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
Their espionage cost them their lives. Arvid Harnack was hanged in December 1942. Mildred would be executed on February 16, 1943, after copying out and translating into English the line of the Goethe poem that is the title of this book.
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is the best kind of nonfiction. Well-researched, with excellent prose, it comes as no surprise that the book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. It’s a work of love—Mildred Harnack was the author’s great-great-aunt.
― Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
Mildred Fish was born in 1902 and grew up in Milwaukee, a city with one of the largest concentrations of German immigrants in America. After her schooling, she studied and then taught English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A tall and slender blonde, she probably could have modeled women’s clothes. Instead, Mildred would be the only American woman put to death on the direct order of Adolf Hitler for her involvement in the resistance movement during World War II. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is the incredible story of how Midred Fish became a leader in the resistance movement.
While pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1926, a German graduate student wandered into a class she was teaching, apparently lost. Arvid Harnack introduced himself and apologized for the intrusion; a relationship between Fish and Harnack quickly blossomed. They would marry and eventually move to Germany in 1929. Mildred worked on her doctorate at Berlin University, where she also taught English. Arvid worked for the German government.
Mildred loved Germany. She could never have envisioned what the future held for them or the country she loved. Dire financial conditions contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler; he would be sworn in as chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, just four years after Mildred moved to Germany.
― “After Hitler became chancellor, the number of death sentences doled out in courtrooms rose sharply. Between 1933 and 1944, judges ordered 17,383 executions, the overwhelming majority of which were punishment for political crimes, including treason.”
― Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
During the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, Mildred and Arvid joined a small resistance group to fight the brutal Nazi regime. Mildred grew up wanting to be a writer, not someone passing secrets during World War II. They called their group the Circle; the Gestapo would later call it the Red Orchestra. Their group delivered important information that would help the Allies defeat Germany.
― “In the fall of 1942, the Gestapo pounced. She was thrown in prison. So were her co-conspirators.”
― Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
Their espionage cost them their lives. Arvid Harnack was hanged in December 1942. Mildred would be executed on February 16, 1943, after copying out and translating into English the line of the Goethe poem that is the title of this book.
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is the best kind of nonfiction. Well-researched, with excellent prose, it comes as no surprise that the book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. It’s a work of love—Mildred Harnack was the author’s great-great-aunt.
January 11, 2022
I had pretty high hopes for this book, and overall it is interesting and moving. However, the way that it is written is perplexing and annoying in a couple of ways.
Let's start with the story. This book is about a circle of spies/resistance figures in Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s, with Mildred Harnack as the main character. Mildred was an American scholar of literature who married a German and moved to Germany just as the Nazis rose to power. Her experiences as Germany transformed are fascinating to hear about, particularly because she shows what changed in higher ed. She and her husband gradually turned to resistance against the Nazis, including leaflets and organizing, helping Jews and dissidents escape, and ultimately delivering important strategic information to the Soviets. MIldred's husband fed the Soviets extensive material about their plans to invade the USSR, which Stalin and the Soviet high command stupidly ignored. MIldred and her circle were therefore not just symbolic resistors but major figures in the rather small German resistance. They were literary, idealistic, but not naive. Eventually they were captured trying to escape, thrown into prison, and executed.
This is a great and tragic story that would (and probably will) make a great movie, but I was distracted by many aspects of the writing. First, Donner weaves in too much basic history of Nazi Germany into the narrative. Of course, someone writing for a general audience has to do some of this, but large chunks of the book are just basic narration of that era of German history that probably 90% of the people who buy this book already would know. Moreover, some of that history is inaccurate. For instance, Donner says that Germany was a democracy up to the start of 1933, when Hitler used the Enabling Act to impose totalitarian control. However, if you read something like Richard Evans synthesis of the rise of Nazism, he says that really the German chancellor and president had been ruling without input or restraint from the chaotic Reichstag for several years when Hitler took absolute power. The destruction of democracy in Germany was a rolling process more than a moment, and Hitler wasn't the only one who destroyed it.
Second, this book has way, way too many chapters, sub-chapters, and sub-headings. There are probably hundreds (no joke) and it leads to a distracting, staccato form of narration. It's hard to get a sense of the flow of the story when things are interrupted so frequently and unnecessarily. Some of the sub-sections are literally a sentence or two. Moreover, many of these are sort of cornily dramatized, like "And then, Mildred found that she was pregnant." I think the author was going for a sort of literary quality, but it did not work for me. In addition, the Donner writes in the present tense about past events (drives me nuts as a historian) and often tries to intuit what the actors were thinking (also a shaky thing to do).
Finally, there just doesn't seem to be much in the way of documentation and other primary sources about Mildred, unfortunately, so Donner goes way in depth on a variety of other characters, such as a boy named Don who was MIldred's student and a courier for the resistance. This is fine, but really only about 30% of the book is actually about MIldred: the rest is the larger resistance and the general narration of Nazi Germany's history. So it's a somewhat lengthy book that often feels like filler. I found myself saying after long stretches, "So what is Mildred doing during all of this?"
This is far from a bad book, but I'm a little surprised these problems in the writing didn't turn off more readers. It's obviously great to learn about women in these roles throughout history, and I still need to read a lot more in this general area. But this book just didn't fit my style as a historian nor my preferences as a general reader. Strip away these excesses and you could have a tidy 200-250 page book that would be more interesting and readable.
Let's start with the story. This book is about a circle of spies/resistance figures in Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s, with Mildred Harnack as the main character. Mildred was an American scholar of literature who married a German and moved to Germany just as the Nazis rose to power. Her experiences as Germany transformed are fascinating to hear about, particularly because she shows what changed in higher ed. She and her husband gradually turned to resistance against the Nazis, including leaflets and organizing, helping Jews and dissidents escape, and ultimately delivering important strategic information to the Soviets. MIldred's husband fed the Soviets extensive material about their plans to invade the USSR, which Stalin and the Soviet high command stupidly ignored. MIldred and her circle were therefore not just symbolic resistors but major figures in the rather small German resistance. They were literary, idealistic, but not naive. Eventually they were captured trying to escape, thrown into prison, and executed.
This is a great and tragic story that would (and probably will) make a great movie, but I was distracted by many aspects of the writing. First, Donner weaves in too much basic history of Nazi Germany into the narrative. Of course, someone writing for a general audience has to do some of this, but large chunks of the book are just basic narration of that era of German history that probably 90% of the people who buy this book already would know. Moreover, some of that history is inaccurate. For instance, Donner says that Germany was a democracy up to the start of 1933, when Hitler used the Enabling Act to impose totalitarian control. However, if you read something like Richard Evans synthesis of the rise of Nazism, he says that really the German chancellor and president had been ruling without input or restraint from the chaotic Reichstag for several years when Hitler took absolute power. The destruction of democracy in Germany was a rolling process more than a moment, and Hitler wasn't the only one who destroyed it.
Second, this book has way, way too many chapters, sub-chapters, and sub-headings. There are probably hundreds (no joke) and it leads to a distracting, staccato form of narration. It's hard to get a sense of the flow of the story when things are interrupted so frequently and unnecessarily. Some of the sub-sections are literally a sentence or two. Moreover, many of these are sort of cornily dramatized, like "And then, Mildred found that she was pregnant." I think the author was going for a sort of literary quality, but it did not work for me. In addition, the Donner writes in the present tense about past events (drives me nuts as a historian) and often tries to intuit what the actors were thinking (also a shaky thing to do).
Finally, there just doesn't seem to be much in the way of documentation and other primary sources about Mildred, unfortunately, so Donner goes way in depth on a variety of other characters, such as a boy named Don who was MIldred's student and a courier for the resistance. This is fine, but really only about 30% of the book is actually about MIldred: the rest is the larger resistance and the general narration of Nazi Germany's history. So it's a somewhat lengthy book that often feels like filler. I found myself saying after long stretches, "So what is Mildred doing during all of this?"
This is far from a bad book, but I'm a little surprised these problems in the writing didn't turn off more readers. It's obviously great to learn about women in these roles throughout history, and I still need to read a lot more in this general area. But this book just didn't fit my style as a historian nor my preferences as a general reader. Strip away these excesses and you could have a tidy 200-250 page book that would be more interesting and readable.
August 8, 2021
I was blown away by this book. I got the audiobook so I could listen to it during my long commute, and I found it thoroughly engrossing and beautifully narrated. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, esp about WWII, and I would rank this at the top. The narrator (who I was delighted to discover is the author) has a masterful sense of pacing and modulation--dramatic in some passages, delicately nuanced and subtle in others. Her voice gripped me and wouldn't let go.
October 10, 2021
How does one evaluate courage and commitment? In the case of Mildred and Arvid Harnack the answer lies in their role as part of the resistance to the Nazis before and during World War II. Mildred, an American lecturer at the University of Berlin who was working on her PhD in American Literature and her husband Arvid employed at the Ministry of Economics is German and they form a resistance group after Hitler assumed power called “the Circle.” It is through the work of this organization and sister organizations that they hoped to overthrow the Nazi regime before it can live up to its rhetoric. Their remarkable story is told by Mildred’s great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner in her book ALL THE FREQUENT TROUBLES OF OUR DAYS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN AT THE HEART OF THE GERMAN RESISTANCE TO HITLER. The book’s title suggests that the narrative will focus mostly on Mildred, but in reality its presentation is much broader zeroing in on the actions of Arvid and a number of others in “the Circle.”
Donner’s book is a work of narrative history, but it comes across as a spy thriller, in addition to being the life story of a number of remarkable people. At the outset, Donner focuses on Mildred who she describes as an “enigma who inspired a range of contradictory conclusions about who she was and why she did what she did.” By 1932, Mildred had moved to Germany to teach at the University of Berlin which would be her foundation to gather like minded people to resist the Nazi seizure of power as she recognized early on the danger that Adolf Hitler presented. Donner integrates Mildred’s early years and her relationship with her husband Arvid into the web of spies that emerges. Mildred would soon be fired as a lecturer because her classes were deemed to be unacceptable to Nazi ideology particularly based on the American literary figures she presented in class. Arvid held a compassion for Germany’s poor and his goal was to address the problems of poverty and develop solutions. He would travel to the Soviet Union to learn about their economic approach and while there he would develop contacts that in the end would turn him into a Soviet spy against Germany.
Donner’s narrative encompasses most aspects of Hitler’s rise to the Chancellorship; the Nazi seizure power turning Germany into a dictatorship, Hitler’s expansionist foreign policy, and finally World War II. Donner offers little that is new as she recounts the most notable events be it the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, the seizures of the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and finally war. In doing so Donner integrates the resistance work of Mildred and Arvid and their compatriots until their arrest by the Gestapo in August 1942.
Donner writes in a manner that the words seem to flow off the page as she tells her story. She incorporates the latest research along with excerpts from important documents that include speeches, wording of leaflets, family letters, recruitment of assets, and the interrogations of prisoners by the Gestapo. As Donner chronicles her story she does an excellent job at providing the texture of German society before and during the war as the Nazis implemented their draconian program. Book burnings, racial laws, reducing women to being brood mares for the Nazi regime, violence and persecution of Jews that leads to the Holocaust, and Hitler and Goebbels’ ravings are all present.
Donner’s research was enhanced by a number of sources. Though Mildred destroyed her journal and was careful that no one see it, Donner’s conversations with her grandmother Jane who spent time with Mildred as a young woman in Germany is important. Letters from Mildred would be found in a relative’s attic, and Donner was able to obtain observations by Mildred’s friends in letters and diaries, as well as trial records and memoirs by Mildred’s collaborators allowing Donner to tell a story that was mostly unknown.
Donner describes the recruitment and work of “Circle” members who engage in a myriad of activities to resist the Nazis that include posters across Germany, leaflet preparation and distribution, radio transmission of information obtained, newspapers, penetration of Hermann Goring’s staff and the Army High Command, providing evidence for atrocities, and finally spying for the United States and the Soviet Union. As the war progressed it was clear that Stalin was just as bad as Hitler, but as Harold Nicholson once noted, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” leading Arvid who viewed himself as an anti-fascist to assume the role of a Russian spy passing along secrets that Hitler was about to attack Russia in the spring of 1941 which Stalin would ignore, and providing intelligence that once Stalingrad was taken the Nazis would march on the Caucasus to have access to Rumanian oil.
There are a number of interesting character portraits in the book apart from the main characters. Martha Dodd, the daughter of William Dodd the American Ambassador to Germany story is fascinating as she engages in numerous affairs, spies on her own father, falls in love with a Russian spy who will be shot during one of Stalin’s periodic purges, among many escapades. Another interesting and more meaningful character is Donald Heath, eventually the First Secretary in the American embassy in Berlin and his son Donald, Jr. Donald, Sr. is Secretary of the Treasury Robert Morgenthau’s personal source for information concerning Hitler’s preparation for war. The Heaths and Harnacks become close friends and share intelligence to the point both families use the eleven year old Donald, Jr. as a courier to deliver important intelligence. Donner makes the excellent point that American intelligence before the war and early on was deeply flawed containing numerous gaps to base important decisions.
By 1942 the Gestapo arrests the key members of “the Circle,” that include Mildred and Arvid, Liberto and Harro Schultze-Boysen, and Greta and Adam Kuckhoff. Of these individuals Hitler will harbor an extreme hatred for Mildred and though all are tortured she is the victim of the most extreme form of punishment. Donner will spend a great deal of time describing their fate once they are arrested and most exhibit a remarkable amount of courage knowing full well they will be executed.
In appearance Mildred Harnack does not appear to be a spy. She is an American educator teaching in Berlin. She is a shy bookish individual and doesn’t seem to possess the tools to be a focal point of German resistance and as one Nazi official stated, her story would make a wonderful novel. However, her work and those of those who were a part of “the Circle” is testimony to what impels people to act for what they believe and in the end are willing to pay for those beliefs and actions with their lives.
Donner’s book is a work of narrative history, but it comes across as a spy thriller, in addition to being the life story of a number of remarkable people. At the outset, Donner focuses on Mildred who she describes as an “enigma who inspired a range of contradictory conclusions about who she was and why she did what she did.” By 1932, Mildred had moved to Germany to teach at the University of Berlin which would be her foundation to gather like minded people to resist the Nazi seizure of power as she recognized early on the danger that Adolf Hitler presented. Donner integrates Mildred’s early years and her relationship with her husband Arvid into the web of spies that emerges. Mildred would soon be fired as a lecturer because her classes were deemed to be unacceptable to Nazi ideology particularly based on the American literary figures she presented in class. Arvid held a compassion for Germany’s poor and his goal was to address the problems of poverty and develop solutions. He would travel to the Soviet Union to learn about their economic approach and while there he would develop contacts that in the end would turn him into a Soviet spy against Germany.
Donner’s narrative encompasses most aspects of Hitler’s rise to the Chancellorship; the Nazi seizure power turning Germany into a dictatorship, Hitler’s expansionist foreign policy, and finally World War II. Donner offers little that is new as she recounts the most notable events be it the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, the seizures of the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and finally war. In doing so Donner integrates the resistance work of Mildred and Arvid and their compatriots until their arrest by the Gestapo in August 1942.
Donner writes in a manner that the words seem to flow off the page as she tells her story. She incorporates the latest research along with excerpts from important documents that include speeches, wording of leaflets, family letters, recruitment of assets, and the interrogations of prisoners by the Gestapo. As Donner chronicles her story she does an excellent job at providing the texture of German society before and during the war as the Nazis implemented their draconian program. Book burnings, racial laws, reducing women to being brood mares for the Nazi regime, violence and persecution of Jews that leads to the Holocaust, and Hitler and Goebbels’ ravings are all present.
Donner’s research was enhanced by a number of sources. Though Mildred destroyed her journal and was careful that no one see it, Donner’s conversations with her grandmother Jane who spent time with Mildred as a young woman in Germany is important. Letters from Mildred would be found in a relative’s attic, and Donner was able to obtain observations by Mildred’s friends in letters and diaries, as well as trial records and memoirs by Mildred’s collaborators allowing Donner to tell a story that was mostly unknown.
Donner describes the recruitment and work of “Circle” members who engage in a myriad of activities to resist the Nazis that include posters across Germany, leaflet preparation and distribution, radio transmission of information obtained, newspapers, penetration of Hermann Goring’s staff and the Army High Command, providing evidence for atrocities, and finally spying for the United States and the Soviet Union. As the war progressed it was clear that Stalin was just as bad as Hitler, but as Harold Nicholson once noted, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” leading Arvid who viewed himself as an anti-fascist to assume the role of a Russian spy passing along secrets that Hitler was about to attack Russia in the spring of 1941 which Stalin would ignore, and providing intelligence that once Stalingrad was taken the Nazis would march on the Caucasus to have access to Rumanian oil.
There are a number of interesting character portraits in the book apart from the main characters. Martha Dodd, the daughter of William Dodd the American Ambassador to Germany story is fascinating as she engages in numerous affairs, spies on her own father, falls in love with a Russian spy who will be shot during one of Stalin’s periodic purges, among many escapades. Another interesting and more meaningful character is Donald Heath, eventually the First Secretary in the American embassy in Berlin and his son Donald, Jr. Donald, Sr. is Secretary of the Treasury Robert Morgenthau’s personal source for information concerning Hitler’s preparation for war. The Heaths and Harnacks become close friends and share intelligence to the point both families use the eleven year old Donald, Jr. as a courier to deliver important intelligence. Donner makes the excellent point that American intelligence before the war and early on was deeply flawed containing numerous gaps to base important decisions.
By 1942 the Gestapo arrests the key members of “the Circle,” that include Mildred and Arvid, Liberto and Harro Schultze-Boysen, and Greta and Adam Kuckhoff. Of these individuals Hitler will harbor an extreme hatred for Mildred and though all are tortured she is the victim of the most extreme form of punishment. Donner will spend a great deal of time describing their fate once they are arrested and most exhibit a remarkable amount of courage knowing full well they will be executed.
In appearance Mildred Harnack does not appear to be a spy. She is an American educator teaching in Berlin. She is a shy bookish individual and doesn’t seem to possess the tools to be a focal point of German resistance and as one Nazi official stated, her story would make a wonderful novel. However, her work and those of those who were a part of “the Circle” is testimony to what impels people to act for what they believe and in the end are willing to pay for those beliefs and actions with their lives.
March 11, 2022
So much to say about this riveting and ultimately tragic book. Deep respect to the author for her brilliant research and for giving the reader such a sense of time and place. I found it impossible to put down. I know this story will haunt me for a long time.
September 23, 2021
Every time I read a book about WW2 I am amazed at the bravery of the Resistance, whether in Germany or France or other countries in Europe.
March 27, 2024
Interesantísimo libro de no ficción que habla sobre una mujer que estuvo en la lucha antinazi dentro de Alemania. Porque sí, fueron pocos, pero hubo gente que luchó contra Hitler dentro del país. Y no les ayudó nadie. Porque madre mía qué manera de abandonarlos a su suerte. Menos los soviéticos, pero los servicios secretos soviéticos bastante tenían con sobrevivir a que Stalin los descabezara cada semana.
Este libro arremete contra todos sin contemplaciones (porque de verdad que el resto de los supuestos aliados estaban a por uvas) y es un bonito homenaje a una mujer y un grupo de gente que sin parecerlo ni haberlo buscado activamente, fue heroico.
Este libro arremete contra todos sin contemplaciones (porque de verdad que el resto de los supuestos aliados estaban a por uvas) y es un bonito homenaje a una mujer y un grupo de gente que sin parecerlo ni haberlo buscado activamente, fue heroico.
March 31, 2022
I loved this non-fiction account of Mildred Harnack. I’ve read so many books about WWII, both fiction and non, I often think I’ll learn nothing new, but wow! I think this non-fiction offered one of the most clear and comprehensive timelines of how Hitler came to power and the complicity, conscious and unconscious, surrounding those events that I’ve ever read. It also eerily kept reminding me of current events in our culture. I combined reading and listening which was a great mix for me, especially helpful with hearing the German pronunciation of unfamiliar names and places.
October 28, 2021
It is books like this that remind me to be thankful for the life that I lead.
June 27, 2023
Imprescindible para conocer la resistencia alemana contra Hitler, la brutalidad de su respuesta y la nula ayuda que recibieron de los aliados.
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September 4, 2021https://www.economist.com/books-and-a...
A new book gives an American heroine her due from TheEconomist
A new book gives an American heroine her due from TheEconomist
January 13, 2023
This is the story of an American woman, Mildred Harnack, who became the center of the civilian German resistance to the Nazi regime in its 12 years of horrifying existence, carrying the fight all the way up to her grisly execution in 1943. Despite the wishes of those who wished to see Harnack completely vanish from history, which included her Nazi executioners to the Soviet spies the resistance often danced with to even members of her family who were angered that she'd gotten herself and other loved ones killed in her choice to stay in Germany and resist, her story is painstakingly told.
This reads as a narrative biography mixed with history, but the amount of archival research to reconstruct Mildren Harnack and many of her fellow resisters' lives and actions is really impressive. Author Rebecca Donner, the grandniece of Harnack, went through surviving Nazi records, private letters and diaries, American intelligence, Soviet records briefly opened in recent years, and a host of other sources to put together exactly what this clandestine resistance movement in the face of an incredibly brutal and efficient totalitarian fascist system. Harnack could have left Germany after the rise of the Nazis, which is detailed as a sort of runaway horror show as things in Germany get scarier and scarier with each passing year and yet so many embraced it, but she and her secret anti-fascists instead stayed under their cover as academics teaching English language literature.
Though at times disjointed, I actually appreciated that style of writing because finding all of these intentionally hidden stories of the resistance, hidden by the resisters, their allies, and their enemies, seems almost an unreal accomplishment. The book reads fast and is both inspiring and horrifying. Once the war begins, it speeds up because less information survived, but we know that it is marching towards her ultimately brutal Gestapo interrogation and personally ordered by Hitler beheading. The stories of several different resistance groups, including the Circle, the White Rose, the Edelweiss Pirates, the Red Orchestra, and even the Valkyrie plot grace the pages. While most Germans did not resist the Nazis, the acceptance of the genocidal fascist regime was not universal in Germany. This book is a good reminder of that.
This reads as a narrative biography mixed with history, but the amount of archival research to reconstruct Mildren Harnack and many of her fellow resisters' lives and actions is really impressive. Author Rebecca Donner, the grandniece of Harnack, went through surviving Nazi records, private letters and diaries, American intelligence, Soviet records briefly opened in recent years, and a host of other sources to put together exactly what this clandestine resistance movement in the face of an incredibly brutal and efficient totalitarian fascist system. Harnack could have left Germany after the rise of the Nazis, which is detailed as a sort of runaway horror show as things in Germany get scarier and scarier with each passing year and yet so many embraced it, but she and her secret anti-fascists instead stayed under their cover as academics teaching English language literature.
Though at times disjointed, I actually appreciated that style of writing because finding all of these intentionally hidden stories of the resistance, hidden by the resisters, their allies, and their enemies, seems almost an unreal accomplishment. The book reads fast and is both inspiring and horrifying. Once the war begins, it speeds up because less information survived, but we know that it is marching towards her ultimately brutal Gestapo interrogation and personally ordered by Hitler beheading. The stories of several different resistance groups, including the Circle, the White Rose, the Edelweiss Pirates, the Red Orchestra, and even the Valkyrie plot grace the pages. While most Germans did not resist the Nazis, the acceptance of the genocidal fascist regime was not universal in Germany. This book is a good reminder of that.
February 6, 2022
Fascinating…looking forward to discussion at our book club meeting in March
November 21, 2021
Riveting, inspiring and deathly frightening. The parallels between the rise of Hitler and the Trump era are uncanny. particularly the deployment of lies. One important difference is that Hitler got away with big-time mob violence while Trump's plans have met some pushback, though not all that is warranted. The book's main character is a brave American woman who formed very early a non-violent arm of the Resistance in Germany that I, for one, had never heard of. Its only weapons, like those of the White Rose, were pamphlets and broadsides denouncing the regime. Her circle in Berlin overlapped with the Bonhoeffer brothers, less with the Kreisau Circle (members of which attempted to kill Hitler) and very little with The White Rose in Munich and other cities. Mildred's brother-in-law, Falk Harnack, was arrested with White Rose leaders but inexplicably released. There are many heroes of both sexes.
The actions of US intelligence and British MI6 described at the book's will infuriate you like the worst twists of a LeCarre novel. Worse yet, see p. 469 "The War Crimes Group of the U.S. Army drops Mildred Harnack's case. 'Mildred Harnack was in fact deeply involved in underground activities aimed to overthrow the government of Germany,' an officer writes in a memo. He concludes that her execution [by beheading] was 'justified.'"
Her husband Arvid's 1942 love letter to Mildred is heartbreaking.
Thank you, Rebecca Donner for uncovering this story as a testament to courage and goodness of heart amidst "the horror, the horror."
The actions of US intelligence and British MI6 described at the book's will infuriate you like the worst twists of a LeCarre novel. Worse yet, see p. 469 "The War Crimes Group of the U.S. Army drops Mildred Harnack's case. 'Mildred Harnack was in fact deeply involved in underground activities aimed to overthrow the government of Germany,' an officer writes in a memo. He concludes that her execution [by beheading] was 'justified.'"
Her husband Arvid's 1942 love letter to Mildred is heartbreaking.
Thank you, Rebecca Donner for uncovering this story as a testament to courage and goodness of heart amidst "the horror, the horror."
August 3, 2021
Absolutely stunning and supported by archival documentation from four countries, “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” is a mesmerizing story of an American woman who travels to Berlin to teach and study, falls in love and champions a successful resistance group that was very effective in thwarting Hitler and assisting Jews.
At times the book reads like a diary and often it’s like an high intensity thriller. I always felt immersed in the story. Author, Rebecca Donner, includes clips from letters, journals, newspapers, notes, pictures, flyers, government forms - all the pieces of this puzzle waiting to be assembled. The passion and intensity of Mildred Harnack fairly leap from the pages.
It’s a story about relationships, one of which is her own love story with Arvid. It’s sweet and provides much needed relief occasionally. There are relationships with famous folks Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Wolfe and an host of historical figures as well as relationships with regular folks; herein lies her success and ultimately her downfall. Most amazing of all are the insights to Hitler’s relationships with other world leaders. This book should be required reading📚
At times the book reads like a diary and often it’s like an high intensity thriller. I always felt immersed in the story. Author, Rebecca Donner, includes clips from letters, journals, newspapers, notes, pictures, flyers, government forms - all the pieces of this puzzle waiting to be assembled. The passion and intensity of Mildred Harnack fairly leap from the pages.
It’s a story about relationships, one of which is her own love story with Arvid. It’s sweet and provides much needed relief occasionally. There are relationships with famous folks Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Wolfe and an host of historical figures as well as relationships with regular folks; herein lies her success and ultimately her downfall. Most amazing of all are the insights to Hitler’s relationships with other world leaders. This book should be required reading📚
December 5, 2021
Mildred Harnack was born in Wisconsin. When she was 22 she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany. There, she and her husband, Arvid, saw and experienced the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party and realized they had to do whatever they could to resist. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment. By 1940, her small band had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. When WWII began, she became a spy for the Allies. She and Arvid were ambushed by the Gestapo while attempting an escape to Sweden. They were arrested and tried. Arvid was sentenced to death. Mildred was sentenced to 5 years in a labor camp. When Hitler heard of her conviction, he immediately had her sentence changed to death. Arvid was hanged; Mildred was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded. Athough I have read many books about WWII, I had never learned much about the resistance and had never heard of the Harnacks. This is a story that should be known by many more people and if you have any interest in this time period, or in learning about people who stood up against what they knew was wrong, I urge you to pick up this book. It's well worth reading.
October 26, 2021
Reads like a novel, but is not, unfortunately. It traces the rise of Hitler in parallel to the story of an American literature student in Germany - Mildred Harnack-Fish - who is a key resistance organizer. From the late '20s to the early '40s her paths cross with noted figures like Thomas Wolfe, Dietrick Bonhoffer, Carl Sandburg and others. If you read Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts" you'll have met some of the other key people in this story.
What makes the book particularly compelling is that this is a family story, which is filled with details from personal reminiscences from the author's relatives who knew and took part in many of the incidents. The details she brings into the narrative make it novel-like in part, but are firmly grounded in facts as you see if you read the extensive notes section.
What makes the book particularly compelling is that this is a family story, which is filled with details from personal reminiscences from the author's relatives who knew and took part in many of the incidents. The details she brings into the narrative make it novel-like in part, but are firmly grounded in facts as you see if you read the extensive notes section.
October 27, 2021
How difficult it must be to live under a cruel regime and work hard to bring the regime down, knowing the possible consequences. The author has researched the story thoroughly and brought the characters alive. A moving tale of courage and integrity.
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