Arvid Harnack
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, and resistance fighter in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
Early years
Harnack was the son of literary historyHistory of literature
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempts to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. Not all...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
Otto Harnack, and the nephew of theologian Adolf von Harnack
Adolf von Harnack
Adolf von Harnack , was a German theologian and prominent church historian.He produced many religious publications from 1873-1912....
. From 1919 to 1923, he studied law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
in Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
(at the Friedrich Schiller University
Friedrich Schiller University of Jena
Friedrich Schiller University of Jena , is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany....
), Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and became a Doctor of Law in 1924.
From 1926 to 1928, he studied economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
in Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, USA, where in 1926 he married the literary historian Mildred Fish
Mildred Harnack
Mildred Fish-Harnack was an American-German literary historian, translator, and resistance fighter in Nazi Germany.- Life in the United States:...
. In 1929-1930 he became a Doctor of Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
in Gießen
Gießen
Gießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen...
, producing as his thesis Die vormarxistische Arbeiterbewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten ("The Pre-Marxist Workers' Movement in the United States"). Along with the Gießen economist Friedrich Lenz (1885–1968), he founded the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft zum Studium der sowjetischen Planwirtschaft ("Scientific Working Community for the Study of the Soviet Planned Economy"), or ARPLAN in 1931. Harnack was made First Secretary of this group, which counted about 50 members. At the height of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
system had clearly broken down, and the Soviet model seemed to them to be an interesting alternative. Scientists, but also ardent revolutionary nationalists like Klaus Mehnert
Klaus Mehnert
Klaus Mehnert was a globetrotting German political scientist and a journalist. As a scholar, he was a prolific author; as a journalist, he practiced in the USSR as a correspondent, in China as a publisher, and in Germany. He was a professor at two American universities before World War II...
and Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger was a German writer. In addition to his novels and diaries, he is well known for Storm of Steel, an account of his experience during World War I. Some say he was one of Germany's greatest modern writers and a hero of the conservative revolutionary movement following World War I...
and communist intellectuals like George Lukacs and Karl August Wittfogel
Karl August Wittfogel
Karl August Wittfogel was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. Originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, after the Second World War Wittfogel was an equally fierce anticommunist.-Biography:...
took part in sessions. Harnack's hope, apparently, was that Germany could serve as a spiritual and economic bridge between East and West. The first meeting of the group took place on 3 and 4 January 1932. In August and September of the same year a three week trip to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was organized with the help of the Soviet embassy in Berlin. The soviet economy was observed in Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa, Kiew and in the Dnjepr region.
Resistance activities
In 1933, after Hitler's rise to power made it necessary to dissolve ARPLAN, Harnack was given a post as a scientific expert in the Reich Economic Ministry. The same year, he also finished his legal qualifications in Jena, successfully completing the junior law examination.Together with his wife Mildred
Mildred Harnack
Mildred Fish-Harnack was an American-German literary historian, translator, and resistance fighter in Nazi Germany.- Life in the United States:...
, the writer Adam Kuckhoff
Adam Kuckhoff
Adam Kuckhoff was a German writer, journalist, and resistance fighter in the Third Reich....
and his wife Greta, Harnack assembled a discussion circle which debated political perspectives on the time after the National Socialists
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
' expected downfall or overthrow.
By 1935, Harnack was active as a lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
on foreign policy
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
at the University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
. That same year he was recruited by the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
in August and assigned the codename BALT (later changed to CORSICAN).
In 1936, Harnack secretly got in touch with the Soviet Embassy, and his American wife with the US Embassy, to warn them about the threat of war that Germany posed.
As a cover, Harnack became a member of the NSDAP in 1937. In 1939 came his first contact with the Harro Schulze-Boysen
Harro Schulze-Boysen
Heinz Harro Max Wilhelm Georg Schulze-Boysen was a German officer, commentator, and German Resistance fighter against German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazi régime.- Early life :...
group, and in 1940 with the Communists Hilde Rake
Hilde Coppi
Hilde Coppi was a German resistance fighter against the Third Reich. Together with her husband Hans Coppi, she belonged to the Red Orchestra .- Life :...
and Hans Coppi
Hans Coppi
Hans Coppi was a German Red Orchestra resistance fighter against the Third Reich.- Life before World War II :...
. From these meetings arose what the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
would call the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) resistance group.
In 1940-1941, the group was in contact with Soviet agents, and was trying to thwart the forthcoming German invasion of the Soviet Union. Harnack and others even sent the Soviets information about the forthcoming invasion
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. In 1941, Harnack published the resistance magazine Die innere Front ("The Inner Front"). At about the same time, he received information from Rudolf von Scheliha
Rudolf von Scheliha
Rudolf von Scheliha was a German diplomat executed by the Nazis during World War II.Scheliha was born in Zessel, Oels, Silesia , as the son of a Prussian squire. He served as an army officer in World War I, studied law and joined the German Foreign Service in 1922...
about the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
.
Trial and death
Oberkommando des Heeres
The Oberkommando des Heeres was Nazi Germany's High Command of the Army from 1936 to 1945. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht commanded OKH only in theory...
managed to decode the group's radio messages, and the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
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
Military tribunal
A military tribunal is a kind of military court designed to try members of enemy forces during wartime, operating outside the scope of conventional criminal and civil proceedings. The judges are military officers and fulfill the role of jurors...
"), and was put to death three days later at Plötzensee
Plötzensee
Plötzensee is a small glacial lake in Berlin. It is situated near the Rehberge public park in the former borough of Wedding, now a part of Mitte. The name stems from Plötze, one name for the roach in German, as the lake formerly teemed with it....
Prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
in Berlin. His wife was originally given six years in prison, but Hitler swiftly cancelled the sentence and ordered a new trial, which pronounced the desired death sentence.