Fiscal Note
No additional City appropriation required.
Title
Celebrating the life of Mildred Elizabeth Fish Harnack, accepting ownership of the sculpture Mildred located in Marshall Park, and authorizing the City Attorney to sign a donation agreement with the Artist John Durbrow.
Body
WHEREAS, Mildred Elizabeth Fish Harnack, born in Wisconsin in 1902, was a woman of intellect, moral strength, and political conviction; and
WHEREAS, she lived in Madison for many years, earning both her Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts in English at UW-Madison, where she met her husband, Arvid Harnack; and
WHEREAS, after moving to Germany in 1929, Mildred Fish Harnack completed a doctorate in Literature at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, in Hessen, Germany; and
WHEREAS, after the National Socialists came to power, Mildred Fish Harnack, her husband, and their friends formed a resistance group described by some as “The Harnack/Schulze-Boysen group” or “Circle of Friends” and they lead the underground resistance against the Nazis in Berlin for nine years, taking great risks to pass along information to both the Americans and Russian; and
WHEREAS, survivors of the resistance movement and the Harnack’s relatives reject the group’s well-known moniker, the “Red Orchestra,” because it was a name the Gestapo dubbed the group in an effort to reduce their efforts to fight fascism and discredit them as solely motivated by communist allegiances to “Red” Russia; and
WHEREAS, in 1942 Mildred Fish Harnack was arrested, tried, and in 1943 she was executed by the Nazis and was the only American woman personally ordered executed by Hitler; and
WHEREAS in his last letter to Mildred from prison, Arvid wrote nostalgically about the importance of special places in Madison to their lives, especially Picnic Point, State Street, and the University Club; and
WHEREAS, the University of Wisconsin, with its Wisconsin Idea, and the City of Madison, with its proud progressive history, have cul...
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