Arvid Harnack

Arvid Harnack
Arvid Harnack as a young man
Born	(1901-05-24)24 May 1901 Darmstadt, Germany
Died	22 December 1942(1942-12-22) (aged 41) Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, Nazi Germany
Nationality	German
Education	Friedrich Schiller University London School of Economics University of Wisconsin University of Giessen
Known for	Member of the Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle")
Spouse	Mildred Fish (m. 1926)

Arvid Harnack (German: [ˈaʁ.vɪt ˈhaʁ.nak] ^ⓘ; 24 May 1901 – 22 December 1942) was a German jurist, Marxist economist, Communist,^[1] and German resistance fighter in Nazi Germany.^[2] Harnack came from an intellectual family and was originally a humanist. He was strongly influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe but progressively moved to a Marxist-Socialist outlook after a visit to the Soviet Union and the Nazis' appearance.^[3] After starting an undercover discussion group based at the Berlin Abendgymnasium, he met Harro Schulze-Boysen, who ran a similar faction. Like numerous groups in other parts of the world, the undercover political factions led by Harnack and Schulze-Boysen later developed into an espionage network that supplied military and economic intelligence to the Soviet Union.^[4] The group was later called the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) by the Abwehr. He and his American-born wife, Mildred Fish, were executed by the Nazi regime in 1942 and 1943, respectively.