All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler

Description

Born and raised in America, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD programme in Berlin and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment - a small band of political activists that grew into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage and wrote leaflets denouncing Hitler's regime. On the outbreak of the Second World War she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies. On the eve of her escape to Sweden, she was ambushed by the Gestapo. At a Nazi military court she was sentenced to six years at a concentration camp, but Hitler overruled the decision and ordered her execution. On 16 February 1943, she was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded. Fusing elements of biography, political thriller and scholarly detective story, Harnack's great-great-niece Rebecca Donner brilliantly interweaves family archives, original research, exclusive interviews with survivors, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, enthralling story, reconstructing the moral courage and previously untold story of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history.

Rebecca Donner's essays, reportage and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Bookforum, Guernica and the Believer. Born in Vancouver, Donner is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University, and has taught writing at Wesleyan University, Columbia University and Barnard College. Donner grew up hearing vague stories about her great-great-aunt's life. This inspired her to delve into Mildred's story. All the Frequent Trouble of Her Days is the product of that research. rebeccadonner.com

Reads like a thriller . . . Written in a pacey, suspenseful present tense, it's biography with a pulse . . . a superb, sure-footed work of historical detection conceived with a powerful intelligence * * Sunday Times * * Astonishing . . . wilder and more expansive than a standard-issue biography . . . a real-life thriller with a cruel ending * * New York Times * * A beautifully rich portrait of a very brave woman. While never less than scrupulously researched, this biography explodes the genre of "biography": experimental but achieved, Donner's story reads with the speed of a thriller, the depth of a novel and the urgency of an essay, like some deeply compelling blend of Alan Furst and W.G. Sebald -- JAMES WOOD Donner questions what motivates someone to risk their life for the sake of their beliefs in a gripping story that reads like a political thriller * * Observer * * Written in a fizzing present tense, the book in places reads like a spy novel . . . Donner writes in beautiful, crisp prose (like her great-great-aunt, as quotes from Mildred's letters reveal) . . . The result is a work that transports us to a period now slipping from living memory but that contains vital lessons for our own time * * Herald * * A tour de force of investigation . . . gripping * * Economist * * A thrilling and inspiring book. It is a treasure trove for lovers of biography, new writing and the history of the Third Reich * * Scotsman * * A stunning literary achievement. Rebecca Donner forges a new kind of biography - almost novelistic in style and tone, this scholarly work resurrects the courageous life of Mildred Harnack. A relentless sleuth in the archives, Donner has written a page-turner story of espionage, love and betrayal -- KAI BIRD, winner of the Pulitzer Prize A lively read . . . Mildred Harnack has received proper recognition at last * * Financial Times * * Pacey . . . an impressive piecing together of fragments . . . a memorial to Mildred Harnack * * Spectator * *