Jurist, Economist. A German resistance fighter against Nazi Germany. Arvid Harnack was the son of the literary history professor, Otto Harnack, and also theologian Adolf von Harnack's nephew. From 1919 to 1923, he studied law in Jena at the Friedrich Schiller University, Graz, and Hamburg and became a Doctor of Law in 1924. From 1926 to 1928, he studied economics in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, where in 1926 he married the literary historian Mildred Fish. In 1936, Harnack secretly got in touch with the Soviet Embassy, and his American wife with the US Embassy, to warn both governments about the threat of war that Germany posed. To hide his purpose, Harnack became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1937. Two years later, in 1939, came his first contact with the group, Harro Schulze-Boysen, and in 1940 with the Communists Hilde Rake and Hans Coppi. From these meetings arose what the Gestapo would call the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) resistance group. In 1941, Harnack published the resistance magazine "Die innere Front" (The Inner Front). In July 1942, the Decryption Department of the Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command) discovered the group, and the Gestapo arrested its members. On 7 September 1942, Arvid and Mildred Harnack were arrested. Arvid Harnack was sentenced to death on 19 December 1942 after a four-day trial before the Reichskriegsgericht (Reich Military Tribunal), and was put to death three days later at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. His wife was given six years in prison, although Hitler shortly afterwards cancelled the sentence and ordered a new trial, which also ended with a death sentence. In 1969 the Soviet Union honored him with the Order of the Red Banner, an award which usually recognizes military deeds. (Bio by Frank Klawonn)