All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner 

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All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner: 4. A Catastrophic Error

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner

4. A Catastrophic Error

BBC Radio 4 - All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner, 4. A Catastrophic Error

Stalin's spymasters put Mildred and Arvid Harnack in great peril.

Rebecca Donner's account of the woman at the heart of German resistance to Hitler continues as Stalin's spymasters put Mildred Harnack & husband Arvid in peril. Kelly Burke reads.

In the account of the woman at the heart of the German resistance to Hitler, Mildred Harnack and her husband Arvid are in a race against time as Stalin's spymasters place them in great peril.  Kelly Burke reads.

Mildred Harnack's remarkable story is told by her great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner, who draws on diaries, letters, notes smuggled out of German prisons and de-classified intelligence reports to reconstruct the story of a woman of extraordinary bravery and compassion. In the early 1930s, living in Berlin, Mildred and her husband, Arvid, are horrified by Hitler's rapid and meteoric rise to power.  Both find themselves compelled to act and take extraordinary and audacious risks to pass secrets to the Allies as World War II looms.  But soon the Gestapo start to close in, and a high price is exacted.

Rebecca Donner is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace, and Burnout, a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Guernica.

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard

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4. A Catastrophic Error

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