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Harnack was tall, blonde and blue-eyed; as president of the American Women’s Club in Berlin she masqueraded as the perfect Nazi wife. Meanwhile she and Arvid were funnelling military information to Allied contacts abroad. Even as the pressure steadily mounted, survivors would later recount, they persisted. “Relentless Nazi brutality invigorates their conviction that they must fight back steadily, diligently, without hesitation,” the author writes.
哈纳克身材高大，金发碧眼；作为柏林美国妇女俱乐部的主席，她伪装成一位完美的纳粹妻子。与此同时，她和阿维德正在向海外盟军联络人传递军事信息。幸存者后来回忆说，尽管压力不断增加，但他们坚持了下来。“残酷的纳粹暴行激发着他们的信念，即他们必须坚定、勤奋、毫不犹豫地反击，”作者写道。
Harnack was careful to betray nothing in her letters home. So Ms Donner has pieced the story together from a vast array of sources. Her book is a tour de force of investigation: she searched two dozen archives in America, Europe and Russia, trawling through intelligence reports and official documents, plus scores of published and unpublished memoirs, diaries and letters. Her most precious source, however, is the memory of Donald Heath junior, who was the 11-year-old son of an American diplomat when he began acting as Harnack’s secret courier. His story fleshes out the lady with the “low, kind voice” whom he visited twice a week in 1939 on Woyrschstrasse, where she slipped notes for his father into his blue backpack.
哈纳克在她的家书中小心翼翼地不泄露任何信息。因此，唐纳女士从大量资料中拼凑出了这个故事。她的书是调查的杰作：她搜索了美国、欧洲和俄罗斯的20多个档案馆，搜罗情报报告和官方文件，以及大量已出版和未出版的回忆录、日记和信件。然而，她最宝贵的信息来源是小唐纳德·希思的记忆，小唐纳德·希思是一名美国外交官的儿子，11岁时开始担任哈纳克的秘密信使。他的故事使这位有着“低沉又和善的声音”的女士变得丰满起来。1939年，他每周去沃施斯特拉斯看望她两次，就是在那里，她把写给他父亲的纸条塞进了他的蓝色背包。
The couple’s commitment to defying the dictator who was wrecking the country they called home shines through. Arvid was a nephew of a scholar who helped draft the Weimar constitution, part of an intellectual clan that became a “Who’s Who” of resistance to Hitler. His cousins the Bonhoeffers, Delbrücks and Ernst von Harnack participated in the most famous attempt on Hitler’s life, the failed military “Valkyrie” plot of 1944. Harnack joined their fight as women’s rights, too, were shredded by the Nazis. She lost her university teaching job, purged like tens of thousands of women, Jews and others.
这对夫妇决心反抗独裁者的承诺闪耀着光芒，这位独裁者正在破坏他们称之为家的国家。阿维德是一位帮助起草魏玛宪法的学者的侄子，这位学者是一个知识分子家族的成员，这个家族后来成为抵抗希特勒的“名流”。他的堂兄弟邦霍费尔兄弟、德尔布吕克和恩斯特·冯·哈纳克参与了最著名的刺杀希特勒的企图行动，即1944年失败的军事密谋“瓦尔基里”。哈纳克加入了她们的斗争，因为女性的权利也被纳粹粉碎了。她失去了大学教师的工作，像成千上万的女性、犹太人及其他人一样遭到清洗。
The story unfolds in fragments. The early pages, as Ms Donner lays out Hitler’s overthrow of German democracy, can read like potted history. But as the pieces cohere, the couple’s story becomes gripping. They are betrayed, eventually, by a Soviet blunder. As the Gestapo moves in, arresting resisters from various cells, the reader hears first-hand accounts of their interrogation and torture. The abiding impression is of virtuous, extraordinarily brave people caught up in tragic horror.
故事以碎片的形式展开。本书的前几页，唐纳女士描绘了希特勒对德国民主的颠覆，读起来就像简写的历史。但随着片段衔接起来，这对夫妇的故事变得扣人心弦。他们最终被苏联的一个愚蠢错误暴露了。当盖世太保走进来，从不同的牢房逮捕抵抗分子时，读者听到了他们被审讯和被折磨的第一手资料。久久不能忘怀的是，那些陷入悲惨恐惧之中的善良的、格外勇敢的人们。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
