MADISON, Wis. -- Mildred Fish-Harnack, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate who helped during the underground resistance to Adolf Hitler until her capture and execution is enshrined as a hero in Eastern Europe, but in her home state of Wisconsin, she would be shunned and nearly forgotten.

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When it comes to Mildred Fish-Harnack's story, the lines between reality and fiction are blurred.

After World War II, her name was used for political gain and to perpetuate the Cold War.

"We had a different situation in East and West," said Johannes Tuchel, director of the German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin.

That difference grew after World War II as tension between the Soviets and their western allies quickly turned sour. In the West, former Gestapo agents forged a myth to cover their Nazi war crimes by smearing the Red Orchestra as nothing more than a group of Soviet spies, Stalin's agents and Communists.

"It's a fairy tale. It's a nice anti-Communist fairy tale," Tuchel said.

In the East, the Communists exploited that propaganda in their search for comrades.

"She was not a Communist. But we know today this was a Nazi stamp, a Communist stamp -- but not the real stamp of history," Tuchel said.

Fish-Harnack and her husband Arvid sought to preserve Germany as a nation with a quick end to the war. They sought help from the Soviets and the Americans to topple Hitler.

"She and her husband could have had a much more comfortable life but instead chose to put their lives on the line, literally," said Art Heitzer, a civil rights lawyer in Milwaukee.

In 1964, East Germany issued stamps honoring seven people engaged in anti-Nazi efforts, including Mildred Fish-Harnack and Arvid Harnack.

In 1970, at the Soviet embassy in East Berlin, they posthumously received the Soviet Union's highest civilian and military honors.

And for 30 years, a Berlin high school bears her name. It was the first school named after an American in Eastern Europe. It's located in an area of Berlin known as a hotbed of Nazi resistance, where the graffiti is more a symbol of artists than gangs. Every day, students walk by a new memorial courtyard inscribed with Mildred Fish-Harnack's final words before she faced the guillotine: "Ich habe Deutschland auch so geliebt," or "And I have loved Germany so much."

On the second floor, students created an exhibit that retraces Mildred Fish-Harnack's final steps to the death chamber. Students also transcribed her translations of the German poet Goethe.

"She was a powerful woman, and she did something that was good for the German people," said Laura Heurich, a student at Mildred Harnack Oberschule.

Student Franca Heiden said she remembers Mildred Fish-Harnack as an American who loved Germany.

"I don't know. I can't explain it -- only maybe in the pictures you can see what we feel about her," Heiden said.

The pictures and poems at the school show how the students feel about an ordinary woman who showed remarkable courage and dignity under extraordinary circumstances.

In Wisconsin, Mildred Fish-Harnack was all but forgotten until 1986 when Heitzer took her story to the state Legislature.

"This was a story that should be known in Wisconsin," Heitzer said.

The Wisconsin Legislature agreed. And 20 years later, Mildred Fish-Harnack's birthday of Sept. 16 still appears on the Wisconsin school calendar as a day of observance.

"It doesn't always happen in every school, to say the least. I think there are great opportunities to do more," Heitzer said.

In September, WISC-TV checked with the Madison and Milwaukee school districts and the state Department of Public Instruction, but no one could report a single school that observed her legacy.

"I think school districts, as perhaps we bring more attention to it there, maybe more can be done on this observance day. It's when the times are tough that you have to make the right choices and do the right thing, and that's what Mildred represents," said Elizabeth Burmaster, Wisconsin schools superintendent.

Mildred Fish-Harnack's alma mater, UW-Madison, talked of a memorial in 1947. Wisconsin Sen. Alexander Wiley initiated an investigation but reported that the U.S. government had "no official" record of Mildred Fish-Harnack's resistance efforts.

"And then suddenly it stops and there is something, a note to the effect of 'pro-Communist sympathies can not be ruled out' or something like that, and you've got Joe McCarthy riding very high," Heitzer said.

UW-Madison declined to honor her and quietly shelved the project.

In August 1961, even the State Department ruled out any recognition, explaining that although Mildred Fish-Harnack was an American citizen, her activities were not conducted on behalf of the U.S. government.

But those judgments all came during the height of the Cold War. The collapse of Communism revealed new evidence uncovered in CIA and KGB files.

"We have no, really, no evidence that Mildred Fish-Harnack supported the Communist idea," Tuchel said.

But even with the new evidence, experts said it's still hard to overcome old myths, Gestapo lies and Communist propaganda.

A new exhibit by German artist Franz Rudolf Knubel showcases Mildred Fish-Harnack's life in Berlin. Despite initial support from the Americans, not a single member of the U.S. embassy accepted an invitation to visit.

Heitzer said that 18 years after the fall of Communism, the fallout from the Cold War continues.

"In terms of official U.S. recognition, I'm not aware of any at this point," Heitzer said.

When students at the school were asked how the German people would like Wisconsin to remember Mildred Fish-Harnack, they said she should be remembered for her strength and passion.

"She was a powerful woman. She did so much for the German people," Heurich said.

"She was a very strong person. She loved literature and Goethe," Heiden said.

"So I think people in Wisconsin should know what Mildred Harnack really was a wonderful person," Tuchel said.

After German reunification, the high school was forced to give up Mildred Fish-Harnack's name. It was called "Comprehensive School No. 5."

On the 50th anniversary of her death in 1993, Mildred Fish-Harnack's name was once again restored. Just this past summer, a Berlin street was named after her.

And Mildred Fish-Harnack's name is also on the list for consideration in Madison for the new West Side school.

There are some other efforts here to honor her, WISC-TV reported.

The University of Wisconsin Division of International Studies holds the Mildred Fish-Harnack Human Rights and Democracy Lecture each spring. And efforts are under way to bring the high school exhibit and the Mildred Memorial Exhibit, currently located in Berlin, to Madison and Milwaukee sometime next year.

Mildred Fish-Harnack's name has been controversial over the years.

In 1949, an article in the Wisconsin alumni magazine triggered an FBI investigation into the university because of her ties to the Red Orchestra.

In 1946, the U.S. Army concluded Mildred and Arvid Harnack were tortured during interrogations. But in the end, U.S. Army lawyers agreed with Hitler's military courts calling the death sentences imposed by the Third Reich justified.

Their families said the Harnacks formed their left-leaning opinions in Madison. They said they hoped to apply the best of U.S. reforms and the Soviet planned economy to lead Germany on a progressive path.

The Harnacks studied under John R. Commons and were regular members of the Friday Niter's Club, which included Wisconsin radicals like Frank Lloyd Wright. What emerged was the Wisconsin Idea, a laboratory for the national progressive movement. They believed in state unemployment insurance, workers' comp, minimum wage and a progressive tax.

Like Heitzer, there are others trying to keep Mildred Fish-Harnack's memory alive. Humboldt University in Berlin, where Mildred pioneered American literature studies, awards a prize for outstanding achievement in English and American Romance Studies. Mildred's original translation of Goethe poems are still housed there.

Nazi Trials Shrouded In Secrecy

Experts said there was a complete information blackout of trials in Nazi military courts. The Gestapo explained the absence of the victims as an official trip abroad for an indefinite period of time.

"When they were arrested was kind of a state secret. I'm sure it was quite embarrassing to the Hitler regime that there were such high-placed people in the Luftwaffe in terms of Schulze-Boysen and Arvid in the Economics Ministry and many others," Heitzer said.

Mildred was not allowed to hear the witnesses, mostly Gestapo agents, who testified against her. Lawyers and clients were often forbidden to talk or see all the evidence, making it difficult to defend the accused, let alone submit good reasons for a pardon.

The Harnack family had contact with the defense lawyer and devised a prearranged code to secretly send the verdicts to other family members barred from the proceedings.

In the code, "Book" stood for Arvid; "not deliverable" meant the death sentence; "picture" stood for Mildred; and numbers stood for years in prison. So the code read, "Book not deliverable, but six pictures," translated to "Arvid got the death sentence; Mildred six years in prison."

Red Orchestra Provided Some Critical Information

The Gestapo dubbed the group the Red Orchestra for playing secret messages to the Soviets, but it wasn't all that successful.

Despite the group's legendary status in Eastern Europe, experts said only one radio message got through from Berlin to Moscow -- a harmless greeting.

"You in your mind may have a picture of a lot of people sending some information to the Soviet Union from a bulletin. It's a fairy tale. It's a real fairy tale. There was only one message sent by air to Moscow, and this happened on June 17, five days before the German troops invaded Soviet Russia in the year 1941," Tuchel said.

The Gestapo later claimed that 500 messages were sent, a fact used to persuade the Allies that the death sentences were justified.

The transmitters weren't very successful, but the group provided critical information on the ground.

Experts said history shows Arvid Harnack personally handed over German military secrets to the Soviets about an imminent invasion.

"More notable historically is the fact that the group did have information that the Nazis were planning on attacking the Soviet Union," Heitzer said.

The same information was passed on to Washington and relayed to Moscow. It went completely against conventional thinking at the time. Years later, it was learned Russian leader Joseph Stalin completely ignored it.

"It is my understanding that the information was received but it was discredited in the Kremlin. People couldn't believe this was going to happen," Heitzer said. "The Soviet ambassador in Berlin gave it some credence, but in Moscow they thought he was the purveyor of misinformation."

After his capture, Arvid Harnack's family met with high-ranking German military officials who were planning to overthrow Hitler. Arvid Harnack was considered an expert on the Soviet economy, and they saw value in keeping him alive to negotiate with the Russians if the eastern front would fall.

Arvid and Mildred Harnack also knew of this plot to overthrow Hitler and were hoping to live long enough to see it happen. An attempt was made on July 20, 1944, but it failed.