One day, I received a card instructing me to stand in front of a well-known church on a certain evening. There I would receive further information. I went to the meeting place. It was pitch black. A man introduced himself as Julius Riffel. This, I knew, was the name of a faithful brother who worked in the underground. He hastily told me to travel to Bad Ems on a certain date in order to meet somebody. He quickly disappeared.

However, on the platform in Bad Ems, only the Gestapo was waiting for me. What had gone wrong? The man in front of the church​—actually a former brother from Dresden, Hans Müller, who knew everything about the underground work in Germany and had begun to collaborate with the Gestapo—​had set a trap for me. But it did not work. Shortly before, my mother had informed me that she had suffered a minor stroke, and I, in reply, had promised to visit her in Bad Ems on a certain date. This happily coincided with the “mission,” and our letters provided an alibi at my later judicial hearing. To my surprise, I was acquitted. Yes, in February 1939, after five and a half months of detention, I was free again!

Responding to His Friendship

Of course, I did not plan to stay inactive, especially since most of the brothers were suffering in concentration camps or were under arrest elsewhere.

After the responsible German brothers had been arrested with the help of Müller, Ludwig Cyranek took over the distribution of spiritual food.

Sad to say, a second brother had turned traitor in hopes of escaping detention. A year later, he betrayed the teams in Stuttgart and elsewhere to the Gestapo. On February 6, 1940, we were arrested. Ludwig Cyranek went to Müller’s apartment in Dresden​—thinking that Müller was still a fellow Witness—​and was caught there.

In Dresden, the Gestapo confronted me with a third traitor from among our ranks. I sensed that something was wrong, so I kept quiet, not even greeting him. Then I was brought face-to-face with a tall, burly man in soldier’s uniform: the traitor Müller, whom I had met in front of the church. I left the room without saying a word. The Gestapo got nothing from me.

These traitors each came to a bad end. As the Nazis said, they loved the betrayal but not the betrayer. All three were sent to the eastern front and never came back.