 He belonged to the Catholic youth group, Bund Neudeutschland.As a member of this youth organisation, which was banned by the Nazis, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941, when he co-organised a demonstration of young people to show loyalty to the new spiritual leader, Lorenz Jaeger, on the day of his consecration as the Bishop of Paderborn.Degenhardt had already been suspected by the Gestapo for some time, since he had risked his life by secretly circulating the sermons of the Münster Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen.