 He was held in solitary confinement for several weeks in the Dortmund Gestapo headquarters, imprisoned in a 3 x 1.5 m cell, beaten by the guards and not released until Christmas of 1941, with the warning that he would be sent to a concentration camp if he said anything about his imprisonment.After his release, he was expelled from the "Gymnasium".During the Second World War, he was conscripted as an aid in the Luftwaffe and was taken as a prisoner of war, from which he was released in 1946.