After the Machtergreifung of the Nazis in 1933, he retired from politics, in part due to ill health, and at first lived in seclusion at Lindenberg im Allgäu. Later in World War II, however, he became a member of the resistance group around Franz Sperr, had contacts with the Kreisau Circle,“Otto Geßler”, “in Parliamentary Data Bank of the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte in the Bavariathek. was included the resistance’s 1944 plans, and, in the event that the coup succeeded, was slated to be political commissioner in Military District VII (Munich) in the shadow cabinet of General Ludwig Beck and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. He was named in documents of Claus von Stauffenberg and was arrested two days after the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler of 20 July 1944. He was detained and tortured at Ravensbrück concentration camp and then held at various Berlin prisons until his release in February 1945.
