claims, Langen joined the NSDAP later in May 1933 (membership No. 2,101,008). It has been speculated that without becoming a party member, it might have become difficult for him to remain a teacher after the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed in April 1933. According to § 4 of this law, "civil servants whose former political activity casts doubt on their absolute loyalty to the national state may be released from service", effectively forcing civil servants to join the party. Despite his NSDAP membership, Langen publicly opposed the Nazis and Nazi propaganda in many ways. He often listened to BBC radio with his pupils and publicly called the Nazis "criminals". Many of his former pupils remembered him speaking out against the Nazis and the war in conversations with their parents. After the end of World War II, the school compiled a report about Langen. This report states that Langen was known to his colleagues as "an outspoken opponent of national socialism who defended his opinion publicly". A protocol of an interrogation of Langen on 19 January 1944, when was already imprisoned in the Siegburg penitentiary, stated that "his statements reveal opposition to the state in its current form". Arrest and death When he visited his daughter Hiltigunt in a labour camp in Houverath near Euskirchen, he told her and some other girls about his opinion regarding the war and that he believed a continuation of the war to be futile. One of the girls reportedly filed a complaint to the camp overseer, who in turn reported the incident to the authorities. The resulting investigation revealed that Langen "spoke out publicly against national socialism". Langen was arrested by the Gestapo on 17 December 1943 and brought to the Gestapo prison of Cologne for interrogation. After a few days he was moved to the Cologne prison Klingelpütz, a wing of which was used for Gestapo prisoners. As the Klingelpütz was damaged in the Allied bombing of Cologne in 1944, he was later moved to the Siegburg penitentiary. He died there from epidemic typhus on 16 March 1945. Legacy In 1954, a major street in Holzlar was named in his honour. On 22 June 2010, a Stolperstein commemorating Langen was placed at the Holzlar primary school. Further reading References 1893 births 1945 deaths Deaths from typhus German Christian pacifists People condemned by Nazi courts People convicted of treason