the International Red Aid summoned him to Moscow. Toward the end of 1935, his wife and son, Gustav, Jr. were able to travel to the Soviet Union via Paris. His other son, Bernhard (6 June 1911 – 20 July 1945), remained in Germany. He was arrested and imprisoned in Nazi concentration camp. He was liberated from Fuhlsbüttel, but died in the infirmary, shortly afterward. Before fleeing to the Soviet Union, Gustav Sobottka, Jr. had been in two Nazi concentration camps. He was arrested by the NKVD on February 5, 1938, as part of the so-called Hitler Youth Conspiracy, after which his mother had a nervous breakdown. Sobottka, Jr. was tortured and tried to commit suicide. In a letter he wrote after more than two years in custody, he said he'd given up all hope. He died in Moscow's Butyrka prison in September 1940. Because of his son's arrest, Sobottka, Sr. was fired from his job on the unions' central council of in March 1938 and was himself investigated. In 1943, Sobottka was condemned to death in absentia for high treason by the Reich Military Court (Reichskriegsgericht). Postwar and final years In 1945, Sobottka returned to Germany from the Soviet Union as leader of the Sobottka Group, which along with the Ulbricht Group and the Ackermann Group, were sent to lay the groundwork for the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. Sobottka reported on the chaos in Germany as forced labour from Poland and Russia turned on their former masters. Those who left would take animals and farm machinery with them leaving whole villages without either a cow or a farm worker. Sobottka's group was sent to Mecklenburg, (today Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) where he prepared reports on the state of the agriculture for the Soviet Central Committee. From 1947 to 1948, he was president of the Central Administration for the Combustible Fuel Industry. From 1949 to 1951, he worked for the East German Ministry for Heavy Industry. Sobottka retired with an honorary pension as an "Honored Miner of the German Democratic Republic", but was depressed about his son's death in Moscow and his wife's ill health. On 5 March 1953 he learned about the death of Joseph Stalin and was so overcome he died the following day in Berlin. His wife was away at a health resort at the time. Gustav Sobottka, Jr. was rehabilitated in 1956. Recognition Sobottka received an "Honorary pension, Fighter