Plagge became the godfather of Hesse's son Konrad. The same year, Plagge took over as chief engineer of the Hessenwerks. Service in Lithuania HKP 562 Plagge was drafted into the Wehrmacht (German Army) as a captain in the reserve at the beginning of World War II, and stopped paying Nazi Party membership fees at the same time. Serving initially in Poland after the German invasion, he witnessed atrocities that caused him to decide "to work against the Nazis". In 1941, he was put in command of an engineering unit, Heereskraftfahrpark 562 (vehicle maintenance unit 562, or HKP 562; literally, "Army motor-vehicle park"), which maintained and repaired military vehicles. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, HKP 562 was deployed to Vilna, Lithuania, in early July 1941. Plagge witnessed the genocide being carried out against the Jews of the area. Plagge gave work certificates to Jewish men, certifying them as essential and skilled workers regardless of their actual backgrounds. This kind of work permit protected the worker, his wife, and up to two of his children from the SS sweeps carried out in the Vilna Ghetto, in which Jews without work papers were captured and killed at the nearby Ponary execution grounds. As a work assignment, HKP 562 was particularly sought after by Jews because of Plagge's efforts to treat his workers well. Plagge also made efforts to help Poles and Soviet prisoners of war forced to work for the Wehrmacht. Plagge was the "quasi-sovereign" of his unit, retaining his independence so long as the repair work got done, and worked to insulate his workers from the genocide perpetrated by the SS. He reassigned antisemitic or violent subordinates so that they did not interact with Jewish workers and turned a blind eye to the smuggling and black market that kept the workers alive. During the autumn of 1941, when many Jews were rounded up and shot in "Aktions", Plagge's workshop was the fourth-largest employer of Jews in Vilnius, with 261 work permits allocated. When his workers were captured during sweeps, Plagge attempted to free them from Lukiškės Prison before they could be executed at Ponary. If only a few Jews were arrested, he sent a subordinate. However, in late 1941, 70 Jewish workers and their families were arrested. Plagge exaggerated their importance to the war effort and managed to secure the release of all of them. In 1942, 200 Jews