days later, they arrested Bästlein at work. He was shot in the leg, trying to escape. He was taken to the KolaFu in Hamburg and tortured severely, after which, he tried to commit suicide by throwing himself down a stairwell, but survived. On 30 November 1942, he gave the Gestapo a written statement explaining why he had been and would remain a Resistance fighter. The first factor was my seven-year confinement from 1933 to 1940 — four years of which were in concentration camps — during which I experienced, saw and heard abominable things. This period removed any shadow of a doubt regarding my political views and made rock solid my conviction, that a society, in which such things as I had experienced are possible, must be eliminated. The second factor was the 1939 beginning of the Second World War. —Bernhard Bästlein (30 November 1942 in a written statement to the Gestapo, while under their interrogation) The war that began in 1939 had "awoken all memories of the 1914-1918 war and strengthened his conviction that as long as the capitalist social order existed, there would, again and again, be wars which would destroy all feeling in human society and likewise result in tremendous loss of material wealth." Escape, Berlin activity and final arrest In August 1943, Bästlein was moved to Plötzensee Prison in Berlin to serve as a witness in the trial of Martin Weise, but in January 1944, the prison was bombed during an air raid and Bästlein was able to escape. He was hidden by Communists in Berlin and was also able to send a letter to his wife, informing her of his escape. By chance, he ran into Jacob in the S-Bahn and immediately began working with Jacob and Saefkow to form the leadership team of three of the Saefkow-Jacob-Bästlein Organization. He helped create an illegal network of the Free Germany Movement (Bewegung Freies Deutschland) in Berlin-Brandenburg. But on 30 May 1944 he was once again arrested. He was brought to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße and tortured for days. In July, he was sent back to Sachsenhausen. He was sentenced to death on 5 September 1944 for the crimes of conspiracy to commit high treason, aiding the enemy and undermining military strength. The sentencing document states, "You are unteachable and unreformable." Bästlein was executed on 18 September 1944 at Brandenburg-Görden Prison. Family Bästlein's wife also suffered hardships.