beginning of 1935 the paper bore the name Kettelerwacht and was banned once and for all on 19 November 1938 but he continued to publish an underground edition to expose the lies of propaganda. Gross took over the leadership of the Düsseldorf K.A.B. for its secretarial worker had been called into the Wehrmacht. His activities were linked with travels which would be a help to him in his upcoming resistance activities. He also represented the K.A.B. at Catholic conferences. He had good friends from the K.A.B. as well as trade unions and the Christian politicians and all would discuss alternatives to the Nazi regime in the so-called Cologne Circle which was meeting in the K.A.B.'s center called the Kettelerhaus in Cologne no later than 1942. This group worked with those in Berlin about Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and took part in his personal plans for the time after Adolf Hitler was out of office should that have happened. Gross later became engaged to Elisabeth Koch (11.03.1901-21.02.1971) and the two later married on 24 May 1923. The pair had seven children: Nikolaus Heinrich (1925-2005) Bernhardine Elisabeth (1926-2015) Marianne (1927-2020) Liesel (1929-2001) Alexander (1931-2019) Bernhard (1934-2019) Helene (b. 1939) In 1940 he endured interrogations and house searches since he was being monitored at the time. On 12 August 1944 he was arrested sometime towards noon in connection with the failed plot to kill Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia. He was first taken to Ravensbrück and then to Berlin at the Tegel prison (from September 1944) where his wife visited him twice and reported the torture done to a hand and both his arms. From prison he sent letters to his wife including the farewell letter just moments before he died. On 15 January 1945 he was sentenced to death at the Volksgerichtshof (Roland Freisler condemned him) and was hanged on 23 January 1945 at the Plötzensee prison in Berlin. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at a sewage plant. He died soon after the Servant of God Eugen Bolz who was imprisoned in the same prison. Beatification and other honors The beatification process commenced on 19 January 1988 after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the official "nihil obstat" to the cause and titled Gross as a Servant of God; but it would be a decade until the actual diocesan phase of investigation opened in