 He attained the rank of Obergefreiter and towards the end of the war he was posted to the Rhineland and captured by the Americans.After spending time in a prisoner of war camp in the United States, he was sent to the United Kingdom in 1946 where he settled permanently upon his release in 1948, living in Hampshire and then Godalming, Surrey, working as a railway signalman and then a groundsman at Charterhouse School.He was a member of the Communist Party and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, becoming a committed peace activist.