Martin Gauger’s legal career in the civil service came to an abrupt end in 1934. He refused to take the oath of loyalty to Hitler, was dismissed, and thereafter worked as a lawyer for the Protestant Church. He came from a family of pastors. His father was arrested that same year for writing a critical article. He himself was also active in the internal church opposition. When he received his draft notice in 1940, the staunch pacifist attempted to take his own life. He was shot while fleeing abroad. This was followed by hospitalization and detention by the Gestapo. After a month in the Buchenwald concentration camp, the SS sent him in 1941 to be murdered on a “transport for the disabled” to Pirna-Sonnenstein.
