After his release, Bohne organized a group of communist athletes from 1939 and joined the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen Group, an anti-Nazi resistance group, in 1941. He was arrested and imprisoned again in 1942, but managed to escape after the bombing of Hamburg in July 1943. On 5 January 1944, three Gestapo officers tried to arrest Bohne in Hamburg; when trying to defend himself, he was shot to death.