Handke was incarcerated initially at . He was moved to Rockenberg in 1936, Butzbach in 1939, to in 1940 and finally to Zwickau in 1944. Unlike many Communist comrades imprisoned under the Nazis, in May 1945 when the war ended Handke was still alive. He was released from the jail in Zwickau by the US 3rd Army which arrived in town on 17 April 1945, and in May Handke was installed by the military administrators as mayor of Zwickau. Zones of occupation in what would remain of Germany had already been agreed between the wartime allies, and the arrival of the Americans in this part of the country ahead of the Soviet army was not something the politicians' plans had anticipated: Handke's home region of Saxony was scheduled to end up in the Soviet occupation zone. At the end of June the Americans withdrew their fighting forces from West Saxony into Bavaria, and on 1 July 1945 Zwickau was occupied by the Red army. Many of the quasi-political appointments made by the Americans in the area were quickly reversed by the Soviet Military Administration, but the Soviets were content to leave the new mayor of Zwickau in his post and in due course to expand his administrative responsibilities in the region, where he became head of the administration in Zwickau-Plauen