Already in 1944 was meeting regularly with of the Communist Party. Military defeat had been on the horizon ever since Germany's catastrophic military reverses at Stalingrad in 1942/43, and the men's conspiratorial meetings presumably included discussions of possible post-war options. Those meetings may also have played their part in persuading Adolf and Ella Ehlers to rejoin the Communist Party after War ended and the National Socialist dictatorship ended in May 1945. With no way of immediately organising elections in the rubble of the German cities and towns, The western occupying powers were nevertheless keen to restore the pre-Hitler democratic intuitions with a power balance that should as far as possible (and with the exception of National Socialist representation) reflect the political power balance in &lt;a href="November%201932%20German%20federal%20election"&gt;1932/&lt;/a&gt;, which was the last time that broadly democratic elections had taken place in a democratic Germany. In Bremen and were nominated to represent the Communist Party in the Senate of Bremen. Adolf Ehlers continued to serve in the senate .