In July 1945 Schreiber was able to return to Münster. The southern part of Germany in which had had been hiding for more than six months had been part of the US occupation zone since May 1945, and his return was mediated through the intervention of the US News agency across the Swiss frontier in Bern. His home in Münster had been badly damaged by Anglo-American aerial bombing, and he lived for the time being in a seminary in the Cathedral Square. It was only when he got back to Münster that he discovered that he had been elected University Rector earlier in the month, at a meeting of a hastily convened "emergency" University Senate, held on 16 July 1945. The senate had met under the chairmanship of the serving rector, the Pathology professor who had been permitted by the British military authorities to retain his office in the immediate aftermath of the war despite his close National Socialist connections during the Hitler years. The other members of the emergency senate were university professors who had all been determined to be "unencumbered" (in the phrase used at the time) by Nazi links. Following election by the university professors, Schreiber's appointment as rector was confirmed by Rudolf Amelunxen who had been installed as First President of the newly reconstituted Province of Westphalia, though Amelunxen written confirmation came through only on 26 October 1945, following formal agreement from the British military administrators. Meanwhile, the university authorities had already, in August 1945, restored his professorship.