The war ended in May 1945, leaving the entire central portion of Germany - including the Hoffmanns' home region of Brandenburg - administered as the Soviet occupation zone. Within the church many of the special arrangements that had operated during the war were rolled back. At the same time, the slaughter of war had left the country desperately short of men of working age, which affected the church just as it affected other sectors. In the Soviet zone the worker shortage was exacerbated by large numbers relocating to the western occupation zones, a trend which accelerated towards the end of the 1940s as the economic and political situations on what were becoming the "two halves of Germany" diverged more starkly. Wilhelm Hoffmann had been captured, and was held as a prisoner of war till 1947. In Eva Hoffmann-Aleith accordingly continued to perform pastoral duties on his behalf during the postwar period. Pastor Wilhelm Hoffmann resumed his ministry in 1948, but later the same year he was suspended from his duties on account of "wartime offences". He crossed over to the west at around the same time that the Soviet occupation zone was relaunched as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The marriage between Wilhelm Hoffmann and Eva Hoffmann-Aleith ended in divorce, formally in 1950.