Her third husband, the university lecturer and author Herbert Crüger, became caught up in the political persecution that was a feature of East Germany in the 1950s. In 1956, he was overheard criticising the arrest of Bernhard Steinberger in the aftermath of the remarkable party conference of the Soviet Communist Party. In March 1958 Crüger was himself arrested by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). At a secret trial in December 1958 he was found guilty of "high treason" ("schweren Staatsverrats") and sentenced to an eight-year jail term. In the end he was released in 1961 and rehabilitated by the High Court in May 1990.