October 1941 found Cartellieri complaining in his diary about emigrants, whom he characterised as Germany's "worst enemies" ("die schlimmsten Feinde"). Christian Amalvi, a twenty-first century commentator infers that he was thinking, in particular, of Germany's leading intellectuals, such as Berthold Brecht and Thomas Mann (both of whom are recalled by subsequent generations as high-profile anti-nazis who did indeed escape to the America, respectively in 1933 and 1939). In July 1944 he recorded the assassination attempt against the leader with indignation, condemning the perpetrators; but he also noted with relief (having presumably taken his information from the press reports of the time) that "the leader [had] suffered no serious injuries". After 1942 the possibility that Germany might lose a second "world war" was, for many observers, no longer unthinkable. Even after being told by a recently returned officer just how dire the military situation on the Russian front had become, Cartellieri refused to admit – apparently even to himself – the possibility of defeat. During the final weeks of the war news came through that Walter, his eldest son, had been killed in the fighting in . In his diary entry of 25 March 1945 Cartellieri was still expressing confidence that the tide of the war could be turned through rapid deployment of the new V-2 rockets. In a diary entry on 13 April 1945 he recorded the hope that the recent death of President Roosevelt might foreshadow a miracle equivalent to that resulting from the death of Russia's Empress Elizabeth in 1761, news of which came through in January 1762, and was widely credited with having preserved Prussia from seemingly certain destruction at the end of the "Seven Years' War". Elsewhere, especially during the final months of the war, his diaries compare Hitler to "great men" from the past such as Frederick the Great, Napoleon and Bismarck.