War resumed in September 1939. Tragedy struck in June 1944 when her son was shot near Kishinev for suspected desertion. A few months later his mother was informed by the military high court that this had been a mistake. Maria Reese was also one of several thousand detained by the Gestapo after the failed attempt to assassinate the leader, in a mass round up of people whose names were on Nazi files because they had been politically prominent as opponents of the Nazi Party before 1933. She survived.