During the First World War, Johanne Reitze worked as a nurse-carer, looking after the injured and the bereaved. She was a member of the advisory council of the Hamburg war supplies office and of the nutrition committee of the war kitchens. Much later, after the had put an end to her political career, little is known about her activities during the twelve Nazi years. She was one of those persecuted by the Nazis. The attempt, in 1944, to assassinate the leader, failed in its immediate objective but succeeded in badly unnerving the government, which dusted down its old records of pre-1933 political opponents and, on the night of 22/23 August, set out to arrest large numbers of them. Many had gone away or died - often of natural causes - but Johanne Reitze was one of more than four thousand arrested, all over Germany, by the Gestapo and taken into protective custody. She remained in custody till war ended in May 1945 when she was freed by invading allied forces. Her apartment had been destroyed by enemy bombs.