The couple had a foster-son, Horst Schmidt, who refused to do military service because of his Jehovah's Witness beliefs.

Zehden hid Horst and two of his companions who were also refusing to do military service, but they were discovered and all four were sentenced to death.

Zehden was sentenced to death for undermining of military strength in connection with treasonous favoritism of the enemy,[5] and although Zehden appealed for clemency she was also beheaded, on 9 June 1944 in Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

[6] Horst was not executed, and married a Jehovah's Witness who had survived a concentration camp.

Her foster-son Horst Schmidt wrote Death always came on Mondays : persecuted for refusing to serve in the Nazi army : an autobiography and described as giving "insight into Horst's forster-mother Emmy Zehden's remarkable life".