During the First World War, he was a medical officer, and continued publishing papers, mostly on human female physiology.

"[5] When Nazis assumed power in Germany, Gräfenberg, a Jew, was forced in 1933 to resign as head of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics in the Berlin-Britz municipal hospital.

On 9 November 1938, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Landgericht Berlin and received a large fine for this alleged offense.

[7][8] In 1893 the family moved to Göttingen, where Ernst attended the municipal high school, or Gymnasium, later known as the Max-Planck-Gymnasium [de].

[1][9] He died largely unnoticed on 28 October 1957 in New York City, but the Jewish weekly Aufbau published an obituary.