[2][5][3] In 1936, she travelled to Berlin and enrolled at the Seminar für kirchlichen Frauendienst to form her own opinion on the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler after John Churchill praised the German regime.
[6] She worked as the assistant to the reverend Günther Harder in Fehrbellin before being arrested by the Gestapo and was briefly sent to prison in Potsdam for delivering sermons in a car to multiple Confessing Church pastors in Brandenburg.
[5][7] In late 1940, Kohlbrugge became involved in the Lunterse Kring, which called for spiritual resistance against Nazi Germany through the secret distribution of the Bijna te laat pamphlet authored by the theologian Jan Koopmans to Jews in hiding across the occupied Netherlands, encouraging non-cooperation.
She came into contact with Henk van Randwijk [de; nl] of the resistance magazine Vrij Nederland and began smuggling microfilms to neutral Switzerland for the Dutch government-in-exile in London.
Kohlbrugge worked with fellow resistance members and was arrested on a train close to Antwerp on 4 April 1944 with a forged identity card in the name of Christine Doorman to endeavour to contract the Dutch government in London.
[2][6] In August 2009, Kohlbrugge and 80 other Protestant Church in the Netherlands members signed a letter advocating a dialogue with Islam with no obscuring the differences or detracting from Christianity's uniqueness.
[2] Kohlbrugge received the Bronze Lion in 1952,[2] and the American Medal of Freedom with the Silver Palm from the United States Government two years later "for her role in the resistance".
[12][10] On 30 October 1975, she received the Joost van den Vondel Prize [de; fr; nds; nl] from the former West German president Gustav Heinemann in Münster "as a recognition for her pioneering work in bringing people and nations together.
[9][10] In 2013, Kohlbrugge was given the Václav Benda Award in Prague for an individual "who fought for the freedom of the Czech Republic during the Second World War and under the communist regime.