His parents' restaurant, Zum Goldenen Stern in the Jakobstrasse, was a popular workers' tavern, having served as a venue for members of the Social-Democratic People Association (an SPD local chapter).

Later on that year he served as an employee in the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs, where he met and later married his second wife, Hedwig Nehrling.

Nehrling also joined the Social-Democratic Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, an organization formed to defend German parliamentary democracy against internal subversion and extremism from both the left and right.

The linen shop Nehrling at the Zeppelinplatz already became known soon after Hitler's seizure of power, the meeting place in the west of Weimar near remaining SPD members.

They formed a political circle, which resumed the discussions, received or exchanged illegal material and organised themselves intent upon resisting the NSDAP and war effort.

Nehrling not only managed to hold the group together, though also maintained contacts to Social Democrats in Berlin, Erfurt and Vienna, in what was deemed a very dangerous risk.

After the Gestapo's discovery of the "New Beginnings" resistance network, individual members such as Nehrling were arrested, leading to the suspension of most of their activities.

Nehrling immediately capitalised upon this opportunity to search forward intelligence regarding the future German assault on the USSR, and aimed for political discussion with his fellow colleagues to obtain more information.

One of his colleagues disclosed the minutes of a discussion with Nehrling, whereby further anti-party expressions were made the day afterwards, which essentially cost his life.

In January Kurt Nehrling was summoned to an interrogation and heard by an SS-Gerichtsoffizier in presence of witnesses, before being arrested the following month on 16 February 1943.

His Weimar lawyer defender, Dr. Friedrich Dearchild, firmly requested a plea deal of two years imprisonment with prosecutors.

In May of 1945 the American commander of the Weimar garrison[2] was travelling along a corner road, in which Kurt Nehrling had used, before somehow crashing his vehicle.

Alikened to other former cell members, the SED celebrated its status in initial hope of drawing more youth recruitment over Nehrling's legacy.