The next month, in January 1933, the NSDAP (Nazi Party) took power and lost little time in creating a one-party state out of what had previously been an increasingly fractious multi-party democracy in Germany.

[1] He was sent for trial at the recently created People's Court in Berlin in July 1935 and sentenced to ten years imprisonment for "high treason".

[2] On 30 July 1946 the German Interior Administration (DVdI / Deutsche Verwaltung des Innern [de]) was created in the Soviet occupation zone with responsibilities that included the national coordination of the new police service.

The President of the East German DVdI was the former Police Chief from Thuringia, a man called Erich Reschke [de].

In October 1949 he moved to the Party's Central Academy at Privolsk in the Soviet Union where he undertook twelve months of special training.

There followed another interlude in the Soviet Union where from 1955 till 1957 he attended the General Staff Academy in Moscow and ended up with a degree in Military Sciences.

Kurt Wagner lived in Strausberg till his death in July 1989, a few months before the German Democratic Republic which he had served over more than four decades ceased to exist as a separate state.