The agency provided him with an income. In the words of one source, Schwab and Jung also "used [the agency] as a cover for [unspecified] underground political activity". It is not entirely clear when Alexander Schwab took over the national leadership of the shadowy . On at least one occasion, early in 1936 he crossed the border to Prague in order to arrange the production of a Rote Kämpfer news sheet. While in Prague he received warnings not to return to Germany. He nevertheless returned to Berlin and, if he had not done so already, became the Rote Kämpfer national leader. In the context of a wider round-up of the organisation's leadership, Alexander Schwab's office was surrounded by Nazi paramilitaries on 17 November 1936 and he was arrested. In the interrogations that followed he was badly tortured. At the session that took place on 21 November 1936 he was keen to take full responsibility for the on his own shoulders. He was, in particularly, determined to minimise the culpability attaching to Karl Schröder, Franz Jung and, in particular, the younger members of the leadership team. It is one mark of his success that both Schröder and Jung survived long enough to outlive the Nazi régime. Jung, indeed, was released almost at once, and able to escape, via Prague, to Budapest. After about a year of "investigative detention", six members of the leadership, identified in the record as "Schwab and comrades" (""Schwab und Genossen""), faced trial before the "second senate" of the special "People's Court" in Berlin on 28, 29 and 30 October 1937. One of the defendants, Karl Schröder, later shared some memories of the trial. The three judges did not appear to have backgrounds in the justice system. The third of them was a teacher who attempted to calculate a sentence for one of the defendants. He appeared unaware of the requirement to take account of pre-trial detention already served, but then wanted to reduce the sentence because the man to be sentenced had done some teaching, which sounded to him like a mitigating factor. When it was Schröder's own turn to testify he found himself talking about a public meeting at which he had talked about "generational issues" (""Generationsfrage ""). His testimony had to be paused while a colleague explained to the leading judge, "he means, sort of, between young and old" (""Er meint, so zwischen jung und alt."").