during the war she worked as a medical assistant at the in berlin between 1915 and 1916. in 1916 she obtained a position as press agency secretary, work with which she continued till 1921. during the revolutionary period that followed the war she was contributing to the journal "russische korrespondenz", and she was also working as a secretary for the communist workers' party, a breakaway grouping founded in april 1920 by franz jung (together with alexander schröder, alexander schwab and bernhard reichenbach) as part of the bewildering political splintering that was a feature of left-wing politics in germany at the time.