Goerdeler managed to escape from Berlin, but he was apprehended on 12 August 1944 after being denounced by an innkeeper named Lisbeth Schwaerzel in Marienwerder (modern Kwidzyn, Poland) while visiting the grave of his parents. After his arrest, eight members of Goerdeler's family were sent to the concentration camps under the "Sippenhaft" law. His brother Fritz was also sentenced to death and executed on 1 March 1945. Under Gestapo interrogation, Goerdeler claimed that the Holocaust was the major reason for his seeking to overthrow the Nazi regime. On 9 September 1944, after a trial at the People's Court, he was sentenced to death. Goerdeler was not physically tortured by the Gestapo, and freely co-operated with the Gestapo in naming names, which made him the object of a considerable hatred from the other prisoners, who saw him as a "spineless rat."