As Speer had instructed, Wolters set up a small office in the North German town of Höxter with Lübke, who knew the town's mayor. The new office was soon commissioned to rebuild a bridge which had been destroyed, contrary to Speer's instructions to preserve infrastructure. Later in 1945, the office was dissolved, and Wolters returned to his hometown of Coesfeld where he had been commissioned to rebuild the ruined city. Lübke instead turned to politics, rising quickly through the political ranks of postwar Germany. In 1959, Lübke became President of the Federal Republic of Germany, a position in which he served almost ten years before he resigned over questions about what he may have known about forced labor while working in Speer's department.