In the night of 6–7 March 1945 he was severely wounded by an attack staged by the Dutch resistance at Woeste Hoeve on the Veluwe, a little village between Arnhem and Apeldoorn. In a reprisal organised by SS-Brigadeführer Karl Eberhard Schöngarth, the Germans executed 117 political prisoners at the location of the attack as well as 50 prisoners in Kamp Amersfoort and 40 prisoners each in The Hague and Rotterdam— a total of 263 persons were killed (including one German soldier). This attack had not been planned; the resistance merely wanted to hijack a truck and use it to drive to a farmer who had butchered cows for the German army. Instead of the truck, Rauter's BMW motorcar was stopped by members of the resistance dressed in German uniforms. However, Rauter had just two weeks earlier issued a directive stating that German patrols should not stop any German military vehicles outside towns or villages, and a firefight broke out. His fellow passengers were all killed, but Rauter feigned death and survived. He was found by a German military patrol and transferred to a hospital where he remained until his arrest by British Military Police after the end of hostilities.