At the district elections on 1 November 1931, the Nazis were the largest party. They filled the post of district chief executive ("Amtshauptmann") on 1 April 1932 and mayor in December 1932. During the Nazi era, Jewish townsfolk were persecuted, expelled and murdered in concentration camps. The Jewish community, which had numbered 150 in the middle of the 19th century, had dwindled by April 1938 to nine. The old synagogue was sold in 1936 to a private owner, so that it was not destroyed by the Nazis. However, the Jewish cemetery was desecrated and destroyed in the November Pogrom of 1938. Since 1961 a memorial has commemorated it. In 1942 there were no Jews left in Waren.