On 20 November 1944, his unit was released from service. Joseph Ratzinger again returned home. After three weeks passed, he was drafted into the German army at Munich and assigned to the infantry barracks in the center of Traunstein, the city near which his family lived. After basic infantry training, he served at various posts around the city with his unit. They were never sent to the front. In late April or early May, shortly before Germany's surrender, he deserted. Desertions were widespread during the last weeks of the war, although deserters were subject to death if caught. However, diminished morale and equally diminished risk of prosecution from a preoccupied and disorganized German military contributed to the growing wave of soldiers looking toward self-preservation. He left the city of Traunstein and headed for his nearby village. "I used a little-known back road hoping to get through unmolested. But, as I walked out of a railroad underpass, two soldiers were standing at their posts, and for a moment the situation was extremely exciting for me. Thank God that they, too, had had their fill of war and did not want to become murderers." They used the excuse of his arm being in a sling to let him go home.