The young Protestant theologian Heinz Heinrich Welke joined the Confessional Church in 1934, resulting in repeated difficulties with the church leadership and the Nazi regime.

While staying in Davos for health reasons in 1940, he made contact to the World Council of Churches’ refugee commission in Geneva. In 1942 he took over as a substitute for Pastor Otto Fricke at the Holy Trinity Church in Frankfurt-Bockenheim. Through Fricke, he met a friend of his, the medical doctor Fritz Kahl. The two men came to trust each other. Together with Kahl and his wife Margarete, Welke sought ways for Frankfurt Jews to escape to Switzerland. When Eva Müller and Robert Eisenstädt made a successful escape, they went to Geneva with a recommendation from Welke and received support. The pastor was presumably able to help other persecuted Jews in the same way.