Dissel's began working as a newspaper photographer in the late 1920s. After the Nazis' rise to power, he became a member of an antifascist group headed by Harro Schulze-Boysen, and was involved in the resistance newspaper Wille zum Reich.[1] Dissel was caught and imprisoned from 1937 to 1939.[2] During his time in prison, the Gestapo arranged for Boysen to visit him, in the hope that something incriminating would be said while the two would be left alone in a tapped room; Boysen passed a cigaret