In 1901, aged 16 or 17, Graudenz left the family home after a quarrel with the father, to work in various German cities before travelling to England via Italy, France and Switzerland. In 1924, Graudenz organised a
Steamboat River cruise along the
Volga River along with a group of journalists where they discovered the desolate and famine-stricken state of the Soviet Union.
Red Orchestra of 19 December 1942 In 1938, Graudenz met the Luftwaffe officer and anti-fascist
Harro Schulze-Boysen through his neighbour, the supposed
fortune-teller and
clairvoyant,
Anna Krauss who also owned a lacquer and paint wholesaler. Graudenz became one the members of the anti-fascist resistance group of friends that was led by Schulze-Boysen and that would be later be named by the Gestapo as the
Red Orchestra. Krauss become a core part of the group and used her apartment to host two
mimeograph machines that produced leaflets, with Graudenz running the operation. Graudenz became one of the core members of the group and was considered by Schulze-Boysen as one of his most valuable informants, who had many contacts in the German aviation industry. Shulze-Boysen was keen to inform the Allies. It was through Graudenz that Marcel Melliand, a
left-wing textile magazine owner and businessman with good contacts in Switzerland became known to Schulze-Boysen. Graudenz was the initiator the campaign to post adhesive sticker across five Berlin neighbourhoods containing the message: : Permanent Exhibition : The Nazi Paradise : War, Hunger, Lies, Gestapo : How much longer? ==Death==