During the winter of 1939, New York's District Attorney, Thomas E. Dewey, already famous for breaking up New York's underworld rackets, set his sights on Kuhn. Dewey uncovered evidence that Kuhn had embezzeled money from the Bund. To the Bund, Kuhn was their Fuehrer and could do no wrong; they refused to prosecute. Nevertheless, Dewey charged Kuhn with forgery and larceny, winning a conviction that sent Kuhn to Sing Sing prison on December 6, 1939.
The Bund annointed other leaders, but by this time the war in Europe had begun and most Americans, including the isolationist, found Hitler and anything connected with him as vile and evil. With added pressure from the House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activites, the Bund withered away. They disbanded shortly after Hilter's declartion of War on the United States in December 1941.
On the night of the Washington's Birthday Bund meeting, 1,000 German-Americans gathered together in the Bronx to protest the Bund. That small group was far more representative of the millions of German-American citizens and aliens in 1939 America than the loud, garish, goose-stepping mob at the Garden.
Sources: America's Nazis: A Democratic Dilemma: A History of the German American Bund, Susan Canedy; The Nazi Movement in the United States, 1924-1941, Sander A. Diamond; New York Times; Newsweek.
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