Shortly after the rally, the Bund rapidly declined. Two months after the rally, the film Confessions of a Nazi Spy was released by Warner Brothers, ridiculing the Nazis and their American sympathizers. The Bund also came under investigation. After its financial records were seized in a raid on the group's
Yorkville, Manhattan headquarters, authorities discovered that $14,000 (about $273,000 in 2021) which were raised by the Bund during the rally were unaccounted for, Kuhn had spent them on his mistress and various personal expenses. Kuhn was convicted of
embezzlement and sent to
Sing Sing prison in December 1939.
[2] Kuhn's successor as the Bund's leader was Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, a spy for German military intelligence who fled from the United States in November 1941. However, Mexican authorities forced Kunze to return to the United States, where he was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for
espionage.
[12] The Bund's final national leader was George Froboese, who was in charge of the organization when
Germany declared war on the United States. Froboese committed
suicide in 1942 after he received a
federal grand jury subpoena.
[2]