He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1934, though his citizenship was revoked in 1943 owing to his status as a foreign agent of Nazi Germany.

[1] Kuhn served prison time for larceny and forgery from 1939 to 1943 and, upon release, was immediately interned by the United States government as an enemy agent.

[4][page needed] After the war, he joined the Freikorps and later graduated from the Technical University of Munich with a master's degree in chemical engineering.

[1] He worked at a Ford factory in Detroit before assuming control of the German American Bund in Buffalo, New York, in 1936.

[citation needed] This did not stop Kuhn from fabricating propaganda to his followers once he returned to the United States about how Hitler acknowledged him as the "American Führer".

During Kuhn's speech, a Jewish protester, Isadore Greenbaum, rushed the stage and had to be rescued by police after he was beaten and stripped by stormtroopers.

[24] Despite his convictions for embezzlement, followers of the Bund continued to hold Kuhn in high regard, in line with the Nazi Führerprinzip, which gives the leader absolute power.

[25] In 1940, James Wheeler-Hill, the Secretary of the Bund, was sentenced to one to three years in prison after pleading guilty to perjury for falsely testifying that he was an American citizen at Kuhn's trial.

[1][6] Upon his release after 43 months in prison, Kuhn was re-arrested on June 21, 1943, as an enemy agent and interned by the federal government at a camp in Crystal City, Texas.

"[29] Kuhn wanted to return to the United States, but worked as an industrial chemist in a small chemical factory in Munich.

[31] Kuhn was held in an internment camp at Dachau, awaiting trial before a Bavarian German de-Nazification court.

[32] The Associated Press reported that the trial was carried out entirely by the presentation of documents demonstrating Kuhn's close ties with Hitler's Third Reich and his attempts transplant its ideology into the United States.

"[35] Kuhn said on June 17 that he considered the ten-year sentence as a "major Nazi offender" unfair and that he intended to appeal.

[37] While in prison, Kuhn reportedly sent a message to columnist Walter Winchell, who had helped lead media counterattacks against the Bund back in New York City.