The KgU received significant financial support from several Western intelligence agencies as well as the government of West Germany and the Ford Foundation.

According to CIA documents, the KgU ran approximately 500 agents in East Germany in the early 1950s, which, according to historian Enrico Heitzer, put it on par with the Gehlen Organization, the predecessor to the West German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst.

[4] Other activities included collecting data on individuals imprisoned in East Germany and passing it on to their relatives, as well as collecting names of informers to the East German government and passing it on to RIAS, which would then broadcast so-called "snitch reports" in order to silence informers and discourage others from engaging in similar activities.

Infiltration of the KgU by Stasi operatives and the arrest of several of its agents in East Germany eventually caused the group to dissolve in 1959, with many of its records going to the CIA.

Although some KgU members, such as Rainer Hildebrandt and Ernst Tillich, had served time in prison during the Third Reich for anti-Nazi activities, as historian Enrico Heitzer points out, the group also used numerous activists with a Nazi past, many of whom hadn't changed their political views.