[2] In the final days of Nazi Germany as Soviet forces took Berlin, he was appointed Propaganda Minister in the Goebbels cabinet by Hitler's Testament of 29 April 1945.

After the suicide of Goebbels on 1 May, new Reich President Karl Dönitz asked Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk to form a new cabinet.

[7] It is in part due to rumors later spread by Naumann that the belief arose that Martin Bormann had survived the Second World War.

[8] After Germany's defeat, Naumann lived under an assumed name for five years and worked as a farm worker, later completing an apprenticeship as a mason.

[2] Naumann soon began making contact with other former Nazi functionaries politically active on the far-right, including Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Ernst Achenbach, Artur Axmann, Otto Skorzeny and many others.

Naumann, together with six co-conspirators, was arrested by the British Army on 15 January 1953 for being the leader of a Neo-Nazi group that attempted to infiltrate West German political parties.

Naumann was turned over to the German authorities on 1 April and, after over six months in custody, was released from pre-trial detention on 28 July 1953 by a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court at Karlsruhe.

[10] On 5 August 1953, barely a week after his release, Naumann declared his intention to run for a seat in the Bundestag as a candidate of the right-wing Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP), which had benefited heavily from the banning of the Socialist Reich Party the previous year.

[11] However, on 23 August, just two weeks before the election, the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, acting as a denazification tribunal, classified him as a Category II offender.

[12] The criminal investigation continued and, at its conclusion on 29 June 1954, the German prosecutors determined that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution of Naumann on charges of leading an unconstitutional organization.