1939 –District Attorney’s Thomas E. Dewey’s indictment of Fritz Kuhn, the leader of the German-American Bund, on charges of embezzlement which resulted in his conviction and incarceration at Sing-Sing prison following an investigation ordered by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia

New York, 1939. Staplebound wraps. Very good. This typed carbon copy indictment of Fritz Kuhn contains nine pages measuring 8” x 13” including its original, lightly stained, trifold document cover. Although undated, it was issued on 25 May 1939 by a New York Grand Jury. It details 12 counts of Grand Larceny and Forgery related to his embezzlement of $14,548 from the German-American Bund, an organization associated with Germany’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party, and its affiliated German-American Settlement League. Three counts are annotated “Severed to be tried later” in red pencil. . Kuhn, a German immigrant, became a naturalized citizen in 1934 and (truncated) the leader of the German-American Bund in 1936.

He was convicted of Dewey’s charges, sentenced to two and a half to five years, and incarcerated at Sing Sing prison. The notoriety is said to have infuriated Adolf Hitler, who had ordered Kuhn to avoid more negative publicity that might have jeopardized U.S. neutrality after he had already held the infamous German-American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden earlier in the year.

After Kuhn, whose citizenship was revoked, was released from Sing Sing, he was interned at Crystal City, Texas as a foreign agent until he was deported back to Germany in 1945 where his internment continued at the Hohenasperg Fortress near Stuttgart. While interned, he was rearrested, tried, and convicted under Germany’s denazification laws after which he was imprisoned at Dachau. Kuhn died from unknown causes at Munich in 1951.

(For more information, see Bailey’s “Made in America: Americans in Support of the Nazi Cause” at the HistoryNet website and “Fritz Kuhn Death in 1951 Revealed” in the 2 February 1953 edition of the New York Times.)

Perhaps the only extant example. From the estate of Gunther Reinhardt, journalist, and FBI informant. At the time of listing, no other examples are for sale in the trade, and no other examples have appeared at auction per the Rare Book Hub. OCLC shows no institutional holdings. . (Inventory #: 010410)