The Bund was originally two organizations established in the US in the 1920s. The NSDAP and the Free Society of Teutonia were small groups with only a few hundred members. NSDAP member Heinz Sponknobel eventually consolidated the two groups and created "The Friends of New Germany."
Soon after their formation, the Friends came under attack from two fronts. The first was a Jewish boycott of German goods in the heavily German community of Yorkville, New York. The friends tried to counter this boycott using propaganda and intimidation. The second problem for the American Nazis came from Jewish congressman Samuel Dickstein, who headed an investigation against them. An internal battle was fought for control of the Friends and in 1934, Sponknobel was ousted as leader. At the same time, the Dickstein investigation concluded that the Friends supported a branch of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany in America.
After the investigation, Hitler ordered all German nationals to withdraw from the Friends. On March 19, 1936, Hitler placed US citizen Fritz Kuhn at the head of the party in order to make Americans respond more positively.
The name Friends of the New Germany was changed to The German-American Bund (Bund meaning federation).
After taking over, Kuhn began to attract attention to the Bund through propaganda film strips which outlined the Bund's views. Later that year in 1936, Kuhn with some 50 fellow Nazis boarded a boat to Germany, hoping to receive official recognition from Hitler during the Berlin Olympics. Unfortunately for Kuhn, he was probably the last person Hitler wanted to meet, because Hitler wanted his American Nazis to remain non-aggressive and work quietly.