Regardless of Karl Muck's complex personality and his anti-Semitic actions in Europe following World War I, he was, from our present- day point of view, severely mistreated in the United States during the Great War, and his professional reputation, which he had earned and worked so hard to achieve, was repeatedly and often dishonestly assaulted. His personal life became front-page news. Victimized by Lucie Jay and the New York capitalist class, by the American news media, and by the federal government, there was very little that he could do to fight this injustice. “Here in America there is no place for a German,” Muck told a reporter before his deportation. “I never had any idea that such discrimination could take place.” But he was not entirely defeated.

Before Muck was released from the Fort Oglethorpe Internment Camp, he committed an act of rebellion against the federal authorities there. Muck gave an interview to radical journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken, the most renowned political commentator of the era. Mencken was a German sympathizer who mocked the Americanization movement and viewed the world in racial and elitist terms. He recounted his postwar interview with Muck:

While this nude performance appears to be an innocent act of climate control, it also represents a significant act of defiance. One can imagine the musicians seated with their instruments before them, somewhat concealing their genitalia from view. Muck, as the conductor, however, would have stood directly before the entire ensemble, arms outstretched and in full visual display.