He emigrated to the United States in , and became a naturalized citizen in Abandoning the style and subject matter of his earlier work, he exhibited regularly and taught for many years at the Art Students League of New York.
In he returned to Berlin, where he died shortly afterwards. His parents were devoutly Lutheran. In November Grosz volunteered for military service, in the hope that by thus preempting conscription he would avoid being sent to the front. In January Grosz was drafted for service, but in May he was discharged as permanently unfit.
He was arrested during the Spartakus uprising in January , but escaped using fake identification documents. In he married Eva Peters. In the same year he published a collection of his drawings, titled Gott mit uns "God with us" , a satire on German society.
Grosz was accused of insulting the army , which resulted in a German Mark fine and the confiscation of the plates used to print the album. Upon their arrival in Murmansk they were briefly arrested as spies; after their credentials were approved, they were allowed to continue their journey. He rejected the concept of "proletarian culture", arguing that the term proletarian meant uneducated and uncultured.
He regarded artistic talent as a "gift of the muses", which a person may be lucky enough to be born with. Grosz's six-month stay in the Soviet Union left him unimpressed by what he had seen. According to Grosz's son Martin Grosz , during the s Nazi officers visited Grosz's studio looking for him, but because he was wearing a working man's apron Grosz was able to pass himself off as a handyman and avoid being taken into custody.
