Unlike Melchior, she defended Flagstad when she was accused of not speaking out about the Nazi occupation of Norway. After retirement from the opera stage, Karin Branzell taught at the Juilliard School in New York, and gave a number of lieder recitals. She died in Altadena, California, on 15 December 1974, aged 81. Her death was due to an embolism while recovering from a pelvic fracture. Karin Branzell made a number of recordings of opera, operetta and lieder, and she appears on The Record of Singing. As part of her performances at the Metropolitan Opera, she was captured by those who recorded the broadcasts. She appears in a complete "Das Rheingold" with Friedrich Schorr under Artur Bodanzky in 1937. That same year she appeared in "Lohengrin" with René Maison and Kirsten Flagstad with the Met Orchestra under Maurice Abravanel. In 1939 she appeared Magdalena in "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" with Schorr and Charles Kullman, with the Met Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf (9 days after Bodanzky's death). She also recorded a program of lieder with the baritone Mack Harrell, father of the cellist Lynn Harrell.