Editing Anton Webern (section)

====Austrian defeat and socioeconomic strain====
During and after the end of the war, Webern, like other Austrians, contended with food shortages, insufficient heating, socioeconomic volatility, and geopolitical disaster in defeat.{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=279}} He had considered retreating to the countryside and purchasing a farm since 1917, specifically as an asset better than [[war bonds]] at shielding his family's wealth from inflation.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=221–226}} (In the end, he lost all that remained of his family's wealth to [[Hyperinflation#Austria|hyperinflation]] by 1924.){{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=279}} He proposed to Schoenberg that they might be [[smallholder]]s together.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=221–226}}

Despite Schoenberg's and his father's advice that he not quit conducting, Webern followed to Schoenberg to Mödling in early 1918, hoping to be reunited with his mentor and to compose more.{{sfnm|Bailey Puffett|1998|1loc=90–91|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|2loc=221–226|Moskovitz|2010|3loc=139–140}} But Webern's finances were so poor that he soon explored a "voluntary exile" to Prague again.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=221–226}} Nonetheless, he continued to raise funds, including his own, for Schoenberg,{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=221–226}} with whom he spent every day.{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=91}}

Yet soon after he arrived, Webern broke his friendship with Schoenberg.{{sfnm|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|1loc=221–226|Muxeneder|2019|2loc=169–170, quoting Berg|Shreffler|1999|3loc=279–280}}{{efn|Berg himself experienced breaks in his friendship with Schoenberg,{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=224}} who could be overbearing.{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=37}} When Webern broke his friendship with Berg (1915–1916), he cited Schoenberg's influence in the matter.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=219, quoting Webern}}}} The break was multifactorial{{sfn|Muxeneder|2019|loc=169–170, quoting Berg}} but involved Webern's dissatisfaction with his career{{sfn|Shreffler|1999|loc=279–280}} and financial turmoil.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=224–225}} Berg learned of the Weberns' ill temperaments and "latent antisemitism" from Schoenberg,{{sfnm|Bailey Puffett|1998|1loc=94|Muxeneder|2019|2loc=169–170, quoting Berg}}{{efn|Schoenberg's son-in-law {{ill|Felix Greissle|de}} also recalled Webern's labile antisemitism, contextualizing it as part of Webern's vacillating resentment and respect toward Schoenberg{{sfn|Muxeneder|2019|loc=169–170, quoting Greissle}} while also noting that Schoenberg had [[Internalization (sociology)|internalized]] some antisemitism ("mildly" antisemitic jokes were common in Schoenberg's home, Greissle's son George recalled, which Julie Brown contextualized as "unexceptional").{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=42, 56–90, 174, 186–187, 209n34}} Schoenberg was self-conscious of his Jewish and [[Social class|class background]], having confronted antisemitism in reading [[Otto Weininger]].{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=42, 56–90, 104–105, 174, 186–187, 209n34}} He repeatedly engaged with [[controversies surrounding Richard Wagner]], who he also read and whose possible Jewish lineage interested him.{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=42, 56–90, 104–105, 174, 186–187, 209n34}} He contended with Wagnerian charges as to Jewish artists' creative inabilities.{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=42, 56–90, 104–105, 174, 186–187, 209n34}} While working on ''[[Die Jakobsleiter]]'' on family holiday at [[Mattsee]] in summer 1921, Schoenberg was given notice that all Jews should leave the town, angering him and sparking his return from Protestantism to [[Judaism]].{{sfnm|Brown|2014|1loc=42, 56–90, 174, 186–187, 209n34|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|2loc=238–239}} In response, [[Wassily Kandinsky]] wrote to him from the [[Bauhaus]] in 1923, "I reject you as a Jew. ... Better to be a human being".{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=42, 56–90, 174, 186–187, 209n34}} Schoenberg responded, "what is anti-Semitism to lead to if not to acts of violence?"{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=42, 56–90, 174, 186–187, 209n34}}}} and noted that Schoenberg "wouldn't explain" further than "'Webern wants to go to Prague again'".{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=91}} Bailey Puffett argued that Webern's actions in and after the 1930s suggested that he was not antisemitic, at least in his maturity.{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=28, 173–174}} She noted that Webern later wrote Schoenberg that he felt "a sense of the most vehement aversion" against German-speaking people who were.{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=153}}

After meeting with Webern, Berg saw "the matter in a different light", considering Webern "by and large innocent" in light of what Webern said was Schoenberg's "kick in the teeth": after laying plans for a New Music society, Schoenberg angrily called Webern "secretive and deceitful" upon learning that Webern was instead considering Prague again.{{sfnm|Bailey Puffett|1998|1loc=92|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|2loc=221–226}} They reconciled in October 1918, not long before Webern's father died in 1919.{{sfnm|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|1loc=225|Muxeneder|2019|2loc=169–170|Shreffler|1999|3loc=279–280}} Webern was changed by these events; he slowly began to grow more independent of Schoenberg, who was like a father to him.{{sfnm|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|1loc=163, 225, 343|Shreffler|1999|2loc=279–280}} For his part, Schoenberg was not infrequently dubious of Webern, who he still considered his closest friend.{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=104–106}}{{efn|In and after the 1930s, Schoenberg worried that adherents to [[Aryanism]] would deny his standing as the originator of twelve-tone technique, writing that Webern might "someday use his chance ... of the Aryan against the Jew" and that "[[Josef Matthias Hauer|[Josef Matthias] Hauer]] ... does the same".{{sfn|Brown|2014|loc=104–106}}}}