Editing Anton Webern (section)

====Wartime hopes and reality====
Sharing in wartime public sentiment at the height of Hitler's popularity (spring 1940), Webern expressed high hopes, crediting him as "unique" and ''"singular"''{{efn|Webern emphasized.}} for "the new state for which the seed was laid twenty years ago". These were patriotic letters to Joseph Hueber, an active soldier, [[baritone]], close friend, and [[mountaineering]] companion who often sent Webern gifts.{{sfnm|Bailey Puffett|1998|1loc=86, 166–175|Johnson|1999|2loc=219–222|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|3loc=XI, 18, 283, 292, 333, 337, 339, 345, 356, 370, 372, 416–417, 448, 467, 517, 525–533, 538–539, 544–548, 550, 552, 555, 569, 573–575, 578, 591, 641–643|Ross|2007|4loc=352}} Indeed, Hueber had just sent Webern ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.{{efn|Webern's immediate reply (March 1940) was: "I ... with reference ... to my ... experiences ... wondered how such opposites could have become possible next to each other."{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=526}}}}

Unaware of [[Stefan George]]'s aversion to the Nazis, Webern reread ''{{ill|Das neue Reich (George)|lt=Das neue Reich|de|Das neue Reich (George)|display=1}}'' and marveled suggestively at the wartime leader envisioned therein, but "I am not taking a position!" he wrote active soldier, singer, and onetime Social Democrat, Hans Humpelstetter.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=527–530}} For Johnson, "Webern's own image of a {{lang|de|neue Reich}} was never of this world; if his politics were ultimately complicitous it was largely because his [[utopian]] apoliticism played so easily into ... the [[status quo]]."{{sfn|Johnson|1999|loc=221}}

By Aug. 1940, Webern depended financially on his children.{{sfnm|Bailey Puffett|1998|1loc=86, 166|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|2loc=522–523}} He sought wartime emergency relief funds from {{lang|de|Künstlerhilfe Wien|italic=no}} and the {{lang|de|[[Reichsmusikkammer]]|italic=no}} {{ill|Künstlerdank|de}} (1940–1944), which he received despite indicating non-membership in the Nazi Party on an application.{{sfnm|Bailey Puffett|1998|1loc=168-172|Kater|1997|2loc=74|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|3loc=544–545}} Whether Webern ever [[Party identification#Party membership|joined]] the party was unknown.{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=166-172}}{{efn|In the tradition of parties seeking a dues-paying mass membership, formal NSDAP affiliation could oblige one to pay registration fees or [[Political finance#Sources of funds|dues]], or even to labor.{{sfn|Turner|1985|loc=59–60, 113–124, 157, 292–293, 347, 403}} Nazis dissuaded some prospective members from formal affiliation as a strategic matter.{{sfn|Turner|1985|loc=143–144, 347–349}}}} This represented his only income after 1942.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=544–545}} He nearly exhausted his savings by 1944.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=544–545}}

His 1943–1945 letters were strewn with references to bombings, death, destruction, privation, and the disintegration of local order, but several grandchildren were born.{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=183}} In Dec. 1943, aged 60, he wrote from a [[barrack]] that he was working 6&nbsp;am–5&nbsp;pm as an air-raid protection police officer, [[conscripted]] into the [[war effort]].{{sfn|Bailey Puffett|1998|loc=183}} He corresponded with Willi Reich about [[Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Neue Musik|IGNM-Sektion Basel]]'s concert marking his sixtieth, in which [[Paul Baumgartner]] played Op. 27, Walter Kägi <!-- note: prob brother of composer Werner Kaegi but no access to the ed of the R Lexicon in the WK article to ver --> Op. 7, and [[August Wenzinger]] Op. 11. Gradmann-Lüscher sang both Opp. 3 and the world premiere of 23.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=553–554}} For Schoenberg's 70th birthday (1944), Webern asked Reich to convey "my most heartfelt remembrances, ... longing! ... hopes for a happy future!"{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=592}} In Feb. 1945, Webern's only son Peter, intermittently conscripted since 1940,{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=526, 552}} was killed in an air attack; airstrike sirens interrupted the family's mourning at the funeral.{{sfn|Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer|1978|loc=600–603}}