Editing Richard Strauss (section)

====Late operas and family tragedy====
[[File:Strauss 1938.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Strauss at Garmisch in 1938]]
Frustrated that he could no longer work with Zweig as his librettist, Strauss turned to [[Joseph Gregor]], a Viennese theatre historian, at Gregor's request. The first opera they worked on together was ''[[Daphne (opera)|Daphne]]'', but it ultimately became the second of their operas to be premiered. Their first work to be staged was in 1938, when the entire nation was preparing for war, they presented ''[[Friedenstag]]'' (''Peace Day''), a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the [[Thirty Years' War]]. The work is essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich. With its contrasts between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has a close affinity with [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s ''[[Fidelio]]''. Productions of the opera ceased shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939. The two men collaborated on two more operas which proved to be Strauss's last: ''[[Die Liebe der Danae]]'' (1940) and ''[[Capriccio (opera)|Capriccio]]'' (1942).<ref name="g1"/>

When his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice was placed under house arrest in [[Garmisch-Partenkirchen]] in 1938, Strauss used his connections in Berlin, including opera-house General Intendant [[Heinz Tietjen]], to secure her safety. He drove to the [[Theresienstadt concentration camp]] to argue, albeit unsuccessfully, for the release of Alice's grandmother, Paula Neumann. In the end, Neumann and 25 other relatives were murdered in the camps.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/arts/music-richard-strauss-and-hitler-s-reich-jupiter-in-hell.html "Music; Richard Strauss and Hitler's Reich: Jupiter in Hell"] by [[Michael Hans Kater]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 6 January 2002</ref> While Alice's mother, Marie von Grab, was safe in Lucerne, Switzerland, Strauss also wrote several letters to the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] pleading for the release of her children who were also held in camps; his letters were ignored.{{sfn|Kennedy|1999|p=339}}

In 1942, Strauss moved with his family back to Vienna, where Alice and her children could be protected by [[Baldur von Schirach]], the [[Gauleiter]] of Vienna. However, Strauss was unable to protect his Jewish relatives completely; in early 1944, while Strauss was away, Alice and her son Franz were abducted by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two nights. Strauss's personal intervention at this point saved them, and he was able to take them back to Garmisch, where the two remained under house arrest until the end of the war.<ref name="g1"/>