Robert Peters doesn't believe that Webern went through a Nazi phase:

>...I am sorry but it is nonsense to say this about Webern whose avantgarde
>compositions brought him disdain by the Nazis.  Webern worked for the
>Singverein and the Vienna Workers Symphony Concerts till 1934, both
>organizations sponsored by the Social Democratic Party....

I can understands Robert Peters' indignation because it reflects
received wisdom.  But the circumstantial evidence Robert Peters cites
is unfortunately merely a truncated version of reality.  The truth seems
to be that Webern was a Nazi party member from some time in the thirties
unto the party's end.  It's also true that he is never known to have
flaunted his membership.  The received wisdom, that he was a naif when
it came to politics, is nothing but a charitable way of thumbnailing his
record.  It's true that he was associated with musical organizations
that were close to the Social Democrats.  But it also seems to be true
that he collaborated in at least one musical venture associated with the
Christian Socials, the Social Democrats' enemies.  There's documentation
on that and a fast sampling of it is available at
www.wiener-symphoniker.at/gesch/ge020301d.htm

He had no profound ideological bond with the Socialists though he had a
formal one with the National Socialists.  In the event when maneuvering
in politics, Webern played the field.  His connection with the Nazis is
a finding I ran into when, right after WWII, I served in the US Army in
Austria.  Webern was shot to death by a G.I. The murder occurred in the
American Zone of occupation and thus was investigated by us.  I was in
the section of the headquarters of the U.S. Forces in Austria that
conducted liaison with the Austrian government.  We thus got to see what
was reported by investigators and part of it concerned Webern's political
background.  The dossier contained evidence that he had been a longtime
member of the National Socialist Party--and never mind the party's
attitude towards his kind of music.Later on, as I worked as a foreign
correspondent in Central Europe and Germany I repeatedly got corroboration
from Austrian sources, even when niot specifically seeking it.  Thing
is, that association with totalitarian regimes tends in general to be a
widespread and very often clandestine.  And symbiosis between ideological
enemies was also not rare.  In the days of the Dollfuss/ Schuschnigg
regime it was not unusual for Nazis and Sozis to fraternize.  In many
cases this came to pass as they shared prison cells.  Bruno Kreisky's
biography, that of a late (Jewish) Social Democratic chancellor, bears
that out demonstratively.  Oh, and as to the chameleon aspects of life
in inter-war Austria there's to be cited the longtime predisposition for
an Anschluss with Germany of that icon of Social Democracy, (sometime
Bundespraesident) Karl Renner, as well as the country' leading novelist,
Robert Musil.  Unlike Webern, those two at least had the wit to think
better of it after the ascent to power of Adolf Hitler.

Denis Fodor