Anton Webern was shot dead by a US Army cook in Mittersill on 15 September 1945, and the record shows no trial

Anton Webern, 61, had left Vienna for Mittersill, where his daughter and son-in-law, Benno Mattel, lived. On the evening of 15 September 1945, US soldiers posing as black-market buyers arrested Mattel for illegal dealing. Webern stepped outside the Mattel house to smoke a cigar, apparently to spare his sleeping grandchildren. Raymond Bell, an army cook from North Carolina, heard footsteps, went outside and fired three shots. Webern said "Es ist aus" ("It is over") and died. Bell said he acted in self-defense. The investigation's translator, Martin Heiman, wrote that nothing beyond the cook's own word showed an attack. Bell was confined to quarters for a period. Neither source found states that he was charged or tried, and none reports compensation to Webern's widow, Wilhelmine^†. Mattel was jailed for one year. Bell went home to Mount Olive, North Carolina, worked as a restaurant cook and died an alcoholic on 3 September 1955. His widow, Helen, said he told her he wished he had not killed that man. Musicologist Hans Moldenhauer went to Mittersill in 1959 and published "The Death of Anton Webern: A Drama in Documents" in 1961. Three bullet holes remain in the house facade near the front door.