After 1936, also for financial reasons, he tried to re-establish himself with tonality music to regain a foothold. He withdrew the performance of his "Two Pieces for Clarinet and Piano" (1931) in 1937 at the World Music Days of the International Society for New Music (IGNM). However, he had his "Three Pieces for String Orchestra" (c. 1936/37) played at an event of the "Permanent Council for the International Cooperation of Composers", a National Socialist-dominated counter-organisation to the IGNM, in Winterthur. In 1940, his "plot ballet" "Andreasnacht" was premiered in Essen under Winfried Zillig - although the music, according to Zillig, "looked very blatantly like jazz", the performance was a success. In 1941, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht to guard British prisoner of wars and transferred to Poznań. There, he composed the "Kinderstücke" for piano and a serenade (lost). Shortly before the end of the war in 1945, he was killed by a Soviet shell during the Battle of Poznań. He was aged 43.