Busch. Krauss's own position on National Socialism was unclear, although he did enjoy a close relationship with government official Alfred Frauenfeld and it has been claimed that he sought Party membership in 1933. However, throughout the 1930s he and his wife were involved in helping Jews escape from Germany. After befriending British novelist Ida Cook and her sister Mary, both opera fans, he gave cover to their smuggling operation (started after Viorica asked the Cooks to assist a Jewish friend). Munich Opera House shows were arranged around the times and cities that the Cooks needed to make contact with escapees. In 1937, he was appointed Intendant of the National Theatre Munich following Hans Knappertsbusch's resignation. He became a close friend of Richard Strauss, and even wrote the libretto for his opera Capriccio which he premiered in Munich in 1942. He also conducted the premieres of Strauss's operas Friedenstag and Die Liebe der Danae. During the early 1940s, he taught at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg where among his pupils was composer Roman Toi. After the Munich opera house had been destroyed by Allied bombing, Krauss returned to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in 1944-45 until it ceased activities shortly before the end of World War II. After the war, Allied officials investigated his career and forbade him from appearing in public until 1947, when it emerged that he had helped Jews escape from the Third Reich. Krauss then resumed conducting many of the Vienna Philharmonic's concerts, including its famous annual New Year's Day pops concerts featuring Johann and Josef Strauss waltzes, overtures and polkas, many of which were recorded for Decca along with other studio recordings of mostly Johann, Josef and Richard Strauss. He conducted opera at Covent Garden in London starting in 1951, and at the 1953 Bayreuth Festival (including an impressive Wagner Ring cycle now available on CD, starring Astrid Varnay as Brunnhilde). He also recorded a highly regarded Parsifal at Bayreuth, starring Martha Mödl as Kundry, in 1953, at the height of Mödl's brief prime. He died in 1954 (the same year as Wilhelm Furtwangler) while on tour with the Vienna Philharmonic in Mexico City, and is buried alongside his wife, singer Viorica Ursuleac, who died in 1985, in Ehrwald, Austria. Krauss made relatively few recordings; they include his 1950 Decca rendition of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, with the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera star soloists (not