In the bloody twentieth century, both Arnold Schoenberg and Luigi Nono were faced with various political, sometimes quite toxic ideologies; during their lifetimes, both composers had to experience the devastating impact of wars, with Schoenberg additionally becoming a victim of anti-Semitic Nazism. The central question of this article will be how these circumstances influenced their personal lives and were reflected in their musical works, thematically covering a period from the beginning of the First World War to the various revolutionary ideologies of the late 1960s.