Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ernst Karl Winter

Ernst Karl Winter was born into a wealthy, middle-class family. After graduating from grammar school in Vienna-Währing, he volunteered for the Tyrolean Imperial Rifle Regiment No. II (part of the Imperial-Royal Army) in 1914. As Ernst Karl Winter refused to fight a duel, he was unable to become an officer.

After the war, Ernst Karl Winter first studied at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Vienna (Dr. iur. 1922), where he joined the Nibelungia student fraternity. He also studied sociology and history at the Faculty of Philosophy there, but did not graduate.

In 1918/19, Ernst Karl Winter became a convinced legitimist, finding an intellectual home at the Nibelungia and also an intellectual companion in August Maria Knoll, who joined a year and a half later.

After completing his studies - he was prevented from doing an additional doctorate in history - Ernst Karl Winter lived as a freelance publicist and private scholar and did not always develop "conformist" ideas.

Ernst Karl Winter could not be categorized politically and saw himself as a bridge builder to social democracy. He worked as a freelance journalist and publisher.

A few days before the Anschluss, Ernst Karl Winter sought talks with the Social Democrats and was able to emigrate to the USA via Switzerland, France and England shortly before March 11, 1938. In New York, he gathered together the Austrians in exile (President of the "Austro American Center") and was appointed Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York.

After attempts to return after 1945 initially failed, Ernst Karl Winter only moved to Vienna in 1955. There he habilitated in sociology at the University of Vienna in the same year.

Ernst Karl Winter was one of the most original Austrian visionary thinkers of his time, who anticipated many things and influenced many. However, some of his ideas and approaches, such as his legitimism or parts of his social philosophy, can no longer be communicated. The organ of the SPÖ, the "Arbeiter-Zeitung", wrote on his death on February 6, 1959: "The personally likeable, modest man has earned the appreciative memory of all democrats."

Winter was buried in the Vienna-Gersthof cemetery. There is an Ernst-Karl-Winter-Weg named after him in Vienna's 19th district (connecting Sieveringer Straße and Nottebohmstraße).