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Winter, Ernst Karl (EN)#

EKW
Ernst Karl Winter

* 09. 01. 1895, Vienna

† 02. 04. 1959, Vienna

Sociologist and politician (Fatherland Front)
Writer, private scholar, and committed Catholic

--> Zur deutschen Version wechseln

Ernst Karl Winter - Photo: ONB
Ernst Karl Winter - Photo: ONB


Ernst Karl Winter was born into a middle-class family in Vienna on September 1, 1895.

During his school years he joined the Catholic youth movement of Anton Orel, whose idea of an anti-capitalist and monarchical corporative state made a strong impression on him.

EKW
Beim Militär
After graduating from high school in 1914, he enlisted as a one-year volunteer for military service and met Engelbert Dollfuß as a comrade in his regiment of Tyrolean Imperial Riflemen, with whom he remained on friendly terms throughout his life. He was denied a career as an officer because, as an active Catholic, he refused to fight a duel to which a German nationalist officer had challenged him for an article that was too loyal to the Kaiser.

After military service, Winter returned to Vienna in 1920 and began studying law, political science, sociology, and history at the University of Vienna. He graduated in 1922 with a doctorate under Hans Kelsen, Othmar Spann, and Max Adler. However, his habilitation, a post doctoral lecture qualification on Rudolf IV the Founder and the Austrian idea of the state, failed due to the German nationalist climate at the university - he was unwilling to write an article for the far-right Deutschösterreichische Tages-Zeitung (DÖTZ).

He subsequently lived as a freelance publicist and private scholar. He criticized the swing of the bourgeois camp toward the Republic and oriented himself toward the ideals of "Austrian nation" and "Austrian neutrality." In general, Winter's publications were characterized by his Catholic faith, his Platonic philosophy, and his early political line against National Socialism. Ernst Karl Winter was an advocate of a "social monarchy" and one of the first proponents of environmental protection.

His ideas influenced, among others, the sociologist August Maria Knoll, the founder of the Paneuropa movement, Richard Nikolaus Graf von Coudenhove-Kalergi, and the publicist Alfred Missong.\ In 1926, the "Austrian Action" was founded (by Hans Zeßner-Spitzenberg, Ernst Karl Winter, August M. Knoll and Alfred Missong), which propagated, among other things, the independence of an Austrian nation. Winter's motto was "stand on the right and think on the left" (this motto was later formative for left-wing Catholicism after 1945).

In 1930, Ernst Karl Winter used a small inheritance to found Gsur & Co. Verlag and was able to self-publish his works - initially treatises on church personalities, and later sociological and political writings. From 1933, the "Wiener Politische Blätter" appeared here, the first edition of which was already banned in Germany.

EKW
EKW ca. 1922
He was a convinced legitimist who rejected the Republic and also the "Anschluss," the annexation of Austria to Germany. His consistent advocacy of democracy and the rule of law led to his demand for the involvement of social democracy in the political life of the 1930s. In 1933, in open letters, he called on President Wilhelm Miklas to take action against the elimination of Parliament.
But after February 12, 1934, he swung to Dollfuß's line and tried to help the Social Democracy gain its rights after all; he also demanded an amnesty for the Socialist Schutzbündler who had been sentenced to death after the February fighting. Dollfuß appointed him third vice mayor of Vienna to act as a mediator between the authoritarian corporative state and the Social Democracy through a project known as "Aktion Winter." But after the assassination of Dollfuß (July 25, 1934) and disagreements with Kurt Schussnigg, he was removed from office in the wake of the July Agreement with National Socialist Germany on October 24, 1936. The "Wiener Politische Blätter" were confiscated, he was banned from publishing, and the "Aktion Winter" was incorporated into the Fatherland Front.

A few days before the Anschluss where Austria was annexed to Germany, he managed to emigrate with his family (wife and seven children) to the USA via Switzerland. His children are:

  • Ernst Florian Winter (12/16/1923-4/14/2014) Professor
  • Maria Margret Winter-Mueller (1/28/1925-4/23/2020) High School Teacher, Latin.
  • Maria Elisabeth Winter-Averill (4/24/1926) Social Worker, English Teacher
  • Karl Pius Winter (8/10/1927) Architect
  • Maria Theresia Winter-Rast (11/30/1928-2/8/2018) Nurse
  • Joseph Maria Winter (2/22/1932-3/31/2020) Businessman
  • Rudolph Ernst Karl Winter (11/27/1935) Professor of Chemistry
  • Maria Magdalena Winter-Schneiderman (10/7/1939) Nurse

--> List of children with spouses
In New York he gathered the exiled Austrians, founded the "Austrian American Center" in 1939, and was able to establish a new existence as a professor of social philosophy and sociology at the New York School for Social Research.

EKW
EKW 1945
Winter's first attempts to return to Austria immediately after the war failed. He hoped for a professorship in Graz, but Austrian people were not particularly interested in the return of exiles, and it was not until 1955 that he succeeded in moving to Vienna, where he habilitated in sociology at the University of Vienna that same year. He taught at the university for some time, and in the last years of his life, he was increasingly concerned with questions of religion.

Ernst Karl Winter died on February 4, 1959 in Vienna and was buried in the Vienna-Gersthof cemetery.
In the 19th district of Vienna, there is an Ernst-Karl-Winter-Weg named after him, and in the 18th district of Vienna a housing estate of the municipality of Vienna was named after him. A memorial plaque in the front garden to Thimiggasse pays homage to him.

Ernst Karl Winter was a visionary thinker of his time, who anticipated and shaped many things. However, many of his ideas from that time are difficult to comprehend today.

Biographical Documents

--> Lebenslauf von EKW in: Die Österreichische Nation, Dezember 1996
--> Biografie von EKW mit Betonung USA
--> Robert Holzbauer, Ernst Karl Winter (1895-1959), Dissertation, 1992, 440 S.
--> K. H. Heinz, E. K. Winter. Ein Katholik zwischen Österreichs Fronten 1933-38, 1984, 431 S.

Works (Selection)

Most Recent

--> 2018: "The History of the Austrian People" (1945)
--> Ernst Karl Winter: Austria
--> 2022: Ernst Karl Winter: AUSTRIA - Manuscript 1st part (until 1938)
--> Rudolph Ernst Karl Winter (*1935) put together the English-version of the first part of Austria written in 1945. The English manuscript of 236 pages is here
--> 2022: Ernst Karl Winter: AUSTRIA - Manuscript 1st part in continuous text (until 1938)
--> 2022: Ernst Karl Winter: AUSTRIA - 1. Teil deutsch
--> Review by Trautl Brandstaller - read

Early Works

Editor

  • Viennese Sociological Studies, 1933 ff.
  • Wiener politische Blätter, 1933 ff.

--> Photos: Elizabeth Winter-Averill

Continuing

Literature

Sources

Wiener Politische Blätter, 1933
Wiener Politische Blätter, 1933
Wiener Politische Blätter, 1934
Wiener Politische Blätter, 1934
Wiener Politische Blätter, 1935
Wiener Politische Blätter, 1935
Works-Directory from the book 'Pathbreakers of Dialogue'
Works-Directory of Ernst Karl Winters
Works-Directory from the book 'Pathbreakers of Dialogue'
from the book "Pathbreakers of Dialogue"
Editors: P. Diem, I. Schinnerl, M. McCarville

Duels were forbidden in the Habsburg army, but were just tolerated as long as nothing special happened. A one-year volunteer of the Tyrolean Landesschützen (called Kaiserschützen from 1917 onward) could not duel with an officer at all because there was no "satisfactory ability". No officer would have fought a regular duel with an EF, it could not have cost him his reserve officer career, the Landesschützen were a reserve unit, there was no time for reserve officer training during the war. Satisfactory were only officers and academics....Wikipedia sees it that way too but still...something is wrong there....

-- Glaubauf Karl, Thursday, December 11, 2014, 11:45 AM

The article cannot have been too loyal to the Kaiser, because in 1914 everything was extremely loyal to the Kaiser, especially the German nationalists, no one aspired to the Anschluss in 1914, the Tyroleans were consistently "German national" in their fight against the "Welschen", i.e. the Italians after their entry into the war in May 1915.

-- Glaubauf Karl, Thursday, December 11, 2014, 11:49 AM

An inspection of Winter's military personnel file or a request by the Forum to the Army History Museum could easily clarify this important section of Winter's biography. Dollfuß could still complete the reserve officer career in Brixen, Winter was too young for this and from the beginning of the war there was hardly any time for it.Also with the Dollfuß biographies the representation of the world war time would be very relevant, because this shaped the political attitude enormously, after all Dollfuß was one of the most highly decorated reserve officers as a result of his already extreme achievements in the Tyrolean mountain war.

-- Glaubauf Karl, Thursday, 11 December 2014, 12:14

See also: Wikipedia: KK-Landesschützen...

-- Glaubauf Karl, Thursday, 11 December 2014, 12:20

The Kaiserschützen were still called Landesschützen in 1914, were a reserve unit that was renamed Kaiserschützen in 1917 because of its successes, a reserve parallel unit to the Kaiserjägers, who were professional soldiers. W. served al EF in the Landesschützenregiment 3 in Bolzano as did Dollfuß....

-- Glaubauf Karl, Wednesday, February 18, 2015, 10:29 AM

A study period of two years, that is four semesters until the doctorate seems quite short...is that right ?

-- Glaubauf Karl, Wednesday, February 18, 2015, 10:33 AM

Ernst Karl Winter - Trailblazer of Dialogue

-- Pachl W, Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 20:12