Ernst Florian Winter (16 December 1923 – 16 April 2014) was an American historian and political scientist, the first director of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna after World War II, and chairman of the International Council of the Austrian Service Abroad.

Regularly there were hour-long discussions at their family residences, attended by people such as Alfred Missong, August Maria Knoll, Hans Karl von Zessnerspitzberg, and Engelbert Dollfuss.

A few days before the Anschluss in March 1938, Ernst Karl Winter fled Austria to Switzerland, for political reasons, at the urging of Hans Kelsen.

At the beginning of 1939, Ernst Karl Winter founded the Austrian American Center in New York, which was the first non-party national committee.

[clarification needed] As a member of the "Ski Patrol System" he received a letter from the U.S. minister of war, who planned to set up a mountain division.

The main reason of his strict attitude was that he had seen pictures of the Nazi concentration camps at his father's publishing house, which weighed heavily on him.

On orders from Baron Georg Ludwig von Trapp, Winter had a look at a mansion in Aigen that was the summer residence of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.

Winter began his academic career as professor of history and political science at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.

In 1964, he was chosen by the state secretary Bruno Kreisky to be the foundation director of the Diplomatic University of Vienna, where he served as a professor for decades.

There they hosted the "Eichbüchler-Gespräche" and Austria seminars for ten years; visiting professors included Oskar Morgenstern, Paul Lazarsfeld, Friedrich Heer, and Henry Kissinger.

[1] In January 1972, he was the first American invited by Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai to a two-month stay at the institute for foreign politics in China.