Ernst Karl Winter

In accordance with Catholic doctrine, he refused a duel with a German nationalist officer who had challenged him because of a favourable article he wrote for the Austrian Emperor.

A planned habilitation in sociology failed due to German nationalist circles at the University of Vienna forcing students to write articles for the far-right Deutschösterreichische Tages-Zeitung, which Winter refused to do.

Along with Hans Karl von Zessner-Spitzenberg, August Maria Knoll, Alfred Missong, Wilhelm Schmid, and others, Winteruwas involved in "Österreichische Aktion" (roughly: Austrian Endeavour) was launched for the first time on a programmatic journalistic basis formulated the idea of an independent Austrian identity.

After the dissolution of the parliament in March 1933, Winter published sharp journalistic protests against the political developments, which he referred to as a "coup d'etat".

The organizational goal was an attempt to build a bridge between the Left and the Right and to encourage workers sympathetic to the Social Democrats to join a common front against Nazism.

In 1938, with the advice of Hans Kelsen, he and his family managed to escape via Switzerland to the United States, where he received a professorship in sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York.