Wilhelm was the fifth[1] of the eight children of Anne and music teacher Julius Winkler, a family situation that required him to work starting at age 13.

He founded an institute for the study of minority populations,[1] which published a constant stream of progressive and influential papers that made him unpopular with colleagues in his government job.

[2] Despite his lack of formal education, he was elected a member of the International Statistical Institute in 1926 where he actively promoted applied and precise mathematical formulations in contrast to the wordy generalizations that he had criticized 20 years earlier.

[1] As both the husband of a Jew and an outspoken critic of the unfair treatment of European minorities, Winkler was promptly fired from both his government and academic positions following the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria.

[1] Despite these influential positions and growing international recognition, Winkler spent many years defending the statistical department from opposition within the university.