Mathwar/Personlist/Winkler Wilhelm
Wilhelm Winkler
(* June 29th 1884 in Prague, † September 3rd 1984 in Vienna)
Life
With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Winkler enlisted in the Austrian army. He was awarded two medals for bravery before being wounded in November 1915. He was taken to a hospital in Prague where he took six months to regain his health. During this time he met one of his former teachers who was in the Ministry of War in Vienna. He invited Winkler to join the scientific committee which the Ministry had set up on war economy and, in June 1916 Winkler began work with the committee in Vienna.
When the war ended in 1918 Winkler became Secretary of State for Military Affairs, but his progressive ideas meant that this was an unpopular appointment as far as certain traditionally minded colleagues were concerned. In this role Winkler attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 as a member of the Austrian delegation. From 1921 Winkler began what is effectively two careers. He had been appointed to the Austrian Central Statistics Office in 1920 and from 1921 he also taught at the University of Vienna at a Privatdozent. Winkler also was by now a married man, having married Clara Deutch in 1918.
Winkler's work in statistics achieved international recognition for him at this time. However things were to change rather dramatically. The Munich Agreement of 1938 saw large parts of the Czechoslovak republic surrendered to Germany. German troops along with Hitler himself entered Austria on 12 March 1938, and a Nazi government had been set up there. Political pressure was put on Winkler' who was forced to resign from both his government post and his university professorship.
There followed an extremely difficult period for Winkler through the years of World War II. Despite the hardship he and his family suffered, Winkler worked on a book Basic Course in Demography which was eventually published in 1956. It was only after the war ended in 1945 that Winkler was reinstated to his university post when he was appointed to a chair in the University of Vienna. He retired from his chair in 1949 but continued to serve in various capacities such as Dean of the Faculty of Law until 1955.