WINTER, GUSTAV

WINTER, GUSTAV (1899–1943), Czech journalist and author (brother of Lev Winter, the statesman). He was press officer of the Czechoslovak mission to the League of Nations in Geneva, and Paris correspondent for Právo Lidu ("The People's Right"), the organ of the Social Democratic Party. Winter was regarded as the best-informed Czech correspondent in France.

He published Státníci dnešní Francie ("French Statesmen of our Days," 1927), and Kniha o Francii ("Book on France," 1930) for which he received the highest Czechoslovak literary award. To není konec Francie ("This is Not the End of France," 1941) was published in London, where he had fled after the fall of France. Winter was also the author of a book of poetic reportage on Spain, Don Quijote na rozcestí ("Don Quixote at the Crossroads," 1935) and translator of Čapek and Masaryk into French.

[Avigdor Dagan]

His brother lev (Leo) winter (1876–1935), Czech politician, was born in Hroby in S. Bohemia. Winter studied law at Prague University and joined the Czech Social Democratic Party at the age of 19. In 1907 he was elected to the Austrian Reichsrat (Parliament) and reelected in 1911. In the Austrian Parliament he was active in committees on social legislation. In 1918 he was a member of the revolutionary Czech National Council and became minister of social welfare in the first Government of the Czechoslovak Republic. In 1923 he presented to Parliament the Social Insurance Law, which had been drafted primarily by him. He served two more terms as minister of social welfare and was member of parliament until his death. He wrote several books on social and legal problems, and also translated the first volume of Marx's Kapital into Czech. Winter took no part in any Jewish activities.

[Chaim Yahil]

bibliography:

gustav winter: F. Klatil, In Memoriam Gustava Wintra (Czech, 1944); E. Hostovsky, in: Jews of Czechoslovakia, 1 (1968), 447–8, 523; Ceskoslovenski, Biografie, 3 (1936).