Alfred Winter

Alfred Winter was an Austrian cultural manager and publisher who shaped the cultural life of Salzburg for more than half a century. He founded the alternative summer festival "Szene der Jugend", today's Szene Salzburg, ran the state of Salzburg's office for special cultural projects, and championed the ideas of the economist and philosopher Leopold Kohr. He died on 5 November 2026 at the age of 80.

He was born on 6 July 1946 in St. Georgen in Lower Austria. He trained as a chemigrapher and reproduction technician at the Salzburger Druckerei and drew cartoons for the press. In 1969 he started the youth magazine "Tips", and in 1971 he founded the "Szene der Jugend", a gentle but determined challenge to the dominance of the Salzburg Festival. The festival played in cellars, garages, courtyards and on squares, opened up the then unrestored Petersbrunnhof, now the Schauspielhaus Salzburg, and gave early stages to young artists including the members of the Hagen Quartet and the writer Walter Kappacher. Gidon Kremer and Nikolaus Harnoncourt accepted its invitations, and in 1988 Friedrich Gulda played with Harnoncourt and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on the Domplatz stage a day before the official festival opened.

From 1978 he led the special cultural projects office created by Governor Wilfried Haslauer senior, and in 1985 he was formally named the state's commissioner for special cultural projects. He initiated a series of major state exhibitions, on the Celts in Hallein in 1980, on the Protestants of Salzburg at Schloss Goldegg in 1981, on St. Peter's Abbey in 1982, on Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau in 1987 and on the Bavarii in Mattsee in 1988. Working on the Celts exhibition brought him into contact with Leopold Kohr, the thinker behind the "small is beautiful" movement, and Winter is credited with reintroducing Kohr to German speaking audiences.

In 1984 he founded the cultural association Tauriska in the Oberpinzgau and the Leopold Kohr Academy in Neukirchen am Großvenediger, using culture as a bridge between the new Hohe Tauern National Park and local people. He was involved in the Goldegg Dialogues, helped bring about the Salzburger monument of reconciliation in Savannah, Georgia, and from 1999 regularly brought Right Livelihood Award laureates to Salzburg. His own publishing house, founded in 1973, issued more than 170 books, many of them about Salzburg. From 1999 to 2004 he sat on Salzburg city council for the ÖVP, for a time chairing its culture committee.

He was known for preferring typewriters, handwritten letters and coffee house conversations to computers and mobile phones, and for his mischievous good humour. His honours included the Salzburg Order of Merit in gold (1985), the title of professor (1999), Salzburger of the Year (2005), a lifetime achievement award from the Salzburg city culture fund (2009) and the Salzburger Marmorstier (2016). His death was confirmed by the Salzburg funeral firm Jung and reported by the Salzburger Nachrichten and ORF Salzburg on 6 November 2026. The cause was not made public.