Karl Winkler was born in 1884 in Munich. He left high school to help support his parents and eight siblings. He worked for the post office, where he met his future wife, Ottilie Kalbskopf. During World War I, he was a soldier at the front. His daughter Erika was born in 1930. His career at the post office stagnated because Winkler refused to join the National Socialist Party (NSDAP). For 33 years, he worked for the Marionettentheater in Munich, until 1933. He inherited the running of the theater after the death of Babette Klinger-Schmid. In 1938, he wrote a chronicle of the theater, which led to the publication Chronik des Münchner Marionetten-Theaters 1858-1933 by the Marionette Theater Collection in Munich in 2018.