Bruno Kreisky (January 22, 1911 – July 29, 1990) was an Austrian politician who served as Foreign Minister from 1959 to 1966 and as Chancellor from 1970 to 1983. Aged 72 at the end of his chancellorship, he was the oldest acting Chancellor after World War II.

Kreisky was born in Margareten, a district of Vienna, to a liberal Jewish family. His parents were Max Kreisky (1876-1944) and Irene Felix Kreisky (1884-1969). His father worked as a textile manufacturer. Shocked by the level of poverty and violence in Austria during the 1920s, he joined the youth wing of the Socialist Party of Austria (SPÖ) in 1925 at age 15. In 1927, he joined the Young Socialist Workers against the wishes of his parents. In 1929, he began studying law at the University of Vienna at the advice of Otto Bauer, who urged him to study law rather than medicine, as he had originally planned. He remained politically active during this period. In 1931, he left the Jewish religious community, becoming agnostic. In 1934, when the Socialist Party was banned by the Dollfuss dictatorship, he became active in underground political work. He was arrested in January 1935 and convicted of high treason, but was released in June 1936. In March 1938 the Austrian state was incorporated in Germany, and in September Kreisky escaped the Nazi persecution of Austrian Jews during Holocaust by emigrating to Sweden, where he remained until 1945. In 1942 he married Vera Fürth.