Before their emigration to China the Willingers maintained a wide professional network, including Peter Birnbach's World Tour photography agency in Berlin and Felix Leutner's Kilophot agency in Vienna. They co-owned enterprises in Vienna, such as Autrophot – Willinger, Ernst & Cesanek, Willinger & Schnapper and Willinger & Lechner.
The Willingers played a vital role in the professionalisation of the photo press business in Vienna and were among the founders of the Professional Association of Austrian Photojournalists in 1928 in Vienna. Other founder-members included Albert Hilscher, Karl Scheich, Mario Wiberal, Max Fenchel and Lothar Rübelt.
The Theatermuseum in Vienna holds a huge number of photographs depicting stage settings, theatre architecture and events, actors and role potraits, as well as dancers such as Tilla Durieux, Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker and hundreds more originating from the Willingers’ studio in Vienna.
In Shanghai, Willinger & Co and later Photo Willinger continued to portray the theatre scene and its protagonists, many of whom had also fled Vienna and other parts of Europe. The Willingers supplied photographs to the exile press, such as the Shanghai Jewish Chronicle and were commissioned by the German exiled architect Richard Paulick to document and advertise the interior designs of Modern Home & Sand’s Furnishing. After the creation of the designated area, the so-called Shanghai Ghetto in 1943 by the Japanese military, the studio changed its name from Willinger & Co to Photo Willinger and relocated from 1173  Bubbling Well Road and 88 Nanking Road in the International Settlement (now Nanjing Xi Lu and Nanjing Dong Lu)) to 896 East Seward Road  (now Dong Changzhi Lu) and 794/4 Point Road (now Zhoujiazui Lu) in the designated area in Hongkou. Precise data on the personnel and family connections of the photo studios in Shanghai are not yet available.