Robert Miel

Robert Miel was born in Vienna, the son of Raimund Miel and Maria, née Klee. After elementary school, he attended grammar school for five years, but did not complete it, instead switching to commercial school for two years.

The practising Catholic and opponent of National Socialism Robert Miel joined a small group of anti-National Socialists around his close friend Camillo Heger shortly after the occupation of Austria by Hitler's Germany in March 1938. Through his mediation, Camillo Heger met Friedrich Theiss in April 1938, who had also founded a small resistance group. The two decide to merge the groups and form the Austrian Front, which later also called itself the Austrian Movement [also: Theiss Group].

The Austrian Front strives for the separation of occupied Austria from the German Reich. This organization recruits members and even founds its own women's group under Josefa Breuer. Monthly membership fees are collected, excursions and training courses are organized and pro-Austrian publications are produced. They even considered setting up their own military group under the leadership of Alois Döttling and Franz Vochozka.

When the anti-aircraft gunner Leopold Buliczek, who was also a member of the Austrian Front, was caught trying to escape to Hungary, he revealed the existence of the Austrian Front group around Friedrich Theiss to the Gestapo after interrogation.

On February 13, 1940, Robert Miel was arrested together with the other members of the Austrian Front after a Gestapo house search. He is taken to the Rossauerlände prison (also known as Elisabethpromenade) and transferred to Regional Court I after three months.

Robert Miel is charged together with the other members of the Austrian Front, but as the evidence against him is very weak, the trial against him does not take place. He is released on November 28, 1940.

After working briefly, Robert Miel is drafted into the Wehrmacht in October 1941 and becomes an American prisoner of war, from which he returns home in September 1946.

Robert Miel joins the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich and marries Thekla Haszak. He worked as an accountant until his retirement in 1983.

He died in Vienna in 2013 and was buried at Vienna Central Cemetery.