Life
Born as the son of a post official in Krems, in the Cisleithanian crown land of Lower Austria, Wilhelm Miklas graduated from high school at Seitenstetten and went on to study history and geography at the University of Vienna. From 1905 to 1922 Miklas was headmaster of the Federal Secondary School in Horn, a small town in the Lower Austrian Waldviertel region.
While serving in his role for the Christian Social Party, in 1907 he was elected to the Imperial Council (Reichsrat) parliament. Re-elected in 1911, Miklas held a parliamentary seat in the provisional assembly of German-Austria and in the Constitutional Assembly of the First Austrian Republic. An opponent of German nationalist policies, he declared himself against a closer connection with the Weimar Republic and played a pivotal role in adopting the red-white-red Austrian flag.
In 1919 Miklas was appointed state secretary in the Austrian government of Chancellor Karl Renner and from 1923 to 1928 was speaker of the National Council (Nationalrat) parliament. On 10 December 1928 the representatives of the Federal Convention elected him President of Austria, a role he served in until the position ceased to exist ten years later when Austria was annexed by Germany in the Anschluss.
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