Robert Möder, whose mother Franziska Möder owned a small business at the Tandelmarkt located at Berggasse 34 in Vienna’s 9th district, joined the NSDAP in 1926 or 1927 (membership number 53,171), but was expelled in 1930 for "behaviour detrimental to the party", among other things. After the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich, he held numerous positions in which he participated with particular unscrupulousness in the ousting of Jews from economic life. He acted as provisional administrator of companies such as Thonet & Mundus, the art furniture factories Bothe & Ehrmann – J. W. Müller A. G. and the furniture and antiques shop Soffer Brothers at Vienna’s 1st district, as well as master appraiser, particularly for furniture and old goods, and chief appraiser of the Gauwirtschaftsamt. In autumn 1938, together with Franz Horejsi and on behalf of the Property Transaction Office (VVSt), he founded the "Liquidation Office" in a school building at Grüngasse 14 in Vienna’s 5th district, also known as "Aktion Grüngasse", which dealt with the liquidation of businesses in the furniture and used goods sector and other companies and the sale of inventories of companies in the watch and jewellery sector. At least 75 companies were affected. From 1938, Robert Möder ran a second-hand goods and antiques shop at Margaretenstraße 54 in Vienna’s 5th district, which had belonged to Max Schein, who was later murdered in the Shoah, and had been liquidated by Horejsi. At the beginning of 1940, the VVSt dismissed Möder and Horejsi and transferred the remaining liquidations to the "Donau" trust company. Without assets before the "Anschluss", Möder became considerably wealthy from 1938 onwards. In 1942, the Vienna District Court for Criminal Matters initiated proceedings against Robert Möder on suspicion of corruption in order to investigate, among other things, the circumstances under which he had valued furnishings from the palace of Valentine Springer, who was persecuted for being Jewish, and had ultimately acquired them for himself. The proceedings were dropped, presumably also due to Möder's conscription into the Wehrmacht. Until shortly before the end of the war, Möder, who demonstratively acted as a "party comrade", fought in vain to be recognised as a party member or reinstated in the party.
After the end of the Nazi regime, the offences with which Möder was charged in the 1942 trial were reopened in two People's Court proceedings involving allegations of violation of human dignity and abusive enrichment (Sections 4 and 6 of the War Crimes Act), which also ended in Möder's case being dismissed.