Carl Szokoll Carl Szokoll ( 15 October 1915 – 25 August 2004 ) was an Austrian resistance fighter involved in the 20 July Plot , major in the Wehrmacht , and , after the war , author and film producer . Early life . Szokoll was born in Vienna , the son of a low - ranking soldier in the Austrian army who had fought in the First World War and had been a long - term Russia n prisoner of war . He grew up under poor circumstances in Vienna , but because he received excellent grades in primary and secondary school he was later admitted as an officer candidate in the Austrian army in 1934 . In his years as a cadet , he met his wife Christl Kukula , the daughter of a Jewish Vienniese industrialist . After the Anschluss in 1938 , he had to end his relationship with Kukula because of the Nuremberg laws that forbade romantic involvement with Jews . Despite this , he secretly stayed in contact with her during the next years and married her , after the war , in 1946 . Together they had one son . Because of his relationship to a half - Jewish woman ( " Halbjüdin " as the Nuremberg laws put it ) , he was transferred from an élite panzer unit to the ordinary infantry regiment and fought in the first phases of World War II in Nazi Germany ' s assaults on Poland and France . Because he was wounded in battle , he was sent back to Vienna for work in the administration of the district of Vienna . Involvement in the 20 July plot . In 1943 , then - captain Szokoll was introduced in Berlin to Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg , one of the heads of the resistance movement in the Third Reich , by the Austrian Lieutenant - Colonel Robert Bernardis and got involved with them by monthly visits of Robert Bernardis in Vienna since February 1944 . When the 20 July plot seemed to have succeeded after Stauffenberg placed a bomb in the Führer Headquarters " Wolfsschanze " , he was with Colonel Heinrich Kodre , the " Chief of Staff " in Vienna , one of the resistance ' s man of Stauffenberg , who executed with Colonel Kodre the orders to seize all authorities and arrest the leading members of SS and the Nazi administration . Colonel Kodre and captain Szokoll , unlike their co - conspirators in Berlin , succeeded in rounding up nearly all Nazi officials in Vienna . When the plot leaders realized that Hitler had survived , Stauffenberg called Szokoll on a secure line in order to tell him that the attempt had failed . Although Szokoll was one of the last conspirators who had telephone contact with Stauffenberg , he was able to convince the Gestapo that he was only following orders and thus he escaped punishment as one of only a handful of conspirators who did . Szokoll " Saviour of Vienna " . Being promoted major later in 1944 , he tried to take all measures within his power to save Vienna from following the fate of so many other European cities before that had been destroyed in heavy fighting . In the first months of 1945 , he got involved with the Austrian resistance movement and started to create a network of officers in order to contact the nearing Soviet Army and declare Vienna an open city . The plan was working well until early April 1945 . Although Hitler had ordered the Wehrmacht to fight until the last man in the defence of Vienna , Szokoll ' s co - conspirators had implemented a plan that would order all troops to retreat from Vienna when the Soviets were close to the city . However , the conspiracy was discovered and Nazi officials immediately hanged the leading conspirators and searched for Szokoll . Once again , he managed to escape and , in the following days , took part in Operation Radetzky , the plan of the Austrian resistance to take over Vienna and prevent fighting as far as possible . Ultimately , the city only saw moderate fighting and the inner districts saw practically no fighting . Szokoll had acted as the provisory administrator of Vienna from the time the Wehrmacht had retreated , but was once again nearly taken prisoner by the Soviets when being accused of working for US intelligence . Post - war career . Honoured by the reinstated Austrian government for his merits on freeing Austria from the Nazis , he started a career as author and film producer . Among his work is the script for the film " Der Bockerer " , the production of " Die letzte Brücke " ( the film that made Maria Schell famous ) , and his own autobiography that became a bestseller . He died in Vienna in 2004 .