Carl Szokoll

Carl Szokoll is best known for his active role in the liberation of Vienna from the Nazis in 1945. After school, Szokoll attended the Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. When Austria was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1938, he was incorporated into the German Wehrmacht in the rank of a Captain. An opponent of the Nazi regime, he soon became the Austrian liaison of Count Stauffenberg, the conspirator against Hitler; when the assassination plot against Hitler on 20 July 1944 failed, Szokoll was one of the few conspirators whose involvement went undiscovered. Soon afterward, he was promoted to Major. When it was obvious that Soviet troops would invade Vienna in 1945, the Wehrmacht had orders to completely destroy Vienna. Szokoll used old orders left over from the 1944 assassination plot to assume control of part of the Wehrmacht troops stationed in Vienna and prepared the peaceful surrender of the city to the Soviet troops, thus saving it from destruction. After World War II, Szokoll became a writer and film producer. He died in August 2004 at the age of 88.