Carl Szokoll

Carl Szokoll (* October 15th 1915 in Vienna; † August 25th 2004 in Vienna) was an Austrian resistance fighter involved in the July 20 Plot, major in the Wehrmacht and after the war author and film producer. Image File history File links Carl Szokoll low res pic, historical person source:http://www. ... Image File history File links Carl Szokoll low res pic, historical person source:http://www. ... October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in Leap years). ... 1915 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... August 25 is the 237th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (238th in leap years), with 128 days remaining. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... The July 20 Plot was a failed coup détat which involved an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ... Insignia of an 0-4 in the U.S. Armed Forces In the US Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and the British Army, a major is a commissioned officer superior to a captain and inferior to a lieutenant colonel. ... Wehrmacht   listen? was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ...

Early life

Szokoll was the son of a low-rankiig soldier in the Austrian army, who had fought in the First World War and had been a long-term Russian 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 candiate 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. Togehter they had one son. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... 1934 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... March 12, 1938: German troops march into Austria The general German term Anschluss [1] (literally meaning connection, but in this context translated as annexation in the sense of political union) often refers to Anschluss Österreichs — the inclusion of Austria in a Greater Germany in 1938. ... 1938 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1933 to 1939 Nazi racial policy changed extensively in the years between 1933 and 1939. ... 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Because of his relationship to a half-jewish woman he was transfered from an elite panzer unit to the ordinary infrantry regiment and fought in the first phases of the Second World war 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. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ...

Involvment in the July 20 Plot

In 1943 the then captain ranked Szokoll met Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, one of the heads of the resistance movement in the Third Reich and got involved with them in the following months. When the July 20 Plot seemed to have succeeded when Stauffenberg placed a bomb in the Führerhauptquartier, he was the resistance's man in Vienna who executed the orders to seize all authorities and arrest the leading members of SS and the Nazi administration. The July 20 Plot was a failed coup détat which involved an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ... 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ... Insignia of a United States Air Force Colonel Colonel is a military rank, usually the highest below general grades, and just above Lieutenant Colonel. ... Claus von Stauffenberg Claus Philip Maria Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg (November 15, 1907 – July 20, 1944) was a German aristocrat and army colonel during World War II. He was one of the leading figures of the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ... A resistance movement is a group dedicated to fighting an invader in an occupied country. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... The July 20 Plot was a failed coup détat which involved an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ... SS or ss or Ss may be: The Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary force Steamship (SS) (ship prefix) The United States Secret Service A submarine not powered by nuclear energy (SS) (United States Navy designator), see SSN A Soviet/Russian surface-to-surface missile, as listed by NATO reporting name Shortstop... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ...

Szokoll, unlike his 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 secured 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 handfull of conspirators. The Gestapo was the official secret police force of Nazi Germany. ...

Szokoll "Saviour of Vienna"

Vienna immediately after the war 1945

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 O5 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 fine until early April 1945: Although Hitler had ordered the Wehrmacht to fight until the last man in the defense 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 conspiray was discoverd and Nazi officials immediately hanged the leading conspirators and searched for Szokoll. Once again he could 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 provisorial administrator of Vienna from the time the Wehrmacht had retreated, however was once again nearly taken prisoner by the Soviets when being accused of working for the US intelligence. Image File history File links Vienna 1945 source:http://www. ... Image File history File links Vienna 1945 source:http://www. ... 1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... In war, in the event of the imminent capture of a city, the government/military structure of the country that owns the city will sometimes declare the city to be open, that is to say that all defensive efforts have been abandoned. ... April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four with the length of 30 days. ... 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Wehrmacht   listen? was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... The Austrian resistance to the Nazi rule that started with the Anschluss in 1938 started with socialist and communist activism against the era of Austrofascism from 1934. ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ... Wehrmacht   listen? was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ...

Post-war career

Honored 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 2004 in Vienna. Schell as a kidnapped German doctor in the 1954 World War II drama, The Last Bridge Maria Schell (born Margarete Schell on January 15, 1926) is an actress born in Vienna, Austria to a Swiss author and an Austrian actress. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria, and also one of Austrias nine federal states (Bundesland Wien). ...

Work

• Der Bockerer II : Österreich ist frei. Verlag der Apfel, Wien 1997 ISBN 3-85450-128-5
• Der gebrochene Eid. Europa-Verlag, Wien 1985 ISBN 3-203-50929-6
• Die Rettung Wiens 1945. Mein Leben, mein Anteil an der Verschwörung gegen Hitler und an der Befreiung Österreichs. Amalthea-Verlag, Wien 2001 ISBN 3-85002-472-5

See also

• List of Austrians

The following list is an election of famous Austrians. ...

Weblinks

• Article in the Guardian 2004
• IMDB Carl Szokoll