The Austrian film producer and screenwriter Carl Szokoll, who has died aged 88, had a charmed life. He was the linkman in Vienna for the plotters who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20th, 1944, and went on to play a major part in persuading the Soviet Red Army to spare the city at the end of the war.
Col Claus Count von Stauffenberg, who was on the staff of the German reserve army, led the coup attempt, carrying the bomb intended to kill Hitler in his briefcase into the war room in the Führer's headquarters at Rastenburg, east Prussia - the "Wolf's Lair". The conspirators, mainly from the German upper class and officer corps, planned to hijack Operation Valkyrie - the Wehrmacht plan for dealing with civil insurrection - for their own purposes, enabling them openly to deploy troops as if to restore order.
Szokoll was an officer in an Austrian infantry regiment, absorbed like the rest of the national army into the Wehrmacht after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. His colonel issued the order to implement Valkyrie in Vienna, not knowing he was acting on orders from the plotters in Berlin.
Szokoll, then a captain, proceeded with a will to execute the plan, rounding up Nazi officials until the report that Hitler had survived and the coup had failed. His commander was sent to a concentration camp in the savage post-coup round-up. Szokoll's disingenuous plea that he had only been obeying orders was accepted and he escaped punishment, even though he was one of the last to talk to Stauffenberg on the telephone before the count's arrest.
He had placed his call to an untapped extension in a supply office at headquarters, a precautionary number given to Szokoll when they met early in 1944. Less than two weeks after the coup failed, Szokoll was promoted to his final rank of major.
Szokoll was born in Vienna, the son of a corporal in the Austro-Hungarian imperial army, also called Carl, who spent a period as a prisoner of war in Siberia and stayed in the service after the first World War.
Carl junior therefore grew up in Viennese barracks. His father wanted him to do better than himself and sent the boy to a grammar school, where he excelled in class and on the sports field before enlisting in his father's regiment in 1934 as an officer-cadet. Two years later he met his future wife, Christl Kukula, daughter of an industrialist and his Jewish wife.
After the Anschluss, Carl senior urged his son to give up the friendship, which threatened to ruin his army career under the Nazis. His punishment was mild: his transfer to a panzer unit was reversed and he was sent back to the infantry. He fought in Poland and France before a wound put him behind a desk in Vienna. His father's advice caused a long-standing rift. But the romance survived and the couple married in 1946.
By then Szokoll had earned the informal title of "saviour of Vienna". After escaping the fate of so many fellow conspirators and the penalty for his relationship with a "half-Jewish" girl, he took his life in his hands once more by putting out feelers from army headquarters to the Soviet military commanders as they closed in on Vienna.
His objective was to get them to treat Vienna as an open city, to prevent it being destroyed as Berlin was in 1945. The Wehrmacht commander of the city, a general of Austrian origin, helped by withdrawing his troops.
But diehard Nazis discovered the plan, and three of Szokoll's associates were executed, while a reward was put on his head. Once again he eluded punishment. On reaching the Russian lines he was suspected of being an American spy, but was able to convince his captors otherwise. He even went on to organise resistance to SS units planning to carry out Hitler's order to fight to the last man. Szokoll emerged unscathed. So, in the main, did his city.
He conducted talks with the Soviet city commandant and briefly acted as unofficial mayor. But the Russians again became suspicious of Szokoll, accusing him of spying for Germany. As usual by now, he talked his way out of trouble.
His hopes of a prominent role in the post-war regeneration of Austria, or at least Vienna, were dashed by returning professional political exiles, who took all the leading positions. His contribution to the resistance was honoured with several awards, including the freedom of Vienna.
He turned to the cinema, making films which won international acclaim. He wrote a bestselling autobiography and was working on a science-fiction novel with a peace theme when he died. His wife and their son survive him.
Carl Szokoll: born October 15th, 1915; died August 25th, 2004