Why Field Marshal Keitel Was Executed JJ

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was one of the most senior German military officers of the Second World War. For much of the conflict, he worked directly alongside Adolf Hitler and occupied one of the most powerful positions in the German armed forces. Yet only a little more than a year after Nazi Germany surrendered, Wilhelm Keitel was dead.

In the early hours of the 16th of October 1946, he was taken to the gallows at Nuremberg prison and hanged. His execution was not simply punishment for serving Hitler or for being a German general. Keitel was executed because the International Military Tribunal concluded that he had played an important role in planning aggressive wars and crucially in issuing and transmitting criminal orders that had contributed to the deaths and mistreatment of prisoners of war, civilians, resistance fighters, and many more all across occupied Europe.

Wilhelm Keitel was born in 1882 and became a professional soldier long before Hitler came to power. He served during the First World War and remained in the much smaller German army permitted under the Treaty of Versailles after the conflict. His career continued to advance and after Hitler began rebuilding Germany’s armed forces, Keitel rose rapidly through the military hierarchy.

In 1938, Hitler reorganized the command structure of the German armed forces and did create the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, usually known as the OKW or Armed Forces High Command, and Wilhelm Keitel became its chief. This position brought Keitel extraordinarily close to Hitler. However, the OKW did not operate like an independent military command capable of restraining the dictator.

Hitler increasingly dominated military decisions and Keitel became notorious amongst some of the German generals for his willingness to agree with him. His critics even mocked him with the nickname Lakai-tel, a play on the German word Lakai meaning lackey. Whatever his personal reservations about some of Hitler’s decisions, Keitel repeatedly signed and transmitted orders on the Führer’s behalf.

This became extremely important after the war. The prosecutors at Nuremberg were not interested simply in proving that Keitel had been close with Hitler. They wanted to demonstrate that he had knowingly participated in policies that violated the laws and customs of war. One of the major charges against Keitel concerned Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Operation Barbarossa was not intended to be an ordinary military campaign. Hitler regarded the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological and racial struggle. The invasion was therefore accompanied by a series of brutal orders that deliberately weakened the normal protections given to enemy soldiers and civilians.

Amongst the most infamous was the Commissar Order. Soviet political commissars captured with the Red Army units were to be identified and killed or executed rather than treated as ordinary prisoners of war. The order was openly criminal because it authorized executions without trial. Keitel was part of the command structure through which such policies were put into effect, and the Nuremberg judges concluded that he could not simply distance himself from what was being done.

Another important issue was the treatment of civilians and resistance movements. As German forces occupied enormous areas of Europe, partisan warfare became a serious problem. Hitler demanded ruthless retaliation. Instead of restricting punishment to people actually responsible for attacks, German forces frequently carried out reprisals against hostages and civilian populations.

Keitel became directly associated with that policy. In September 1941, he issued an order concerning resistance to German occupation that advocated exceptionally harsh reprisals. The document suggested that the death of one German soldier might be answered with the executions of between 50 and 100 communists or enemies.

Such orders helped create an environment in which enormous numbers of civilians could be killed in retaliation for partisan attacks. Keitel was also connected with the notorious night and fog decree. Issued in December 1941, the policy was designed to intimidate resistance movements in German-occupied Western Europe.

Certain people accused of resisting German rule were secretly taken away and transported into Germany. Their families were often deliberately denied information about what happened to them. The idea was frighteningly simple. If opponents of Nazi occupation simply disappeared without explanation, the uncertainty would spread fear amongst the population.

Some of the prisoners were tried by special courts, while others ended up in concentration camps. Many died or were just simply executed. Keitel signed directives associated with implementing the decree through the armed forces. There were other accusations as well. The prosecution presented evidence concerning the treatment of prisoners of war, captured Allied commanders, and other groups who should normally have been protected by international law.

Hitler’s Commando Order of October 1942 instructed German forces that Allied commandos encountered in Europe and Africa were to be killed even in circumstances where they might otherwise have surrendered and become prisoners of war. Keitel passed the order through the military command system. After the war, this became another important example of why the defense of simply following orders was so controversial.

Keitel was not an ordinary soldier standing on a battlefield with an officer shouting instructions at him. He was a field marshal occupying one of the highest positions, if not the highest position, in the entire German military command structure. When Germany finally surrendered in May 1945, Keitel’s military career came to an end.

He signed the German instrument of surrender at Berlin-Karlshorst on the 8th of May 1945 on behalf of the German armed forces. He was subsequently arrested and became one of the leading Nazi political and military figures prosecuted before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The trial began in November 1945.

Keitel faced all four of the major counts used by the tribunal. Conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The evidence against him included orders bearing his signature and documents that had been passed through the OKW. Keitel did not deny that many of these orders existed. Instead, one of the central arguments of his defense was just obedience.

He presented himself as a professional soldier who was trapped within Hitler’s dictatorship. He argued that he’d sworn an oath of loyalty, that the German military system required him to obey the head of state. At times, Keitel claimed he’d apparently disagreed with Hitler, but he generally remained in his position and carried out his duties.

This raised one of the most important questions of the entire Nuremberg process. Could a soldier escape responsibility for a crime simply because a superior had ordered it? Well, the tribunal’s answer to that was essentially no. Superior orders could be considered when judging someone’s circumstances, but they did not automatically remove personal responsibility.

An officer could not knowingly participate in obviously criminal acts and then claim complete innocence because someone above him had given him the order. This principle was particularly damaging to Keitel because of his immense seniority. He’d not been a junior officer with little influence.

He was a field marshal and the chief of the OKW, his signature carried enormous authority. When an order was transmitted through his headquarters, it could affect the behavior of military formations all across occupied Europe. On the 1st of October, 1946, the tribunal delivered its judgment. Wilhelm Keitel was found guilty on all four counts.

The judges concluded they had participated in the machinery of aggressive warfare and had been involved in issuing or transmitting numerous criminal orders. He was sentenced to death by hanging. For Wilhelm Keitel, the method of execution carried particular humiliation. He considered himself a professional soldier and did request execution by firing squad, traditionally regarded as a military form of death.

His request was refused. The Nuremberg authorities regarded the condemned defendants as convicted criminals rather than just soldiers receiving some form of honorable military execution. During the early hours of the 16th of October, 1946, the executions began inside the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison. 10 condemned men were hanged that morning.

Hermann Göring, the Reichsmarschall, had been scheduled to die with them, but he brought his life to an end hours before his execution. US Army executioner John C. Woods carried out the hangings. Keitel’s final statement invoked Germany and the German soldiers who had died during the war. He was then executed.

His body was then photographed, like the others of those executed defendants, whose body was secretly cremated. The ashes were scattered so that no grave could become a shrine. Wilhelm Keitel’s fate remains historically important because the trial dealt with a question that extends far beyond one German field marshal. How responsible is a military officer for orders issued by political leaders? At Nuremberg, Keitel repeatedly portrayed himself as just a soldier whose duty it was to obey.

But the tribunal concluded that obedience did have limits. His position meant that he had both knowledge and responsibility. He’d seen the nature of the regime he served and repeatedly allowed his authority and signature to be used to implement brutal policies. Wilhelm Keitel was therefore not executed just because Germany lost the Second World War, nor simply because he’d served as one of Hitler’s generals.

He was executed because the Nuremberg Tribunal found that he had personally participated in aggressive warfare and had helped issue and enforce orders that violated the laws of war. His execution became one of the clearest demonstrations of the principle established at Nuremberg. Military rank and obedience to a superior cannot provide complete protection when an individual knowingly participated in war crimes.

And that was the story of Wilhelm Keitel. Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving me your time to watch one of these videos.