Wilhelm Keitel

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Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel
22 September 1882 – 16 October 1946 (aged 64)
Wilhelm Keitel
Nickname	"Lakaitel" (English: Little Lackey)
Place of birth	Helmscherode, Brunswick, German Empire
Place of death	Nuremberg, Germany
Allegiance	German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Wehrmacht
Years of service	1901 - 1945
Rank	Generalfeldmarschall
Commands held	OKW
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel (22 September 1882–16 October 1946) was a German field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall). As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces) and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II. At the Allied court at Nuremberg he was tried, sentenced to death and hanged as a major war criminal.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 OKW and World War II 3 Nazi connections 4 Trial and execution 5 Dates of Rank 6 Legacy 7 Portrayal in popular culture 8 See also 9 Notes 10 Bibliography 11 External links

[edit] Early life and career

Keitel was born in Helmscherode (now a part of Bad Gandersheim, Lower Saxony), Brunswick, German Empire, the son of Carl Keitel, a middle-class landowner, and his wife Apollonia Vissering. After completing his education in Göttingen, he embarked on a military career in 1901, becoming a Fahnenjunker (Cadet Officer), joining the 6th Lower-Saxon Field Artillery Regiment. He married Lisa Fontaine, a wealthy landowner's daughter, in 1909. Together they had six children, one of whom died in infancy. His eldest son, Karl-Heinz Keitel went on to serve as a divisional commander in the Waffen-SS. During World War I Keitel served on the Western front with the Field Artillery Regiment No. 46. In September 1914, during the fighting in Flanders, he was seriously wounded in his right forearm by a shell fragment.

Keitel recovered, and thereafter was posted to the German General Staff in early 1915. After World War I ended, he stayed in the newly created Reichswehr, and played a part in organizing Freikorps frontier guard units on the Polish border. Keitel also served as a divisional general staff officer, and later taught at the Hanover Cavalry School for two years.

In late 1924, Keitel was transferred to the Ministry of Defense (Reichswehrministerium), serving with the Troop Office (Truppenamt), the post-Versailles disguised General Staff. He was soon promoted to the head of the organizational department, a post he retained after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. In 1935, based on a recommendation by Werner von Fritsch, Keitel was promoted to Lieutenant-General and appointed as the departmental head of the Wehrmachtsamt (Armed Forces Office) which had the responsibility over all three branches of the armed forces.

[edit] OKW and World War II

In 1937, Keitel received a promotion to General. In the following year, after the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, the Ministry of War (Reichskriegsministerium) was replaced by the High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW), and Keitel was appointed as its chief. This effectively made Keitel Germany's war minister, and accordingly he was appointed to the Cabinet. Soon after his appointment at OKW, he convinced Hitler to appoint his close friend, Walter von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

For a brief period in October 1938, Keitel was Military Governor of the Sudetenland, but in February 1939 Keitel again became Chief of OKW; he retained that post until the end of the war.

During World War II, Keitel was one of the primary planners of the Wehrmacht campaigns and operations on the western and the eastern fronts. He advised Hitler against invading France and opposed Operation Barbarossa. Both times he backed down in the face of Hitler and tendered his resignation, which Hitler refused to accept.

In 1940, after the French campaign, he was promoted to Field Marshal along with several other generals. Unusually for a non-field commander, Keitel was awarded the Knight's Cross for arranging the armistice with France.

For the most part, Keitel displayed a lackeylike attitude around Hitler. He was referred to by his colleagues as "Lakaitel" ("Little Lackey") [a pun on his surname] and as the "nodding donkey". In 1942, he confronted Hitler in defense of Field Marshal Wilhelm List, whose Army Group A was stalled in the Battle of the Caucasus. Hitler spurned Keitel's pleading and fired List. Keitel's defense of List was his last act of defiance to Hitler; he never again challenged one of Hitler's orders.

Keitel unquestionably allowed Heinrich Himmler a free hand with his racial controls and ensuing terror in occupied Soviet territory. He also signed numerous orders of dubious legality under the laws of war. The most infamous were the Commissar Order (which stipulated that Soviet political commissars were to be shot on sight) and the Night and Fog Decree (which called for the forced disappearance of resistance fighters and other political prisoners in Germany's occupied territories). Another was the order that French pilots of the Normandie-Niemen squadron be executed rather than be made prisoners of war.

Keitel accepted Hitler's directive for Operation Citadel in 1943 despite strong opposition from several field officers who argued that neither the troops nor the new tanks on which Hitler staked his hopes for victory were ready.

Keitel played an important role in foiling the July 20 plot in 1944. Keitel then sat on the Army "Court of honor" that handed over many officers who were involved, including Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, to Roland Freisler's notorious People's Court.

In April and May 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, Keitel called for counterattacks to drive back the Soviet forces and relieve Berlin. But there were no German forces to carry out such attacks.

After Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Keitel stayed on as a member of the short-lived Flensburg government under Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.

On 8 May 1945, Dönitz authorized Keitel to sign an unconditional surrender in Berlin. Although Germany had surrendered to the Allies a day earlier, Stalin had insisted on a second surrender ceremony in Berlin.

[edit] Nazi connections

As a military officer, Keitel was prohibited by law from joining the NSDAP. However, after the Wehrmacht's rapid early successes on the Russian Front, he was given a "Golden" (Honorary) NSDAP membership badge by Adolf Hitler, who was seeking to link military successes to political successes. In 1944, German laws were changed and military officers were encouraged to seek NSDAP membership. Keitel claimed he did so as a formality at the Nuremberg Trials, but never received formal party membership. He was one of only two people to receive honorary party membership status.

Before his execution Keitel published Mein Leben: Pflichterfüllung bis zum Untergang: Hitlers Feldmarschall und Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht in Selbstzeugnissen, otherwise known in English as In the Service of the Reich, and was later re-edited as The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel by Walter Görlitz from a translation by David Irving as the author in 1965. Another work by Keitel later published in English was Questionnaire on the Ardennes offensive ^[1]

[edit] Trial and execution

Four days after the surrender, Keitel was arrested along with the rest of the Flensburg government. He soon faced the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which charged him with a number of offences:

• Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace;
• Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression;
• War crimes; and,
• Crimes against humanity.

Keitel testified that he knew many of Hitler's orders were illegal (for instance, he described the Night and Fog Decree as "the worst of all" the orders he'd been given) but claimed he was merely following orders in conformity to "the leadership principle" (Führerprinzip). The IMT rejected this defence and convicted him on all charges. Due to his signature on orders which called for soldiers and political prisoners to be killed or disappeared, he was sentenced to death. To underscore the criminal rather than military nature of Keitel's acts, the Allies denied his request to be shot by firing squad. Instead, he was executed by hanging. Keitel's last words were:

“

Ich rufe den Allmächtigen an, er möge sich des deutschen Volkes erbarmen. Über zwei Millionen deutsche Soldaten sind vor mir für ihr Vaterland in den Tod gegangen. Ich folge meinen Söhnen nach. Alles für Deutschland!",

”

which translates roughly to:

“

I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons — all for Germany!

”

[edit] Dates of Rank

• Fähnrich - 14 October 1901
• Leutnant - 18 August 1902
• Oberleutnant - 18 August 1910
• Hauptmann - 8 August 1914
• Major - 1 June 1923
• Oberstleutnant - 1 February 1929
• Oberst - 1 October 1931
• Generalmajor - 1 April 1934
• Generalleutnant - 1 January 1936
• General der Artillerie - 1 August 1937
• Generaloberst - 1 November 1938
• Generalfeldmarschall - 19 July 1940

[edit] Legacy

When moving to the United States and Australia after World War II, some of Keitel's family changed their last name to Keetle so as to not be associated with his legacy.

[edit] Portrayal in popular culture

Wilhelm Keitel has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theater productions;^[2]

• Leopold Hainisch in the 1955 West German film Der Letzte Akt (Hitler: The Last Ten Days)^[3]
• Tadeusz Białoszczyński in the 1971 Polish film Epilogue at Nurnberg
• Raymond Adamson in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler^[4]
• John Malcolm in the 1988 American television miniseries War and Remembrance
• Kenneth Colley in the 1990 American television film The Plot to Kill Hitler
• Frank Fontaine in the 2000 Canadian/U.S. T.V. production Nuremberg.
• Dieter Mann in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang)^[5]
• Miroslav Kosev in the 2006 British television docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial
• Kenneth Cranham in the 2008 American film Valkyrie

[edit] See also

•   German Instrument of Surrender (8 May 1945) on Wikisource
• War crimes of the Wehrmacht

[edit] Notes

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wilhelm Keitel

[edit] Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wilhelm Keitel

• BARBAROSSA. By Alan Clark. Perennial, 2002. ISBN 0-688-04268-6
• Hitler and Russia. By Trumbull Higgins. The Macmillan Company, 1966.
• Knopp, Guido (2000). Hitlers Krieger. Goldmann Verlag. ISBN 3-442-15045-0. 
• The World War II. Desk Reference. Eisenhower Center director Douglas Brinkley. Editor Mickael E. Haskey. Grand Central Press, 2004.
• The story of World War II. By Donald L. Miller. Simon & Schuster, 2006. ISBN 10: 0-74322718-2.
• Scorched Earth. By Paul Carell. Schiffer Military History, 1994. ISBN 0-88740-598-3

[edit] External links

• The Memoirs of Fieldmarshal Keitel, Keitel autobiography

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Yosuke Matsuoka	Cover of Time Magazine 14 July 1941	Succeeded by Claude Wickard

v • d • e German Field Marshals and Grand Admirals of World War II Field Marshals (Generalfeldmarschall) Werner von Blomberg · Fedor von Bock · Eduard Freiherr von Böhm-Ermolli (honorary) · Walther von Brauchitsch · Ernst Busch · Hermann Göring · Robert Ritter von Greim · Wilhelm Keitel · Albert Kesselring · Ewald von Kleist · Günther von Kluge · Georg von Küchler · Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb · Wilhelm List · Erich von Manstein · Erhard Milch · Walter Model · Friedrich Paulus · Walther von Reichenau · Wolfram von Richthofen · Erwin Rommel · Gerd von Rundstedt · Ferdinand Schörner · Hugo Sperrle · Maximilian von Weichs · Erwin von Witzleben Grand Admirals (Großadmiral) Karl Dönitz · Erich Raeder

v • d • e Major defendants at the Nuremberg Trials Sentenced to death Martin Bormann1 · Hans Frank · Wilhelm Frick · Hermann Göring2 · Alfred Jodl · Ernst Kaltenbrunner · Wilhelm Keitel · Joachim von Ribbentrop · Alfred Rosenberg · Fritz Sauckel · Arthur Seyss-Inquart · Julius Streicher Imprisoned Karl Dönitz · Walther Funk · Rudolf Hess · Konstantin von Neurath · Erich Raeder · Baldur von Schirach · Albert Speer Acquitted Hans Fritzsche · Franz von Papen · Hjalmar Schacht No decision Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach3 · Robert Ley2 1 in absentia.   2 Committed suicide.   3 Charges dropped due to failing health.

v • d • e Members of Hitler's cabinet (30 January 1933 – 30 April 1945) Adolf Hitler (Chancellor and Führer) · Heinrich Himmler (Reichsführer) Franz von Papen (ind) · Hermann Göring · Konstantin von Neurath · Joachim von Ribbentrop · Martin Bormann · Joseph Goebbels · Wilhelm Frick · Rudolf Hess · Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (ind) · Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP) · Kurt Schmitt · Hjalmar Schacht (ind) · Walther Funk · Franz Seldte · Franz Gürtner (DNVP) · Franz Schlegelberger · Otto Georg Thierack · Werner von Blomberg (ind) · Wilhelm Keitel (ind) · Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach (ind) · Julius Dorpmüller · Wilhelm Ohnesorge · Richard Walther Darré · Herbert Backe · Bernhard Rust · Fritz Todt · Albert Speer · Alfred Rosenberg · Hanns Kerrl · Hermann Muhs · Otto Meißner (ind) · Hans Lammers · Karl Hermann Frank · Ernst Röhm All personnel were or became NSDAP members except where indicated ("ind" = nominally independent)

v • d • e First and last recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross first 30 September 1939 Johannes Blaskowitz (Oak Leaves and Swords)  • Fedor von Bock  • Walther von Brauchitsch  • Hermann Göring (Grand Cross of the Iron Cross)  • Wilhelm Keitel  • Albert Kesselring (Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds)  • Günther von Kluge (Oak Leaves and Swords)  • Georg von Küchler (Oak Leaves)  • Wilhelm List  • Alexander Löhr (Oak Leaves)  • Erich Raeder  • Walter von Reichenau  • Gerd von Rundstedt (Oak Leaves and Swords) last 17 June 1945 Georg-Wolfgang Feller Großadmiral Karl Dönitz had ordered a cease of all promotions and awards as of 11 May 1945. Therefore Georg-Wolfgang Feller is a de facto but not de jure recipient.