Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (; 22 September 188216 October 1946) was a German field marshal who held office as chief of the (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's armed forces, during World War II. He signed a number of criminal orders and directives that led to numerous war crimes.
Keitel's rise to the high command began with his appointment as the head of the Armed Forces Office at the Reich Ministry of War in 1935. Having taken command of the in 1938, Adolf Hitler replaced the ministry with the OKW and Keitel became its chief. He was reviled among his military colleagues as Hitler's habitual "yes-man".
After the war, Keitel was indicted by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as one of the "major war criminals". He was found guilty on all counts of the indictment: crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, criminal conspiracy, and war crimes. He was sentenced to death and executed in Nuremberg by hanging in 1946.
Early life and career Wilhelm Keitel was born in the village of Helmscherode near Gandersheim in the Duchy of Brunswick, Germany. He was the eldest son of Carl Keitel, a middle-class landowner, and his wife Apollonia Vissering. As a youngster his main interests were hunting and riding horses, hobbies which he pursued also later in life. He was also interested in farming and wanted to take over his family's estates after completing his education at a gymnasium. This plan failed as his father did not want to retire. Instead, he embarked on a military career in 1901, becoming an officer cadet of the Prussian Army. As a commoner, he did not join the cavalry, but a field artillery regiment in Wolfenbüttel, serving as adjutant from 1908. On 18 April 1909, Keitel married Lisa Fontaine, a wealthy landowner's daughter at Wülfel near Hanover.
Keitel was tall, later described as a solidly built and square-jawed Prussian.
During World War I, Keitel served on the Western Front and took part in the fighting in Flanders, where he was severely wounded. After being promoted to captain, Keitel was posted to the staff of an infantry division in 1915. After the war, Keitel was retained in the newly created Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic and played a part in organizing the paramilitary Freikorps units on the Polish border. In 1924, Keitel was transferred to the Ministry of the Reichswehr in Berlin, serving with the Truppenamt ('Troop Office'), the post-Versailles disguised German General Staff. Three years later, he returned to field command.
Now a lieutenant-colonel, Keitel was again assigned to the war ministry in 1929 and was soon promoted to Head of the Organizational Department ("T-2"), a post he held until Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. Playing a vital role in the German rearmament, he traveled at least once to the Soviet Union to inspect secret Reichswehr training camps. In the autumn of 1932, he suffered a heart attack and double pneumonia. Shortly after his recovery, in October 1933, Keitel was appointed as deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division; in 1934, he was given command of the 22nd Infantry Division at Bremen.
Rise to the Wehrmacht High Command
In 1935, at the recommendation of General Werner von Fritsch, Keitel was promoted to the rank of major general and appointed chief of the Reich Ministry of War's Armed Forces Office (Wehrmachtsamt), which oversaw the army, navy, and air force. After assuming office, Keitel was promoted to lieutenant general on 1 January 1936.
On 21 January 1938, Keitel received evidence revealing that the wife of his superior, War Minister Werner von Blomberg, was a former prostitute. Upon reviewing this information, Keitel suggested that the dossier be forwarded to Hitler's deputy, Hermann Göring, who used it to bring about Blomberg's resignation.
When von Blomberg was asked by Hitler (out of respect for him, after his dismissal in 1938) who he would recommend to replace him, he had said that Hitler himself should take over the job. Upon disclosing that Keitel (who was his son-in-law's father) "is just the man who runs my office", Hitler snapped his fingers and exclaimed "That's exactly the man I'm looking for". So on 4 February 1938 when Hitler became Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, Keitel (to the astonishment of the General Staff, including himself) became chief of staff. As a result of his appointment, Keitel assumed the responsibilities of Germany's war minister. Although not officially appointed a Reichsminister, Keitel was granted cabinet-level rank.
Soon after his promotion, Keitel convinced Hitler to appoint Walther von Brauchitsch as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, replacing von Fritsch. He also secured the appointment of his brother, Bodewin Keitel, as Chief of the Army Personnel Office. By November 1938, Keitel was promoted to Generaloberst (Colonel General). Later, in April 1939, he was awarded the Golden Party Badge by Hitler.
Criticism of capabilities Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist labelled Keitel nothing more than a "stupid follower of Hitler" because of his servile "yes man" attitude toward Hitler. His sycophancy was well known in the army, and he acquired the nickname 'Lakeitel', a pun derived from ("lackey") and his surname. Hermann Göring's description of Keitel as having "a sergeant's mind inside a field marshal's body" was a feeling often expressed by his peers. He had been promoted because of his willingness to function as Hitler's mouthpiece. He was known by his peers as a "blindingly loyal toady" of Hitler, nicknamed "Nickgeselle", after a popular metal toy nodding donkey, the "Nickesel". During the war he was subject to verbal abuse from Hitler, who said to other officers (according to Gerd von Rundstedt) that "you know he has the brains of a movie usher ... (but he was made the highest ranking officer in the Army) ... because the man's as loyal as a dog" (said by Hitler with a sly smile).
Keitel was predisposed to manipulation because of his limited intellect and nervous disposition; Hitler valued his diligence and obedience. On one occasion, Generalleutnant asked who Keitel was: upon finding out he became horrified at his own failure to salute his superior. Franz Halder, however, told him: "Don't worry, it's only Keitel". German officers consistently bypassed him and went directly to Hitler.
World War II
On 30 August 1939 (the next morning the Wehrmacht started the invasion of Poland), Hitler appointed Keitel to the six-person Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich which was set up to operate as a "war cabinet". Nazi Germany began the Westfeldzug on 10 May 1940 and defeated France in the Battle of France in mid June. Keitel called Hitler "the greatest warlord of all time" and conducted the negotiations of the French armistice. On 19 July 1940 he and eleven other generals were promoted to Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal).
The planning for Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, was begun tentatively by Halder with the redeployment of the 18th Army into an offensive position against the Soviet Union. On 31 July 1940, Hitler held a major conference that included Keitel, Halder, Alfred Jodl, Erich Raeder, Brauchitsch, and Hans Jeschonnek which further discussed the invasion. The participants did not object to the invasion. Hitler asked for war studies to be completed and Georg Thomas was given the task of completing two studies on economic matters. The first study by Thomas detailed serious problems with fuel and rubber supplies. However, Keitel bluntly dismissed the problems, telling Thomas that Hitler would not want to see it. This influenced Thomas' second study which offered a glowing recommendation for the invasion based upon fabricated economic benefits.
In January 1943, just before the final surrender at Stalingrad, Hitler agreed to the creation of a three-man committee with representatives of the State, the Armed Forces High Command, and the NSDAP in an attempt to centralize control of the war economy and over the home front. The committee members were Keitel, (Chief of OKW) Hans Lammers (Chief of the Reich Chancellery), and Martin Bormann (Chief of the Party Chancellery). The committee, soon known as the Dreierausschuss (Committee of Three), met eleven times between January and August 1943. However, it had little autonomy, with Hitler reserving most of the final decisions to himself. In addition, it ran up against resistance from cabinet ministers, who headed deeply entrenched spheres of influence and, seeing it as a threat to their power, worked together to undermine it. The result was that nothing changed, and the Committee declined into irrelevance.
Keitel played an important role after the failed 20 July plot in 1944. He sat on the army "court of honour" that handed over many officers who were involved, including Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, to Roland Freisler's notorious People's Court. Around 7,000 people were arrested, many of whom were tortured by the Gestapo, and around 5,000 were executed.
In April and May 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, Keitel called for counterattacks to drive back the Soviet forces and relieve Berlin. However, there were insufficient German forces to carry out such counterattacks. After Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Keitel stayed on as a member of the short-lived Flensburg Government under Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Upon arriving in Flensburg, Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and War Production, said that Keitel grovelled to Dönitz in the same way as he had done to Hitler. On 7 May 1945, Alfred Jodl, on behalf of Dönitz, signed Germany's unconditional surrender on all fronts. Joseph Stalin considered this an affront, so a second signing was arranged at the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst on 8 May. There, Keitel signed the German Instrument of Surrender on 8 May 1945. Five days later on 13 May, he was arrested at the request of the United States and interned at Camp Ashcan in Mondorf-les-Bains. Jodl succeeded him as Chief of OKW until the final dissolution of the Flensburg Government on 23 May.
Role in crimes of the Wehrmacht and the Holocaust
Keitel had full knowledge of the criminal nature of the planning and the subsequent invasion of Poland, agreeing to its aims in principle. The Nazi plans included mass arrests, population transfers, and mass murder. Keitel did not contest the regime's assault upon basic human rights or counter the role of the Einsatzgruppen in the murders. The criminal nature of the invasion was now obvious; local commanders continued to express shock and protest over the events they were witnessing. Keitel continued to ignore the protests among the officer corps while they became morally numbed to the atrocities.
Keitel issued a series of criminal orders from April 1941. The orders went beyond established codes of conduct for the military and broadly allowed the execution of Jews, civilians, and non-combatants for any reason. Those carrying out the murders were exempted from court-martial or later being tried for war crimes. The orders were signed by Keitel; however, other members of the OKW and the OKH, including Halder, wrote or changed the wording of his orders. Commanders in the field interpreted and carried out the orders.