 | Wilhelm Keitel: Encyclopedia - Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (September 22, 1882 – October 16, 1946) was a German Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and a senior military leader during World War II.
Wilhelm Keitel - Early life and career
The son of Carl Keitel, a middle-class landowner, he was born in Helmscherode near Hanover, Germany. 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 in 1909. During World War I Keitel served on the Western front with the 46th Artillery Regiment. In September 1914, during the fighting in Flanders, he was seriously wounded in his right forearm by a shell fragment.
He recovered, and therafter became a member of 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, he was transferred to the Reich Defence Ministry, serving with the Troop Office or (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 he became chief of the newly-created Armed Forces Office (Wehrmachtamt).
Wilhelm Keitel - OKW and World War II
In 1937, Keitel received a promotion to General, and in the following year, in the wake of the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair and the replacement of the Reichswehrministerium (Reich Defense Ministry) with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, a.k.a. OKW (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces), he assumed the position of Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. Accordingly, in 1940 he became a "Generalfeldmarschall" (Field Marshal).
During World War II, Keitel proved a weak and cautious commander: he advised Hitler against invading France and opposed Operation Barbarossa. Both times he backed down in the face of Hitler and tendered his resignation: the Führer refused to accept it. In 1942 he again stood up to Hitler over Field Marshal Siegmund List. Keitel's defence of List was his last act of defiance to Hitler, for after that he never again challenged one of Hitler's orders and was referred to by his colleagues as Lakaitel ("Lackey-tel"). He signed numerous orders of dubious legality under the laws of war, the most infamous of which being the notorious Commissar order, and unquestionably allowed Himmler a free hand with his racial controls and ensuing terror in captured Russian territory. Another was the order to have any of the French pilots fighting for the Normandie-Niemen fighter regiment in and on behalf of the USSR to be executed instead of their being treated as prisoners of war. Keitel was also instrumental in foiling the attempted coup of the July 20 Plot in 1944, whose objectives were the assassination of Hitler and the replacement of the current upper hierarchy in the Army, and sat on the following Army Court of Honour that handed many officers, including Field Marshal von Witzleben, over to Roland Freisler's notorious People's Court.
Wilhelm Keitel - After World War II
On May 9, 1945, Keitel signed Nazi Germany's surrender to the Red Army. Four days later he was arrested, and soon faced the International Military Tribunal, which charged him with a number of offences: conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and, finally, crimes against humanity. The IMT rejected Keitel's defence that he was following orders in conformity to the Führerprinzip or leadership principle. Instead he was found guilty on all charges. To underscore the criminal, rather than military, nature of Keitel's acts the Allies denied his request to be shot by firing squad and hanged him instead.
Werner von Blomberg | Hermann Göring | Walther von Brauchitsch | Albert Kesselring | Wilhelm Keitel | Günther von Kluge | Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb | Fedor von Bock | Wilhelm List | Erwin von Witzleben | Walther von Reichenau | Erhard Milch | Hugo Sperrle | Gerd von Rundstedt | Erwin Rommel | Georg von Küchler | Erich von Manstein | Friedrich Paulus | Ewald von Kleist | Maximilian von Weichs | Ernst Busch | Wolfram von Richthofen | Walther Model | Ferdinand Schörner | Robert Ritter von Greim
Honorary: Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli
Erich Raeder | Karl Dönitz
Categories: 1882 births | 1946 deaths | Field Marshals of Nazi Germany | Nuremberg executions
Other related archives1882, 1882 births, 1901, 1909, 1914, 1915, 1924, 1933, 1935, 1946, 1946 deaths, Albert Kesselring, Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, Commissar order, Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli, Erhard Milch, Erich Raeder, Erich von Manstein, Ernst Busch, Erwin Rommel, Erwin von Witzleben, Ewald von Kleist, Fedor von Bock, Ferdinand Schörner, Field Marshal, Field Marshals of Nazi Germany, Flanders, France, Freikorps, Friedrich Paulus, Führer, Führerprinzip, General Staff, Generalfeldmarschall, Georg von Küchler, Gerd von Rundstedt, German, German General Staff, Germany, Günther von Kluge, Hanover, Hermann Göring, Himmler, Hitler, Hugo Sperrle, International Military Tribunal, July 20 Plot, Karl Dönitz, Maximilian von Weichs, Nazi, Normandie-Niemen, Nuremberg executions, OKW, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, October 16, Operation Barbarossa, People's Court, Polish, Red Army, Reichswehr, Robert Ritter von Greim, Roland Freisler, Russian, September, September 22, Siegmund List, USSR, Versailles, Walther Model, Walther von Brauchitsch, Walther von Reichenau, Werner von Blomberg, Werner von Fritsch, Wilhelm List, Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, Wolfram von Richthofen, World War I, World War II, coup, hanged, von Witzleben
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Wilhelm Keitel", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
