General field marshal keitel biography

Wilhelm Keitel was born as the son of an estate owner in 1882. His father pushed him into a military career. In 1901 he joined the 46th Artillery Regiment in Wolfenbüttel and was appointed regimental adjutant in 1908. His rise through the ranks continued during and after the First World War. After the Nazis took power in January 1933 Keitel participated in the expansion of the Reich Defence Ministry. In 1938, when its tasks were turned over to the newly founded Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), General Keitel was appointed chief of the OKW. He held a rank equivalent to that of a Reich minister, but had no command authority in his own right. During the Second World War Keitel was involved in all aspects of military planning and proved unswervingly loyal to Hitler. In June 1940 he signed the armistice with France and shortly thereafter was promoted to the rank of field marshal. Although Keitel initially opposed the invasion of the Soviet Union, he ensured the smooth implementation of orders that violated international law and shared responsibility for the war of annihilation in the East. After Hitler’s suicide Keitel followed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who formed an acting Reich government at his headquarters near Flensburg on 5 May 1945. On 8 May the German delegation with Keitel was flown from Flensburg to Berlin, where they signed the total surrender of the German armed forces at Soviet headquarters. In November 1945 Keitel stood trial before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and was sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was executed on 16 October 1946.

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (born 22 September 1882 in Helmscherode, Duchy Of Brunswick, Germany – died 16 October 1946 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany) was a Germanfield marshal, a Naziwar criminal and the chief of the Wehrmacht between 1938 and 1945. He was one of the 24 accused of the Nuremberg Trials and hanged in 1946.

Life

Early life and career

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel was born on 22 September 1882 in Helmscherode in the Duchy Of Brunswick (today Lower Saxony). He joined the Imperial German Army in 1901, aged 19 .

During World War I, Keitel served as a infantry soldier in the Military on the Western Front and took part in the fighting in Flanders, where he was wounded a lot.

During Nazi era

From 1919 to 1933, under Weimar Republic, Keitel was part of the Reichswehr German Army as a Junior Army Officer In 1934, he was promoted to the Senior army officer rank of Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal or General) and appointed chief of the Reich Ministry of War's Armed Forces Office (Wehrmachtsamt). In 1938, he became the chief of the Wehrmacht between 1938 and 1945.

Keitel was a Nazi, and he was one of Adolf Hitler's most loyal followers. As the chief of the Wehrmacht, he was responsible for many war crimes, such as sending millions of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust and ordered Senior Officers and junior officers of the German Army in the German Military to shoot wounded soldiers and execute POWS and civilians all over Europe during World War 2 from 1939-1945 .

Death

During the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Keitel was convicted as a Nazi war criminal. He was executed by hanging on 16 October 1946, aged 64, for his war crimes.

Legacy

Wilhelm Keitel appeared in the movie Downfall.

Early Life and World War I

Wilhelm Keitel was born near Bad Gandersheim in what is today the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, on September 22, 1882. In 1901, he joined the Prussian army as an artillery officer. During World War I, Keitel served on the western front as a battery commander and then staff officer. He was seriously wounded in Flanders in 1914.

Following World War I, the terms of the Treaty of Versailles reduced the German army (the Reichswehr) to 100,000 men. Keitel, then a colonel, served in the Truppenamt (troop office), an agency which concealed the existence of the proscribed Army General Staff. In this capacity, he was responsible for secretly planning, reorganizing, and eventually enlarging the German army in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Military Career

In 1935, on advice from Commander-in-Chief General Werner von Fritsch, Keitel was promoted to Major General and in 1937 to Colonel General. In 1938, Keitel was appointed head of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht; OKW), that agency which replaced the German War Ministry and which bore responsibility over the army, navy, and air force.

However, Adolf Hitler quickly assumed supreme command of all German armed forces, thus almost immediately superseding Keitel's authority. While a stronger personality might have challenged Hitler, Keitel was fiercely loyal and became little more than a conduit for Hitler's policies.

Ever the yes-man, Keitel publicly supported Hitler, even when, as with the invasions of France and the Soviet Union, he housed private reservations. After the invasion of Poland, he had received a “bonus” of 100,000 Reichsmarks for his loyalty. Keitel's behavior earned him contempt in army circles. Among his colleagues, he was privately known as “Lackeitel,” (“Lackey Keitel”), a play on words of the German word “Lakei” (“lackey”).

After Hitler's

German field marshal and war criminal (1882–1946)

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (German pronunciation:[ˈvɪlhɛlmˈkaɪtl̩]; 22 September 1882 – 16 October 1946) was a German field marshal who held office as chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (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 Wehrmacht 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 Wehrmacht 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 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 (1854–1934), a middle-class landowner, and his wife Apollonia Vissering (1855–1888). At the beginning he 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 1.85 metres (6 feet 1 inch) tall, later described as a solidly built and square-j