German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946), Adolf Hitler's senior military adviser during World War II, was tried at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 for crimes against humanity. What do we know about this man and how did it happen that, having risen to the head of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, he ended his career so ingloriously?
Baby Willie
On September 22, 1882, Wilhelm Johann Gustav Keitel was born in the small estate of Helmscherod, which is located in the picturesque Harz mountains of the province of Braunschweig in Northern Germany. The family of Karl Keitel and Apollonia Keitel, the parents of the future field marshal of Nazi Germany, was not very rich. Having been engaged in agriculture all his life, Wilhelm's father was forced to pay off creditors for the estate, bought at one time by his father, the royal adviser of the Northern District of Lower Saxony, Karl Keitel.
Wilhelm's parents played their wedding in 1881, and already in September of the following year their first-born Willy was born. Unfortunately, happiness did not last long, and already at the age of 6 yearsWilhelm Keitel is orphaned. Apollonia, having given life in labor pains to Bodevin, the second son and future general, commander of the Wehrmacht ground forces, died during childbirth from an infectious infection.
Childhood and youth of V. Keitel
Until the age of 10, Willy was in the estate under the supervision of his father. Teaching school sciences was carried out by home teachers who specially came from Göttingen. Only in 1892 Wilhelm Keitel was accepted to study at the Royal Gyttingen Gymnasium. The boy did not show any particular desire to study. School years passed sluggishly and without interest. All thoughts of the future general were about a military career. He imagined himself as a military commander on a dashing horse, to whom hundreds of loyal soldiers obeyed. Wilhelm begged his father to send him to study in the cavalry corps.
However, the parent did not have enough money to support the horse, and then it was decided to send the guy to the field artillery. So in 1900, Wilhelm Keitel became a volunteer of the Lower Saxon 46th Artillery Regiment, which was stationed near the family estate in Helmscherode. Having identified Wilhelm for military service, Karl Keitel married A. Gregoire, a homeschool teacher for his youngest son Bodevin.
Wilhelm Keitel: biography of a young officer
1901 - at the age of nineteen, V. Keitel becomes a Fahrenjunker of the first division of the 46th artillery regiment in Wolfenbüttel.
1902 - after graduating from a military school in the city of Anklam, Wilhelm Keitelpromoted to the rank of lieutenant, and is appointed second assistant commander of the 2nd Brunswick battery of the 46th artillery regiment. It is noteworthy that the next 3rd battery was commanded by the future Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, who became famous for delivering a speech to the Fuhrer about the inhuman treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.
1904-1905 - training courses at the artillery and rifle school near the city of Yuterbog, after which V. Keitel received the post of regimental adjutant and began to serve under the command of von Stolzenberg.
On April 18, 1909, the young Lisa Fontaine, the daughter of an industrialist and farmer from Hanover, won the heart of a 27-year-old officer. Young people became spouses. In the family of Wilhelm and Lisa, six children were born - three daughters and three sons. All the boys became soldiers, and Wilhelm's daughters married officers of the Third Reich.
Continuing military career
The news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 found the Keitels in Switzerland, where the young couple spent their next vacation. Wilhelm was forced to interrupt the rest and urgently go to the duty station.
In September 1914 in Flanders, Wilhelm Keitel received a severe shrapnel wound in his right forearm. Returning from the hospital to the location of the regiment, Keitel in October 1914 was promoted to the rank of captain and was appointed battery commander of his 46th artillery regiment. The further promotion of a military officer up the career ladder was very rapid.
In March 1915, Wilhelm Keitel (photos are presented in the review) is transferred to the General Staff of the 17th reserve corps. At the end of 1917, W. Keitel was appointed head of the military operations department of the General Staff of the Marine Corps. During his service until 1915 for the benefit of Germany, Keitel was repeatedly awarded orders and medals, including the Iron Cross of two degrees.
Between First and Second
After the adoption of a new democratic constitution on July 31, 1919, the Weimar Republic was created at the National Constituent Assembly in Weimar with its own army and navy. Keitel enters the ranks of the newly created army and receives the post of chief quartermaster of the army corps.
In 1923, after teaching at a cavalry school (a childhood dream come true), V. Keitel became a major. In subsequent years, he worked in the Ministry of Defense, was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff for Tactical Training, and then - Head of Department of the Ministry of Defense. In the summer of 1931, Keitel visited the Soviet Union as part of a German delegation.
In 1935, as a major general, Wilhelm Keitel was appointed head of the German Armed Forces. Having passed the entire career ladder, on February 4, 1938, Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel becomes the Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces.
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
This high military rank V. Keitel received for successfullythe Polish (in 1939) and French (in 1940) campaigns. It is noteworthy that he was an ardent opponent of the German attack on Poland and France, as well as on the USSR, which he repeatedly spoke to Adolf Hitler. This is proven by historical documents. Twice V. Keitel resigned due to disagreement with the policy of his boss, but Hitler did not accept it.
Bloody Orders
Nevertheless, Field Marshal General remained faithful to the oath to the German people and his Fuhrer. On June 6, 1941, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, he signed the "Order on Commissars", which read: "All captured military commanders, political officers and citizens of Jewish nationality are subject to immediate liquidation, that is, to execution on the spot."
September 16, 1941, the Supreme Commander of Nazi Germany issued a decree according to which all hostages on the Eastern Front should be shot. By order of the field marshal, all captured pilots from the Normandy-Neman air regiment were not prisoners of war and were subject to execution on the spot. Subsequently, at the Nuremberg trials in 1946, military prosecutors read out numerous decrees and orders, the author of which was Wilhelm Keitel. The execution of civilians, the execution of communists and non-party people, the liquidation of cities and villages in the occupied territories - all this was on the conscience of Field Marshal V. Keitel.
Act of Unconditional Surrender
Soviet people waited 1418 days for this legal document about peace with Germany. The people went to this greatvictory, pouring blood over their land, step by step, meter by meter, losing husbands, wives, children, brothers and sisters on the way. On May 8, 1945, this historic document was signed in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst. On the Soviet side, the act was signed by Marshal G. K. Zhukov, on the German side - Wilhelm Keitel. The surrender is signed, from now on the world is no longer threatened by the brown plague.
The fate of a German officer
Germany above all else! These were the last words spoken by V. Keitel with a noose around his neck. After the signing of the act of unconditional surrender of Germany on May 12, 1945, Field Marshal W. Keitel, along with other war criminals of Nazi Germany, was taken into custody. Soon the International Military Tribunal called to account all the henchmen of Adolf Hitler. They were charged with conspiracy against the world community, preparing and conducting military operations on the territory of other states, as well as crimes against humanity.
Field Marshal V. Keitel desperately justified himself in court and said that he carried out all orders on the personal instructions of A. Hitler. However, this argument had no evidence base in court, and he was found guilty on all counts.
On the morning of October 16, 1946, the German Foreign Minister, the Fuhrer's personal adviser on foreign policy, Joachim von Ribbentrop, was executed. Keitel was the second to ascend the scaffold with his head held high. The sentence on the German criminal was carried out. The field marshal followed his soldiers.
Afterword
After the Nuremberg Trials, some war criminals began to analyze the reasons for the defeat of the Third Reich, expressing their thoughts in memoirs and memoirs. Wilhelm Keitel was no exception. Quotations from his three books, written two weeks before the execution of the sentence, indicate that the field marshal remained a devoted and loyal soldier of his Fuhrer. Here is one of them: “I am a soldier! But for a soldier, an order is always an order.”
