Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Keitel headed the German armed forces high command for the whole of the Second World War and was hanged at Nuremberg. Born in 1882 to a landowning family in Brunswick, he wanted to farm and entered the army because the estate could not support him, serving as an artillery officer and being severely wounded in 1914. He was a staff officer of unremarkable ability who rose through administration. His opportunity came in 1938, when Hitler used a scandal to dismiss the war minister Blomberg and the army commander Fritsch, abolished the war ministry, and made himself supreme commander. Keitel was appointed chief of the new Oberkommando der Wehrmacht — in effect Hitler's military office manager, with no independent command authority. He offered his resignation over the Czech crisis and was refused, and thereafter did not oppose anything. Colleagues called him Lakeitel, a pun on lackey, and nodding donkey. He signed the criminal orders that make him more than an administrator: the Commissar Order of 1941 requiring the execution of Soviet political officers; the Barbarossa jurisdiction decree removing German soldiers from prosecution for offences against civilians; the Night and Fog decree of 1941 providing for the disappearance of resistance suspects; and the Commando Order requiring captured commandos to be shot. He signed the French armistice in 1940 and the German surrender in Berlin in May 1945. At Nuremberg he pleaded superior orders. He was convicted on all four counts and hanged in October 1946, having asked for a firing squad. His request was refused on the grounds that he had not conducted himself as a soldier.
- Lived: 1882 CE – 1946 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: field_marshal, okw_chief
