Who is wilhelm keitel

Glossary : Full Glossary. Wilhelm Keitel In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, the world was faced with a challenge—how to hold individually accountable those German leaders who were responsible for the commission of monstrous crimes against humanity and international peace.

More information about this image. Article International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Glossary Terms. Critical Thinking Questions Explore how challenges to ethical behavior and leadership played out in the context of the Holocaust. How do these challenges confront us today? What pressures and motivations may have affected Keitel's choices before and during the war? How were various professions involved in implementing Nazi policies and ideology?

Keitel would have been instrumental in the planning for the invasion of Poland in September The success of this attack, and the success of the attacks on Western Europe in , resulted in Hitler promoting Keitel to field-marshal in Keitel rarely stood up to Hitler. Keitel proffered his resignation to Hitler — which was refused. Keitel was also responsible for signing a number of military orders that broke the accepted conventions of warfare. On May 13th, he was arrested and charged with crimes against humanity and conspiring to commit crimes against peace.

In , after the French campaign, he was promoted to field marshal along with several other generals. Unusual for a non-field commander, Keitel was awarded the Knight's Cross for arranging the armistice with France. Keitel realised the Germans would be unable to win the Battle of Britain , as the British had the backing of the almost unlimited resources of the United States. He had advised Hitler not to attack the Soviet Union in as he was convinced that "Operation Barbarossa " would be a failure.

The overwhelming success of Barbarossa in its initial phase did a great deal to undermine Keitel's authority in the face of Hitler. However, he was the author of the infamous Barbarossa decree , which condemned captured prisoners and ensured a high level of brutality by German soldiers against Russian civilians. Hitler spurned Keitel's pleading and fired List. Keitel's defense of List was his last act of defiance to Hitler; he never again challenged Hitler's orders.

For example, during a strategy briefing late in the war, Luftwaffe intelligence discovered vast numbers of Soviet fighter aircraft ready to be deployed to the front. Keitel unquestionably allowed Heinrich Himmler a free hand with his racial controls and ensuing terror in occupied Eastern European territories. He also signed numerous orders of dubious legality under the laws of war. The most infamous were the Commissar Order which stipulated that Soviet political commissars were to be shot on sight and the Night and Fog Decree which called for the forced disappearance of resistance fighters and other political prisoners in Germany's occupied territories.

Another was the order that French pilots of the Normandie-Niemen squadron be executed rather than be made prisoners of war.

According to Albert Speer memoirs, nearly all of the Field Marshals and Generals viewed him with scorn and disdain for succumbing to Hitler's influence and transforming himself from a "honorable, solidly respectable general" into a powerless yes-man with all the wrong instincts, whose only job was to allow Hitler to take control of the Army.

General Ludwig Beck complained that he was incapable of giving Hitler the reality of the situations and was an extremely poor tactician whose decisions were motivated more by ensuring his own survival rather than the troops; Marshal Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist labeled him as nothing more than a "stupid follower of Hitler" and most commanders went out of his way to ignore his orders. Although Von Kleist did admit that had Hitler chose a more competent commander such as himself , he would have only two weeks.

His sycophancy was well known in the army, and he acquired the nickname 'Lakeitel', a pun on his name in German, the word 'Lakai' means 'lackey'. Keitel played an important role in foiling the 20 July plot in Keitel then 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.

In April and May , 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 attacks. Although Germany had surrendered to the Allies a day earlier, Stalin had insisted on a second surrender ceremony in Berlin. Keitel claimed he did so as a formality at the Nuremberg Trials , but never received formal party membership. He was one of only two people to receive honorary party membership status.

Another work by Keitel later published in English was Questionnaire on the Ardennes offensive [4]. Four days after the surrender, Keitel was arrested along with the rest of the Flensburg government. He soon faced the International Military Tribunal IMT , which indicted him on all four counts before it: conspiracy to commit crimes against peace , planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression , war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Most of the case against him was based on his signature being present on dozens of orders that called for soldiers and political prisoners to be killed or disappeared. Keitel admitted that he knew many of Hitler's orders were illegal.

For instance, he described the Night and Fog Decree , which ordered the disappearance of resistance fighters in the occupied territories, as "the worst of all" the orders he'd been given. The IMT rejected this defence and convicted him on all charges. Although the tribunal's charter allowed "superior orders" to be considered a mitigating factor, it found that Keitel's crimes were so egregious that there were no mitigating factors. The tribunal wrote, "Superior orders, even to a soldier, cannot be considered in mitigation where crimes as shocking and extensive have been committed consciously, ruthlessly and without military excuse or justification.