The Guidelines for the Troops demanding “ruthless” action against Jews.The Jurisdiction Order removing the threat of prosecution for German crimes committed against in the East.These included the infamous “Criminal Orders:” Keitel had signed many decrees that contravened international law. Even though his role as the head of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces was largely symbolic, Keitel was complicit in the mass atrocities and war crimes committed in the name of the Third Reich, including the genocide of European Jewry. On May 13, 1945, Keitel was arrested with the rest of the Flensburg Cabinet.
It was Keitel whom Dönitz authorized to sign a document of surrender to Soviet forces in Berlin, following General Alfred Jodl's signing of unconditional surrender documents for all German forces on May 7. Among his colleagues, he was privately known as “Lackeitel,” (“Lackey Keitel”), a play on words of the German word “Lakei” (“lackey”).Īfter Hitler's suicide in Berlin on April 30, 1945, Keitel joined the short-lived “Flensburg Cabinet” which formed under Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz in the last weeks of the war. Keitel's behavior earned him contempt in army circles. After the invasion of Poland, he had received a “bonus” of 100,000 Reichsmarks for his loyalty. While a stronger personality might have challenged Hitler, Keitel was fiercely loyal and became little more than a conduit for Hitler's policies.Įver the yes-man, Keitel publicly supported Hitler, even when, as with the invasions of France and the Soviet Union, he housed private reservations. However, Adolf Hitler quickly assumed supreme command of all German armed forces, thus almost immediately superseding Keitel's authority. 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. 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 this capacity, he was responsible for secretly planning, reorganizing, and eventually enlarging the German army in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Keitel, then a colonel, served in the Truppenamt (troop office), an agency which concealed the existence of the proscribed Army General Staff. He was seriously wounded in Flanders in 1914.įollowing World War I, the terms of the Treaty of Versailles reduced the German army (the Reichswehr) to 100,000 men. During World War I, Keitel served on the western front as a battery commander and then staff officer. In 1901, he joined the Prussian army as an artillery officer. Wilhelm Keitel was born near Bad Gandersheim in what is today the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, on September 22, 1882.
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