Wilhelm Keitel 4

From Keitel's IMT testimony: I found myself in such a situation quite frequently, but the decisive questions which conflicted most violently with my conscience and my convictions were those which were contrary to the training which I had undergone during my 37 years as an officer in the German Army. That was a blow at my most intimate personal principles. ...the orders given for the conduct of the war in the East, insofar as they were contrary to the acknowledged usage of war; then something which particularly concerns the British Delegation, the question of the 50 RAF officers, the question which weighed particularly heavy on my mind, that of the terror-fliers and, worst of all, the Nacht und Nebel Decree and the actual consequences it entailed at a later stage and about which I did not know. Those were the worst struggles which I had with myself.

From Barbarossa by Alan Clark: To avoid interruption from air attack, it had been customary for some time for these afternoon 'briefings,' as they were called, to be held in the corridor of Hitler's personal underground bunker, and into this confined space there crowded, at 2 PM on 28th March, Guderian and Busse, Keitel, Jodl, Burgdorf, Hitler, Bormann, and sundry adjutants, staff officers, stenographers, and men of the SS bodyguard. Soon the conference took on the character, which was to be a recurrent feature of the 'bunker period,' of a hysterical multipartite shouting match. Busse had barely started on his report when Hitler began to interrupt him with the same accusations of negligence, if not cowardice, which Guderian had protested against the previous day. Guderian then began to interrupt, using unusually strong and dissenting language, drawing in turn murmurs of reproof from Keitel and Burgdorf.

Finally Hitler brought the company to order by dismissing everyone except Guderian and Keitel, and turning to Guderian he said, 'Colonel-General, your physical health requires that you immediately take six weeks' convalescent leave.' With the dismissal of Guderian the last rational and independent influence was removed from the direction of military affairs in Germany. Only the 'Nazi soldiers' remained, all of them now in timid conformity with Brauchitch's 'office boy' image and tied to the execution of the Führer's wayward policies. It was one more paradox of the Russian campaign that at the end, when Hitler had mastered the General Staff and finally extinguished the evasions and insubordination’s which had persisted among them (albeit in diminishing strength) since 1941, he began to take on all the characteristics which the generals had so long ascribed to him, and which they had used to excuse their own intermittent disobedience.

From Keitel's IMT testimony: I took the full powers with me to Berlin. They had been signed by Großadmiral Dönitz in his capacity as Chief of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht and stated in a few words that he had authorized and ordered me to conduct the negotiations and to sign the capitulation. ...In the course of the afternoon of 8 May I was asked to present the full powers. Obviously they were examined and several hours later they were returned to me by a high-ranking officer of the Red Army who said that I had to show them again when signing. ...I did have my credentials at hand during the act of capitulation and handed them over to become part of the record.

From The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel: I was to surrender as a prisoner of war and would be flown out at 2:00 that afternoon—in two hours time. I was to turn over my official business to Colonel-General Jodl; I was to be allowed to take with me one personal staff officer, a batman and 300 lbs. of baggage. I stood up, saluted briefly with my Field Marshal's baton and drove back to headquarters... I took leave of Dönitz, who had already been briefed on what was to happen, and selected Lieutenant-Colonel John von Freyend and Monch to accompany me, thereby ensuring a considerably less arduous captivity for them. I handed my personal papers and keys to Jodl and handed Szimonski ... one or two things and a letter for my wife which were to be flown down to Berchtesgaden in the courier plane.

Unfortunately the British later seized everything ... even my ... bank pass-book and the letter to my wife. We took off for a destination not disclosed to us and, after flying right across Germany, landed that evening in Luxumburg airport; there I was treated as a prisoner-of-war for the first time and taken to the internment camp in the Palace Hotel, Mondorf, where Seyss-Inquart had already arrived. In Flensburg I had been my own master; I drove to the airfield in my own car; in those two unguarded hours, I could have put an end to my life and nobody could have stopped me. The thought never occurred to me, as I never dreamed that such a 'via doloris' lay ahead of me, with this tragic end in Nuremberg.

From Keitel's IMT testimony: I can say that I was a soldier by inclination and conviction. For more than 44 years without interruption I served my country and my people as a soldier, and I tried to do my best in the service of my profession. I believed that I should do this as a matter of duty, laboring unceasingly and giving myself completely to those tasks which fell to me in my many and diverse positions. I did this with the same devotion under the Kaiser, under President Ebert, under Field Marshal von Hindenburg, and under the Führer, Adolf Hitler... ...

As a German officer, I naturally consider it my duty to answer for what I have done, even if it should have been wrong. I am grateful that I am being given the opportunity to give an account here and before the German people of what I was and my participation in the events which have taken place. It will not always be possible to separate clearly guilt and entanglement in the threads of destiny. But I do consider one thing impossible, that the men in the front lines and the leaders and the subleaders at the front should be charged with the guilt, while the highest leaders reject responsibility. That, in my opinion, is wrong, and I consider it unworthy. I am convinced that the large mass of our brave soldiers were really decent, and that wherever they overstepped the bounds of acceptable behavior, our soldiers acted in good faith, believing in military necessity, and the orders which they received. ....

It is correct that there are a large number of orders, instructions, and directives with which my name is connected, and it must also be admitted that such orders often contain deviations from existing international law. On the other hand, there are a group of directives and orders based not on military inspiration but on an ideological foundation and point of view. In this connection I am thinking of the group of directives which were issued before the campaign against the Soviet Union and also which were issued subsequently.

From Justice at Nuremberg by Robert E. Conot: The initial cross-examination, conducted by Rudenko, was uneven, and Biddle criticized it as 'childish cross-examination, hardly ever directed to the facts.' Fyfe, following, slashed into Keitel with relish... Göring, cursing in one and the same breath the wiliness of Fyfe and the stupidity of the defense attorney's, raged at Keitel for not putting up more of a fight: 'You don't have to answer so damn directly! The question itself doesn't matter so much as the way you answer it. You can dodge around such dangerous questions and wait until they hand you one you have a good answer for and the sail into it!' Keitel shot back: 'But I can't make white out of black!' To Gilbert he said: 'I could only tell them the way things were. The only thing that is absolutely impossible for me is to sit there like a louse and lie—that is absolutely impossible.'

From The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials by Telford Taylor: Wilhelm Keitel was the ranking officer of the German Army, but he was not a commander. His rise in rank had been chiefly due to his administrative pliancy and the marriage of his eldest son to Field Marshal von Blomberg's daughter. Hitler found him useful as a high-level amanuensis and promoted him so that the senior Field Marshal would be 'his man.' Thus Keitel's role in the military hierarchy was comparable to Ribbentrop's among the diplomats. Both were Hitler's mouthpieces and not doers on their own. In contrast to Ribbentrop, however, Keitel was soldierly and carried himself with dignity at Nuremberg. But he was not highly regarded among his fellow officers, who had given him the sobriquet 'Lakeital,' from 'Lakai,' meaning lackey. When France capitulated in 1940 Keitel openly declared Hitler 'the greatest field commander of all times.' He was the sort of weak man whom Hitler could count on to follow his orders regardless of law or morals. ....

Dr. Nelte, for Keitel, was abler (in his final statement) than his predecessors and not easily put down. .... Nelte's main argument was that despite Keitel's rank (the highest in the army), impressive designation as Chief of the Wehrmacht, and personal signatures on Hitler's orders, he was not legally responsible for them. Keitel himself had made the same point in his testimony, but Nelte attempted to reinforce it by picturing Keitel as a tragic figure doomed by fate, rather than guilt, to be 'linked' with Hitler's crimes. This was true in the sense that if Hitler had not ordered the criminal acts, Keitel had neither the power nor, so far as the evidence indicated, the inclination to violate law or morals. But the weakness of Keitel's position was that he had hitched his own wagon to Hitler's star. Keitel's signature was more than a clerk's stamp. As Nelte, perhaps incautiously, admitted, Keitel was responsible for 'carrying out the Fuehrer's orders.' Thus he put his own rank and administrative authority behind Hitler's decisions.

Final Statement of Wilhelm Keitel: I acknowledged on the witness stand my responsibility in connection with my official position, and have explained the significance of this position in the presentation of evidence and in the final plea of my defense counsel. It is far from my intention to minimize my part in what took place. In the interest of historical truth, however, it seems advisable to correct a few errors in the final speeches of the Prosecution. The American chief prosecutor said in his final speech, and I quote: "Keitel, a weak, submissive tool, turned the Wehrmacht, the instrument of aggression, over to the Party." A "turning-over" of the Wehrmacht to the Party by me cannot be reconciled with my functions, either up to 4 February 1938, or after that time, when Hitler made himself Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht and thus ruled the Party and the Wehrmacht absolutely. I do not recall that any sort of evidence was presented in the course of this Trial which could justify this serious allegation by the Prosecution.

The presentation of evidence, however, has also shown that the further contention "that Keitel led the Wehrmacht in the execution of its criminal intentions" is wrong. This allegation is in contradiction to the Anglo-American trial brief, which says expressly that I had no authority to issue orders. Consequently, the British chief prosecutor is also mistaken when he speaks of me as—and I quote—'a Field Marshal who issued orders to the Wehrmacht.' And when he claims that I said that I "had no idea what practical results were intended by this"—that is the quotation—I believe that this is something quite different from what I said on the witness stand, which was, and I quote the words I spoke on the witness stand: 'But when an order was given, I acted according to my duty as I saw it, without permitting myself to be confused by the possible, but not always foreseeable, consequences.'

Also, the contention that—and I quote—'Keitel and Jodl cannot deny the responsibility for the operations of the Einsatzkommandos, with which their own commanders co-operated closely and cordially,' cannot be reconciled with the results of the testimony. The OKW was eliminated from the Soviet Russian theater of war. There were no troop commanders under its orders. The French chief prosecutor said in his final speech: "Is it necessary to recall the terrible words, of the Defendant Keitel that 'human life was worthless than nothing in the occupied territories." These terrible words are not my words. I did not think them up, and did not make them the contents of any order either. The fact that my name is connected with the transmission of this Führer order weighs heavily enough upon me.

At another point M. Champetier de Ribes says, and I quote: "This order was executed"—it concerned anti-Partisan activities—'by virtue of instructions from the commander of the army group, who in his turn acted according to general instructions of the Defendant Keitel.' Here again "instructions of Keitel" are mentioned, although the French Indictment itself states that I, as Chief of the OKW, could not give any direct orders to the branches of the Wehrmacht.

In the final speech of the Soviet Russian prosecutor he says, and I quote: 'Beginning with the documents on the executions of political persons, Keitel, this 'soldier,' as he likes to call himself, lied shamelessly to the American Prosecution in the preliminary examination—disregarding his oath—by saying that this decree was in the nature of a reprisal and that political persons had been kept separate from the other prisoners of war at the latter's own request. He was exposed before the Court.' The document in question is Number 884-PS. The accusation that I lied is unfounded. The Soviet Russian Prosecution overlooked the fact that the transcript of my preliminary examination on this question was not a subject of evidence before this Tribunal. Therefore, its use in the final speech of the Prosecution should not have been allowed. I did not see the transcript of the preliminary interrogation and do not know the wording. If it is complete, it will clarify the error which arose because the document in question had not been shown to me. In the examination by my defense counsel on the witness stand I presented the state of affairs correctly.

In the last stage of the Trial, the Prosecution attempted once more to incriminate me severely by connecting my name with an order for the preparation of bacteriological warfare. A witness, the former Generalarzt Dr. Schreiber, had said in his report that: "The chief of the OKW, Field Marshal Keitel, had issued orders to prepare for bacteriological warfare against the Soviet Union." On the witness stand here, to be sure, this witness spoke of a "Fuehrer order." But this is not true, either. The introduction of the testimony of Colonel Bürker, which was approved by the Tribunal in agreement with the Prosecution, indicates that in the autumn of 1943, I, in Bürker's own words, sharply and categorically rejected the suggestion of the Army Medical Inspectorate and the Army Ordnance Branch to begin experiments with bacteria, with the comment that that was completely out of the question and that it was indeed forbidden. This is true. General Jodl also can confirm the fact that no order of the kind alleged by the witness was ever issued; on the contrary, Hitler prohibited bacteriological warfare, which had been suggested by some departments. This proves the allegation to the contrary by the witness Dr. Schreiber to be untrue.

I claim to have told the truth in all things, even if they incriminated me; at least to have endeavored, in spite of the great extent of my field of activity, to contribute to the clarification of the true state of affairs to the best of my knowledge. Now, at the end of this Trial I want to present equally frankly the avowal and confession I have to make today. In the course of the Trial my defense counsel submitted two fundamental questions to me, the first one already some months ago. It was: 'In case of a victory, would you have refused to participate in any part of the success?' I answered: 'No, I should certainly have been proud of it.' The second question was: 'How would you act if you were in the same position again?' My answer: 'Then I would rather choose death than to let myself be drawn into the net of such pernicious methods.'

From these two answers the High Tribunal may see my viewpoint. I believed, but I erred, and I was not in a position to prevent what ought to have been prevented. That is my guilt. It is tragic to have to realize that the best I had to give as a soldier, obedience and loyalty, was exploited for purposes which could not be recognized at the time, and that I did not see that there is a limit set even for a soldier's performance of his duty. That is my fate. From the clear recognition of the causes, the pernicious methods, and the terrible consequences of this war, may there arise the hope for a new future in the community of nations for the German people.

From Justice at Nuremberg by Robert E. Conot: The eleven condemned to death were no longer permitted to exercise in the yard. Whenever one emerged from his cell, he was handcuffed to a guard. For a few minutes a day, one at a time, they were marched up and down in the center of the cell block in lock step with a military policeman. When they saw their attorneys in the Palace of Justice, a GI sat with each of them like a Siamese twin joined at the wrist...The Allied Control Council ordered the executions carried out on the fifteenth day after sentencing. The condemned, however, were not informed of the date...The British and French were so apprehensive about demonstrations or a possible attempt to rescue the prisoners that they insisted that no prior announcement of the executions be made.

From The Devil's Disciples by Anthony Read: (The defendant's bodies) were photographed, wrapped in mattress covers, sealed in coffins then driven off in army trucks with a military escort to a crematorium in Munich, which had been told to expect the bodies of fourteen American soldiers. The coffins were opened for inspection by American, British, French and Soviet officials, before being loaded in the cremation ovens. That same evening, a container holding all the ashes was driven away into the Bavarian countryside, in the rain. It stopped in a quiet lane about an hour later, and the ashes were poured into a muddy ditch..."

From the New York Times: The ashes of the innocent and the ashes of unspeakable criminals are composed of the same elements, blown by the same winds, dissolved in the same waters. And in the midst of our dark day we must now hope and pray for the growth of a new world.

From Nuremberg: A Nation on Trial by Werner Maser, translated by Richard Barry: The 'job' had certainly not gone off 'A1,' as the hangman maintained. Streicher groaned for a long time after his execution. Jodl took eighteen minutes and Keitel as much as twenty-four minutes to die. Some of the victims' faces were scratched and bleeding. Frick had severe wounds on his face and neck. Possibly the trapdoors were too small or the ropes had not been properly positioned. The hangman's story, which is only a story, is that the faces were smeared with blood because 'they had bitten their tongues at the moment they fell.'

As far as the Allies were concerned all this was a closely guarded secret. When a German journalist named Helmut Kamphausen managed to persuade an American-licensed newspaper in Berlin to publish photographs of the blood-smeared faces and wounded heads, he was promptly arrested. The victors only released 'touched-up' pictures of the eleven bodies lying in a row on the gymnasium floor—with Göring at one end. That night the bodies were photographed—both naked and clothed—by a US Army photographer; they were in wooden packing cases. Göring's right eye was open, staring glassily at nothing; all the others still had the rope round their necks. Each carried a long narrow identification plate on the chest showing the initial of the Christian name and the surname in full. The bodies, still in their packing boxes, were then taken to Munich on two US Army lorries. There, in the Heilmannstrasse, they were cremated and the ashes scattered into the Conwentz Brook.