Wilhelm Keitel: biography, photo, quote

German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (1882-1946), Senior Military Adviser to Adolf Hitler during World War II, was convicted at the Nuremberg Trial in 1946 for a crime against humanity. What do we know about this man and how did it happen that, having reached the head of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, he ended his ignominious course?

Baby Willie

On September 22, 1882, in the small Helmskorod estate, which is located in the picturesque Harz mountains of the province of Braunschweig in Northern Germany, Wilhelm Johann Gustav Keitel was born. The family of Karl Keitel and Apollonius Keitel, the parents of the future field marshal of Nazi Germany, was not very rich. Throughout his life engaged in agriculture, William's father was forced to pay with creditors for the estate, bought in due time by his father, Royal Adviser of the Northern District of Lower Saxony, Karl Keitel.

Wilhelm's parents played the wedding in 1881, and in September of the next year their first born Willy appeared. Unfortunately, happiness did not last long, and already at the age of 6, Wilhelm Keitel was orphaned. Apollonius, having given birth in a kindred torment to Bodevin, the second son and future general, the commander of the land forces of the Wehrmacht, died during infectious infection.

Childhood and youth of V. Keitel

Until 10 years Willy was in the estate under the supervision of his father. The teaching of the school sciences was carried out by home teachers, who specially came from Göttingen. Only in 1892 William Keitel was admitted to study at the Royal Gymnasium of the city of Göttingen. The boy did not show a particular desire to study. School years passed listlessly and without interest. All the thoughts of the future general were about a military career. He pictured himself as a battle commander on a dashing horse, to which hundreds of faithful soldiers were subordinated. Wilhelm begged his father to send him to study in the cavalry corps.

However, the parent did not have sufficient funds 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 in the Lower Saxon 46th Artillery Regiment, which was billeted near the family estate in Helmcherode. Defining Wilhelm for military service, Karl Keitel married A. Gregoire, a home school teacher of her youngest son Bodevin.

Wilhelm Keitel: biography of a young officer

1901 - at the age of nineteen V. Keitel becomes a fan-junker of the first battalion of the 46th artillery regiment in Wolfenbüttel.

1902 - after the end of the military school in Anklama, Wilhelm Keitel is promoted to lieutenant's rank, and is appointed as the second assistant to the commander of the 2 Braunschweig battery 46 artillery regiment. It is noteworthy that the next 3rd battery was commanded by the future general-Field Marshal Guenther von Kluge, famous for delivering a speech to the Fuhrer about the inhuman treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.

1904-1905 - training in courses at the artillery and infantry school near the city of Yyterbog, after which V. Keitel received the post of regimental adjutant and began to serve under the command of von Stolzenberga.

April 18, 1909, the heart of a 27-year-old officer was conquered by a young Lisa Fontaine, the daughter of an industrialist and a farmer from Hannover. Young people became spouses. In the family of Wilhelm and Liza six children were born - three daughters and three sons. All the boys became military, and the daughters of Wilhelm married the officers of the Third Reich.

Continuation of military career

The news of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, caught Keitel's spouses in Switzerland, where the young couple spent their next vacation. Wilhelm was forced to interrupt rest and urgently go to the place of service.

In September 1914 in Flanders, Wilhelm Keitel received a heavy shrapnel wound in the right forearm. Returning from the hospital to the location of the regiment, in October 1914 Keitel was promoted to the rank of captain and appointed commander of the battery of his 46th artillery regiment. Further advancement of the military officer on the career ladder was very rapid.

In March 1915, Wilhelm Keitel (pictured in the review) is transferred to the General Staff of the 17th Reserve Corps. At the end of 1917, V. Keitel received the appointment of the chief of the military-operational 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 the First and Second

After the adoption of a new democratic constitution on July 31, 1919, the Weimar Republic was established at the National Constituent Assembly in Weimar with its army and navy. Keitel becomes in the ranks of the newly created army and receives the post of chief quartermaster of the army corps.

In 1923, after teaching at the Cavalry School (a childhood dream came true), Keitel became a major. In subsequent years, he works in the Ministry of Defense, appointed deputy chief of staff for tactical training, and then - head of the department of the Ministry of Defense. In the summer of 1931 Keitel visited the Soviet Union as part of the German delegation.

In 1935, as a major general, Wilhelm Keitel was appointed head of the German Armed Forces Directorate. Having passed the whole career ladder, on February 4, 1938, Colonel-General Wilhelm Keitel became Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces.

General-Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

This high military rank V. Keitel received for a successful Polish (in 1939) and French (in 1940) campaign. It is noteworthy that he was an ardent opponent of Germany's attack on Poland and France, as well as on the USSR, which Adolf Hitler repeatedly spoke of. This is proved by historical documents. Twice V. Keitel, because of disagreement with the policy of his boss, resigned, but Hitler did not accept it.

"Bloody" orders

Nevertheless, the General-Field Marshal remained faithful to the oath of 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 instructors and citizens of Jewish nationality are subject to immediate liquidation, that is, shooting on the spot."

On September 16, 1941, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Nazi Germany issued a decree according to which all hostages on the Eastern Front must be shot. At the order of the Field Marshal, all captive pilots from the Normandie-Niemen air regiment were not prisoners of war and were to be executed on the spot. Subsequently, at the Nuremberg trial in 1946, military prosecutors read out numerous decrees and orders, authored by Wilhelm Keitel. The execution of civilians, the shooting of communists and non-partisans, the liquidation of towns and villages in the occupied territories - all this was on the conscience of Field Marshal W. Keitel.

Act of unconditional surrender

This legal document on peace with Germany, the Soviet people waited a long 1418 days. The people went to this great victory, watering their land with blood, step by step, meter by meter, losing their 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 GK Zhukov, from Germany - Wilhelm Keitel. The capitulation is signed, henceforth the brown plague no longer threatens the world.

The fate of a German officer

Germany above all! These were the last words uttered by V. Keitel with a noose around his neck. After signing the act of unconditional surrender of Germany on May 12, 1945, General Field Marshal W. Keitel, along with other war criminals of fascist Germany was taken into custody. Soon the International Military Tribunal called to account all the henchmen of Adolf Hitler. They were charged with conspiring against the world community, preparing and conducting military operations in the territory of other states, as well as crimes against humanity.

General-Field Marshal W. Keitel was desperately justified at the trial and said that he carried out all orders on the personal orders of A. Hitler. However, this argument had no evidentiary basis in court, and on all counts he was found guilty.

On the morning of October 16, 1946, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , personal adviser to the Fiihrer for foreign policy, was executed . The second on the scaffold with a proudly raised head ascended Keitel. The verdict of the German criminal was carried out. The Field Marshal left after his soldiers.

Afterword

After the Nuremberg Tribunal, 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 verdict, indicate that the Field Marshal remained faithful and loyal to his Fuhrer's soldier. Here is one of them: "I'm a soldier! And for the soldier the order is always an order. "