German Wehrmacht Army general and Nazi War Criminal (1890–1946)
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Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl (German:[ˈjoːdl̩]ⓘ; 10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German ArmyGeneraloberst (the rank was equal to a four-star full general) who served as the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – the German Armed Forces High Command – throughout World War II.
Jodl (second from right) as a captain of the Reichswehr, 1926
Alfred Jodl was educated at a military cadet school in Munich, from which he graduated in 1910. Ferdinand Jodl, who also became an army general, was his younger brother. He was the nephew of philosopher and psychologist Friedrich Jodl at the University of Vienna.[3] Jodl was raised Roman Catholic but rejected the faith later in life.[4]
From 1914 to 1916, he served with a field artillery regiment on the Western Front, being awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class for gallantry in November 1914, and for being wounded in action. In 1917, he served briefly on the Eastern Front before returning to the West as a staff officer. In 1918, he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class for gallantry in action. After the defeat of the German Empire in 1918, he continued his career as a professional soldier with the much-reduced German Army (Reichswehr).[5] Jodl married twice: in 1913 and (after becoming a widower) in 1944.[6]
Jodl's appointment as a major in the operations branch of the Truppenamt ('Troop Office') in the Army High Command in the last years of the Weimar Republic put him under the command of General Ludwig Beck.[citation needed] In September 1939, Jodl first met Adolf Hitler. During the build-up to the Second World War, Jodl was nominally assigned as commander of the 44th Division from October 1938 to August 1939 after the Anschluss.
He was chosen by Hitler to be Chief of the Operations Staff of the newly formed Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) on 23 August 1939, just prior to the German invasion of Poland.[7] Jodl acted as chief of staff during the invasion of Denmark and Norway. Following the Fall of France, Jodl was optimistic of Germany's success over Britain, writing on 30 June 1940 that "The final German victory over England is now only a question of time."[8]
Jodl signed the Commissar Order of 6 June 1941 (in which Soviet political commissars were to be shot) and the Commando Order of 28 October 1942 (in which Alliedcommandos, including properly uniformed soldiers as well as combatants wearing civilian clothes, such as Maquis and partisans, were to be executed immediately without trial if captured behind German lines).
Jodl spent most of the war at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's forward command post in East Prussia. On 1 February 1944, he was promoted to the rank of Generaloberst ('colonel general', a four-star rank). He was among those slightly injured during the 20 July plot of 1944 against Hitler, during which he suffered a concussion.[9][better source needed]
Following regional surrenders of German forces in Europe, Jodl was sent by Dönitz to respond to the demand for "immediate, simultaneous and unconditional surrender on all fronts."[11] Jodl signed the German Instrument of Surrender on 7 May 1945 in Reims on behalf of the OKW.[12] The surrender to all the Allies was concluded on 8 May in Berlin. On 13 May, on the arrest of GeneralfeldmarschallWilhelm Keitel, Jodl succeeded him as Chief of OKW.[13]
Trial and conviction
Jodl being arrested by British troops on 23 May 1945, near Flensburg
Jodl was arrested, along with the rest of the Flensburg Government of Dönitz, by British troops on 23 May 1945 and transferred to Camp Ashcan and later put before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials. He was accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The principal charges against him related to his signature of the Commando Order and the Commissar Order, both of which ordered that certain classes of prisoners of war were to be summarily executed upon capture. When confronted with the 1941 mass shootings of Soviet POWs, Jodl claimed the only prisoners shot were "not those that could not, but those that did not want to walk".[14]
Additional charges at his trial included unlawful deportation and abetting execution. Presented as evidence was his signature on an order that transferred Danish citizens, including Jews, to Nazi concentration camps. Although he denied his role in this activity of the regime, the court sustained his complicity based on the evidence it had examined, with the French judge, Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, dissenting.
Jodl's body after his execution, 16 October 1946
His wife Luise attached herself to her husband's defence team.[15][better source needed] Subsequently, interviewed by Gitta Sereny, researching her biography of Albert Speer, Luise alleged that in many instances the Allied prosecution made charges against Jodl based on documents that they refused to share with the defence. Jodl nevertheless proved that some of the charges made against him were untrue, such as the charge that he had helped Hitler gain control of Germany in 1933.[16]
Jodl pleaded not guilty "before God, before history and my people". Found guilty on all four charges, he was hanged at Nuremberg Prison on 16 October 1946.[17][better source needed] Jodl's last words were reportedly "I salute you, my eternal Germany" ("Ich grüße Dich, mein ewiges Deutschland").[18]
His remains, like those of the other nine executed men and Hermann Göring (who had killed himself prior to his scheduled execution), were cremated at Ostfriedhof and the ashes were scattered in the Wenzbach, a small tributary of the River Isar[19][20][21] to prevent the establishment of a permanent burial site which might be enshrined by Neo-Nazis. A cross commemorating him was later added to the family grave on the Frauenchiemsee in Bavaria. In 2018, the local council ordered the cross to be removed;[22] however, in March 2019, a Munich Court upheld Jodl's relatives' right to maintain the family grave, while noting the family's willingness to remove his name.[23][24]
Posthumous legal action
On 28 February 1953, after his widow Luise sued to reclaim her pension and his estate, a West Germandenazification court posthumously declared Jodl not guilty of breaking international law, based on Henri Donnedieu de Vabres's 1949 disapproval of Jodl's conviction.[25][26] This not guilty declaration was revoked by the Minister of Political Liberation for Bavaria on 3 September 1953, following objections from the United States; the consequences of the acquittal on Jodl's estate were, however, maintained.[27]
Decorations
Iron Cross (1914) 2nd Class (20 November 1914) and 1st Class (3 May 1918)[28]
^Railton, Nicholas M. "Henry Gerecke and the Saints of Nuremberg." Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, vol. 13, no. 1, 2000, pp. 112–137. JSTOR43750887. Accessed 8 Feb. 2021.
Davidson, Eugene (1997). The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Twenty-two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. University of Missouri Press. ISBN0-8262-1139-9.
Görlitz, Walter (1989). "Keitel, Jodl and Warlimont". In Barnett, Correlli (ed.). Hitler's Generals. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN978-0802139948.
Heiber, Helmut; Glantz, David M., eds. (2004). Hitler and his generals. Military Conferences 1942–1945. New York: Enigma Books. ISBN1-929631-28-6.
Jodl, Alfred (1946). "A Short Historical Consideration of German War Guilt". In Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality (ed.). Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume VIII(PDF). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN978-3-938845-17-2.
Scheurig, Bodo (1997). Alfred Jodl. Gehorsam und Verhängnis. Berlin: Propyläen. ISBN3-549-07228-7.
Sereny, Gitta (1995). Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth. New York: Knopf. ISBN0-394-52915-4.
Shirer, William (1990). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon & Schuster. ISBN0-671-72868-7.
Thomas, Franz (1997). Die Eichenlaubträger 1939–1945 Band 1: A–K [The Oak Leaves Bearers 1939–1945 Volume 1: A–K] (in German). Osnabrück, Germany: Biblio-Verlag. ISBN978-3-7648-2299-6.
