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Alfred Jodl

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Alfred Jodl
Alfred Jodl
AllegianceGerman Empire German Empire (to 1918)
Germany Weimar Republic (to 1933)
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany
Service/branchWehrmacht
Years of service1903 - 1945
RankColonel General
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II
AwardsKnight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves

Alfred Jodl (10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel. At Nuremberg he was tried, sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal.

Biography

Early life

Jodl was born Alfred Josef Ferdinand Baumgärtler in Würzburg, Germany, the son of Officer Alfred Jodl and Therese Baumgärtler, becoming "Alfred Jodl" upon his parents' marriage in 1899. He was educated at Cadet School in Munich, from which he graduated in 1910.

After schooling, Jodl joined the army as an artillery officer. During World War I served as a battery officer on the Western Front 1914–1916, twice being wounded. In 1917 Jodl served briefly on the Eastern Front before returning to the west as a staff officer. After the war Jodl remained in the armed forces and joined the Versailles-limited Reichswehr.

Jodl had married Irma Gräfin von Bullion in September 1913. The marriage was unhappy, and the couple had no children.

Nazi career

Jodl became acquainted with Adolf Hitler in 1923. As a vocal Nazi sympathizer, he was rapidly promoted and by 1935 headed the Abteilung Landesverteidigung im Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) (Chief of the National Defense Section in the High Command of the Army). In the build-up to World War II, Jodl was nominally assigned as a Artilleriekommandeur of the 44th Division from October 1938 to August 1939 during the Anschluss, but from then until the end of the war in May 1945 he was Chef des Wehrmachtsführungsstabes (Chief of Operation Staff OKW).[1] Following the Hossbach Memorandum of 5 November the previous year, Jodl changed the military tactics of German forces from a focus on defending against the French threat, to a more aggressive tactic focused on the takeover of Czechoslovakia. Jodl was therefore a key figure in German military operations from 1939, supplying advice and technical information directly to Hitler. He was injured during the July 20 plot. Due to this, Jodl was awarded the wounded cross alongside several other leading Nazi figures. He was also rather vocal about his suspicions that others had not endured wounds as strong as his own, often downplaying the effects of the plot on others.

Alfred Jodl (between Major Wilhelm Oxenius to the left and Generaladmiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg to the right) signing the German Instrument of Surrender at Reims, France 7 May 1945
Colonel General Jodl signs the instruments of unconditional surrender in Reims on 7 May 1945
The body of Alfred Jodl after being hanged, Oct. 16, 1946

Jodl's wife Irma died on 18 April 1944. During their last years together Jodl and his wife had been very distant and cold to each other. While Wilhelm Keitel called his wife almost every day, Jodl didn't seem to seek contact with Irma. On 7 April 1945 he married former secretary and mistress Luise Katharina von Benda (born 1905). She had been a close friend of his first wife.

Jodl signed the Commando Orderof October 28, 1942-in which Allied Commandos were not to be treated as POWS- and the Commissar Order of June 6, 1941 in which Political Commissioners were to be shot.

At the end of World War II in Europe, Jodl signed the instruments of unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945 in Reims as the representative of Karl Dönitz.

Trial and execution

Jodl was then arrested and transferred to Flensburg POW camp and later put before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials. Jodl 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 prisoners were to be summarily executed. 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 and other civilians, to concentration camps. Although he denied his role in the crime, the court sustained his complicity based on the given evidence.

His wife Luise Jodl attached herself to her husband's defence team. Subsequently interviewed by Gitta Sereny, researching her biography of Albert Speer, Luise Jodl alleged that in many instances the Allied prosecution made charges against Jodl based on documents that they refused to share with the defense. 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. He was in one instance aided by a GI clerk who chose to give Luise a document showing that the execution of a group of British commandos in Norway had been legitimate. The GI warned Luise that if she didn’t copy it immediately she would never see it again; "…it was being 'filed'."[2] Jodl pleaded 'not guilty' "before God, before history and my people". Found guilty on all four charges, he was hanged, although he had asked the court to be executed by firing squad.

Jodl's Nuremberg verdict was controversial in U.S. military circles and on February 28, 1953, a West German court in Munich posthumously acquitted him of all charges. His property, confiscated in 1946, was returned to his widow. However, yielding to U.S. pressure, the Bavarian government recanted the court's judgment; on September 3, 1953, the Bavarian state minister of "political liberation" overturned the earlier revocation of the Nuremberg judgment.[3][4]

Jodl's last words were reportedly "My greetings to you, my Germany." Despite previously executing 347 men, Jodl's executioner botched the hanging, which failed to break Jodl's neck. After 18 minutes, Jodl finally succumbed to death from strangulation. His remains were cremated at Munich, and his ashes raked out and scattered into the Conwentzbach, a small river flowing into the larger Isar River (effectively an attempt to prevent the establishment of a permanent burial site to those nationalist groups who might seek to congregate there — an example of this being Benito Mussolini's place of rest in Predappio, Italy). Jodl nonetheless possesses a cenotaph in the family plot in the Fraueninsel Cemetery, in Chiemsee, Germany.

Portrayal in the media

Alfred Jodl has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions.[5]

References

  1. ^ Nuremberg Judgment: Jodl
  2. ^ Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer His Battle with Truth, p.578. ISBN 0394529154
  3. ^ Shoa.de - Alfred Jodl (1890-1946)
  4. ^ The Holocaust from Channel4.com
  5. ^ "Alfred Jodl (Character)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 8 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessdaymonth=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ "Letzte Akt, Der (1955)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 8 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessdaymonth=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
Wikiquote has quotations related to Alfred Jodl.
  • HITLER and HIS GENERALS. Military Conferences 1942-1945, Edited by Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz. (Enigma Books: New York, 2004. ISBN 1-929631-28-6)
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