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Alfred Jodl

The International Military Tribunal trials at Nuremberg [Nuernberg] in 1946 charged the defendants with four crimes. Count One charged all of the defendants with being "leaders, organizers, instigators, or accomplices in the formation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit, or which involved the commission of, Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity." Count Two charged the defendants with crimes against peace by their participation "in the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression." Count Three charged the defendants with war crimes. Count Four charged the defendants with crimes against humanity. Jodl was indicted on all four counts. Alfred Jodl - together with Goering, Schacht, and Speer - was one of the four outstanding personalities in the dock at Nuremberg.

Alfred Jodl was born on 10 May 1890 in Wurzburg, son of a retired Bavarian artillery captain. He attended cadet school and 1910 joined a field military regiment in the German Army. Soon after the outbreak of the Great War Jodl suffered a severe thigh wound. He recovered and saw further action on the Western Front and the Eastern Front. Disillusioned by Germany's defeat he considered leaving the army and becoming a doctor. A strong supporter of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), Jodl worked closely with Adolf Hitler. In 1935 Jodl was promoted to the rank of major general. From 1935 to 1938 he was Chief of the National Defense Section in the High Command. Alfred Jodl, wrote in his diary (10th August, 1938) "It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline. It is the same problem as in 1914." After the Anschluss he was sent to Vienna as head of the 44th Artillery Command, where for a year he was in command of troops. Being a staunch supporter of the Nazi party, he was nominated in August 1939, to the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). In September 1939 he took part in the invasion of Poland. Although Keitel was his immediate superior, Jodl reported directly to Hitler on operational matters. In the strict military sense, Jodl was the actual planner of the war and responsible in large measure for the strategy and conduct of operations.

at Nuermberg Jodl defended himself on the ground he mas a soldier sworn to obedience, and not a politician ; and that his staff and planning work left him no time for other matters. He said that when he signed or initialed orders, memoranda, and letters, he did so for Hitler and often in the absence of Keitel. Though he claims that as a soldier he had to obey Hitler, he says that he often tried to obstruct certain ineasnres by delay, which occasionally proved successful as when he resisted Hitler's demand that a directive be issued to lynch allied "terror fliers."

Entries in Jodl's diary of 13 and 14 February 1938 show Hitler instructed both him and Keitel to keep up military pressure against Austria begun at the Schuschnigg conference by simulating military measures, and that these achieved their purpose. When Hitler decided "not to tolerate" Schnschnigg's plebiscite, Jodl brought to the conference the "old draft," the existing staff plan. His diary for 10 March shows Hitler then ordered the preparation of "Case Otto," and the directive was initialed by Jodl. Jodl issued supplementary instructions on 11 March, and initialed Hitler's order for the invasion on the same date.

In planning the attack on Czechoslovakia, Jodl was very active, according to the Schmundt notes. He initialed items 14, 17, 24, 36, and 37 in the notes. Jodl admits he agreed with OKH that the "incident" to provide German intervention must occur at the latest by 1400 on X-1 day, the day before the attack, and said it must occur at a fixed time in good flying weather. Jodl conferred with the propaganda experts on "imminent common tasks" such as German violations of international law, exploitation of them by the enemy and refutations by the Germans, which "task" Jodl considered "particularly important."

After Munich, Jodl wrote : "Czechoslovakia as a power is out . . . The genius of the Fuehrer and his determination not to shun even a World War have again won the victory without the use of force. The hope remains that the incredulous, the weak and the doubtful people have been converted and will remain that may." Shortly after the Sudeten occupation, Jodl went to a post command and did not become Chief of the Operations Staff in OKW until the end of August 1939. Jodl discussed the Norway invasion with Hitler, Keitel, and Raeder on 12 December 1939; his diary is replete with late entries on his activities in preparing this attack. At Nuermberg Jodl explained his comment that Hitler was still looking for an "excuse" to move meant that he was waiting for reliable intelligence on the British plans, and defends the invasion as a necessary move to forestall them. His testimony showed that from October 1939, Hitler planned to attack the west through Belgium, but was doubtful about invading Holland until the middle of November.

On 8 February 1940, Jodl, his deputy Warlimont, and Jeschonnek, the Air Forces Planner, discussed among themselves the "new idea" of attacking Norway, Denmark, and Holland, but guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Many of the 17 orders postponing the attack in the west for various reasons including weather conditions, until May 1940, were signed by Jodl. He was active in the planning against Greece and Yugoslavia. The Hitler order of 11 January 1941 to intervene in Albania was initialed by Jodl. On 20 January, four months before the attack, Hitler told a conference of German and Italian generals in Jodl's presence that German troop concentrations in Rumania mere to be used against Greece. Jodl was present on 18 March when Hitler told Raeder all Greece must be occupied before any settlement could be reached. On 27 March when Hitler told the German High Command that the destruction of Yugoslavia should be accomplished with "unmerciful harshness," and the decision was taken to bomb Belgrade without a declaration of war, Jodl was also there.

At Nuermberg Jodl testified that Hitler feared an attack by Russia and so attacked first. This preparation began almost a year before the invasion. Jodl told Varlimont as early as 29 July 1940, to prepare the plans since Hitler had decided to attack; and Hitler later told Warlimont he had planned to attack in August 1940 but postponed it for military reasons. He initialed Hitler's directive of 12 November 1940, that preparations verbally ordered should be continued and also initialed "Case Barbarossa" on 18 December. On 3 February 1941, Hitler, Jodl, and Keitel discussed the invasion, and he was present on 14 June when final reports on "Case Barbarossa" were made.

On 18 October 1942, Hitler issued the commando order and a day later a supplementary explanation to commanding officers only. The covering memorandum was signed by Jodl. Early drafts of the order were made by Jodl's staff, with his knowledge. Jodl testified at Nuermberg that he was strongly opposed on moral and legal grounds, but could not refuse to pass it on. He insisted he tried to mitigate its harshness in practice by not informing Hiiler when it was not carried out. He initialed the QKW memorandum of 25 June 1941, reaffirming the order after the Normandy landings.

A plan to eliminate Soviet Commissars was in the directive for "Case Barbarossa." The decision whether they should be killed without trial mas to be made by an officer. A draft contains Jodl's handwriting suggesting this should be handled as retaliation, and he testified this was his attempt to get around it. When in 1945 Hitler considered denouncing the Geneva Convention, Jodl argued the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. On 21 February he told Hitler adherence to the Convention would not interfere mith the conduct of the war, giving as an example the sinking of a British hospital ship as a reprisal and calling it a mistake. He said he did so because it was the only attitude Hitler would consider, that moral or legal arguments had no effect and argues he thus prevented Hitler from denouncing the Convention.

There is little evidence that Jodl was actively connected with the slave labor program, and he must have concentrated on his strategic planning function. But in his speech of 7 November 1943 to the Gauleiters he said it was necessary to act "with remorseless vigor and resolution" in Denmark, France, and the Low Countries to compel work on the Atlantic Wall.

By teletype of 28 October 1944, Jodl ordered the evacuation of all persons in Northern Norway and the burning of their houses so they could not help the Russians. Jodl says he was against this, but Hitler ordered it and it was not fully carried out. A document of the Norwegian Government says such an evacuation did take place in northern Norway and 30,000 houses were damaged. On 7 October 1941, Jodl signed an order that Hitler would not accept an offer of surrender of Leningrad or Moscow, but on the contrary he insisted that they be completely destroyed. He says this was done because the Germans were afraid those cities would be mined by the Russians as was Kiev. No surrender was ever offered.

On April 30, Adolph Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker, and the days that followed witnessed the end of German power. Salzburg fell, then Berchtesgaden, site of Hitler's mountain retreat. An American column pushed through Austria to the Brenner Pass. German Grand Admiral Karl Donitz surrendered all forces in the north, including Denmark and the Netherlands. On May 7, German Gen. Alfred Jodl signed the document of surrender at the Reims headquarters of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme allied commander of Allied forces in Europe. Germany had originally tried to strike a deal to surrender only to the Western allies, but not Russia, but ultimately gave in to demands that it surrender unconditionally on all fronts. Jodl had spoken the last words for Germany. Ramrod-stiff, in a voice that choked and almost broke he said: "With this signature the German people and the German armed forces are, for better or worse, delivered into the victors' hands. In this war, which has lasted more than five years, both have achieved and suffered more than perhaps any other people in the world. In this hour I can only express the hope that the victors will treat them with generosity." The surrender took effect at 11:01 p.m. May 8, on what was declared V-E Day. It was a day marked by widespread celebration and, in some corners, somber reflection.

His defense at Nuermberg, in brief, is the doctrine of "superior orders," prohibited by Article 8 of the Charter as a defense. There was nothing in mitigation. Participation in such crimes as these have never been required of any soldier and he cannot now shield himself behind a mythical requirement of soldierly obedience at all costs as his excuse for commission of these crimes. The Tribunal found that Jodl was guilty on all four counts.

Of the original twenty-four defendants, twelve (including Martin Bormann, tried in absentia) were sentenced to death by hanging. On 16 October 1946, Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreign minister in the ill-starred regime of Adolf Hitler, took Goering's place as first to the scaffold. Last to depart this life in a total span of just about two hours was Arthur Seyss-Inquart, former Gauleiter of Holland and Austria. In between these two once-powerful leaders, the gallows claimed, in the order named, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel; Ernst Kaltenbrunner, once head of the Nazis' security police; Alfred Rosenberg, arch-priest of Nazi culture in foreign lands; Hans Frank; Gauleiter of Poland; Wilhem Frank, Nazi minister of the interior; Fritz Sauckel, boss of slave labor; Colonel General Alfred Jodl; and Julius Streicher, who bossed the anti-Semitism drive of the Hitler Reich.