I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I … - Wilhelm Keitel

About Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (September 22, 1882 – October 16, 1946) was a German field marshal and war criminal who held office as chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's Armed Forces, during the Second World War. In that capacity, Keitel signed a number of criminal orders and directives that led to numerous war crimes. Keitel's rise to the Wehrmacht high command began with his appointment as the head of the Armed Forces Office at the Reich Ministry of War in 1935. Having taken command of the Wehrmacht in 1938 Hitler replaced the ministry with the OKW and Keitel became its chief. He was reviled among his military colleagues as Hitler's habitual "yes-man". After the war, Keitel was indicted by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as one of the "major war criminals". He was found guilty on all counts of the indictment: crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, criminal conspiracy, and war crimes. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in 1946. Keitel served as a Army General in the Reichsheer and Heer (from 1933-1945) before and after he became the Military Chief who commanded the combined Nazi Forces (while still a Army General in the Army branch of the Wehrmacht)

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