Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was one of the most senior German military officers of World War II. For most of the conflict, he worked directly alongside Adolf Hitler and held one of the most powerful positions in the German armed forces. Yet just over a year after Nazi Germany’s surrender, Keitel was dead. In the early hours of October 16, 1946, he was taken to the gallows at Nuremberg Prison and hanged.
His execution was not simply punishment for serving Hitler or for being a German general. Keitel was executed because the International Military Tribunal concluded that he played a major role in planning aggressive wars and, more importantly, in issuing and transmitting criminal orders. Those orders contributed to the deaths and mistreatment of prisoners of war, civilians, resistance fighters, and countless others across occupied Europe.
Keitel was born in 1882 and became a professional soldier long before Hitler came to power. He served during World War I and remained in the smaller German army permitted by the Treaty of Versailles after the conflict. His career continued to advance, and after Hitler began rebuilding the German armed forces, Keitel rose quickly through the military hierarchy.
In 1938, Hitler reorganized the command structure of the German armed forces and created the High Command of the Armed Forces, known as the OKW. Keitel became its chief. The position brought him exceptionally close to Hitler. However, the OKW did not function as an independent military command capable of restraining the dictator. Hitler increasingly controlled military decisions, and Keitel became notorious among some other German generals for his willingness to agree with him.
Critics mocked him with the nickname “Lakaital,” a play on the German word “Lakai,” meaning lackey or servant. Whatever personal reservations Keitel may have had about some of Hitler’s decisions, he repeatedly signed and transmitted orders on behalf of the Führer. This became highly significant after the war.
The prosecutors at Nuremberg were not simply interested in proving that Keitel was close to Hitler. They wanted to prove that he knowingly participated in policies that violated the laws and customs of war. One of the main charges against Keitel concerned Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Operation Barbarossa was not intended to be an ordinary military campaign. Hitler viewed the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological and racial conflict.
The invasion was accompanied by a series of brutal orders that deliberately weakened the usual protections granted to enemy soldiers and civilians. Among the worst was the “Commissar Order.” Soviet political commissars captured with Red Army units were to be identified and killed or executed rather than treated as ordinary prisoners of war. The order was openly criminal because it authorized executions without trial. Keitel was part of the command structure through which such policies were implemented, and the Nuremberg judges concluded that he could not simply distance himself from what was happening.
Another major issue was the treatment of civilians and resistance movements. As German forces occupied vast areas of Europe, guerrilla warfare became a serious problem. Hitler demanded ruthless responses. Instead of limiting punishment to those actually responsible for attacks, German forces carried out reprisals against hostages and civilian populations. Keitel was directly linked to that policy.
In September 1941, he issued an order concerning resistance to German occupation that called for extremely harsh reprisals. The document suggested that the killing of one German soldier could be answered by the execution of 50 to 100 communists or enemies. Orders like this helped create an environment in which huge numbers of civilians could be killed in retaliation for resistance attacks.
Keitel was also connected to the infamous “Night and Fog” decree. Issued in December 1941, the policy was designed to intimidate resistance movements in German-occupied Western Europe. Some people accused of resisting German rule were secretly abducted and taken into Germany. Information about their fate was often deliberately withheld from their families. The idea was simple and frightening. If opponents of Nazi occupation simply disappeared without explanation, the uncertainty would spread fear among the population.
Some prisoners were tried before special courts, while others ended up in concentration camps. Many died or were simply executed. Keitel signed directives related to the implementation of the decree through the armed forces.
There were other charges as well. The prosecution presented evidence concerning the treatment of prisoners of war, captured Allied commanders, and other groups that should have been protected under international law. Hitler’s Commando Order of October 1942 directed German forces to kill Allied commando troops in Europe and Africa, even in circumstances where they could have surrendered and become prisoners of war. Keitel transmitted this order through the military command system. After the war, it became another important example of why the defense of simply “following orders” was so controversial.
Keitel was not an ordinary soldier standing on a battlefield being shouted at by an officer. He was a field marshal holding one of the highest positions, if not the highest position, in the entire German military command structure. When Germany finally surrendered in May 1945, Keitel’s military career came to an end. He signed the German surrender document in Berlin-Karlshorst on May 8, 1945, on behalf of the German armed forces.
He was later arrested and became one of the most prominent Nazi political and military figures tried before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The trial began in November 1945. Keitel faced the four main charges on which the court was based: conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The evidence against him included orders bearing his signature and documents passed through the OKW.
Keitel did not deny the existence of many of these orders. Instead, one of the main arguments of his defense was obedience. He presented himself as a professional soldier trapped inside Hitler’s dictatorship. He argued that he had sworn an oath of loyalty that required him, according to German military discipline, to obey the head of state. At times, Keitel claimed that he had privately disagreed with Hitler, but he remained in his position and carried out his duties.
This raised one of the most important questions of the entire Nuremberg process. Could a soldier escape responsibility for a crime simply because a superior had ordered it? The court’s answer was essentially no. Superior orders could be considered when assessing a person’s circumstances, but they did not automatically absolve personal responsibility. An officer could not knowingly participate in clearly criminal acts and then claim complete innocence because someone above him had issued the order.
This principle was especially damaging to Keitel because of his enormous seniority. He was not a junior officer with little influence. He was a field marshal and head of the OKW. His signature carried immense authority. When an order was transmitted through his headquarters, it could affect the behavior of military formations across occupied Europe.
On October 1, 1946, the court delivered its verdict. Wilhelm Keitel was convicted on all four counts. The judges concluded that he had participated in the machinery of aggressive war and was involved in issuing or transmitting numerous criminal orders. He was sentenced to death by hanging.
For Keitel, the method of execution carried a particular humiliation. He considered himself a professional soldier and requested execution by firing squad, traditionally regarded as a military form of death. His request was denied. The Nuremberg authorities regarded the convicted defendants as criminals who had been found guilty, not as soldiers receiving an honorable military execution.
In the early hours of October 16, 1946, the executions began inside the gymnasium of Nuremberg Prison. Ten convicted men were hanged that morning. Hermann Göring, the Reich Marshal, was scheduled to die with them, but he took his own life hours before his execution. The hangings were carried out by American army executioner John C. Woods.
Keitel’s final statement evoked Germany and the German soldiers who had died during the war. He was then executed. His body was photographed afterward, like the bodies of the other executed defendants. His corpse was cremated in secret, and his ashes were scattered so that his grave would not become a shrine.
The case of Wilhelm Keitel remains historically important because the trial addressed a question that goes far beyond one German field marshal. How responsible is a military officer for orders issued by political leaders? At Nuremberg, Keitel repeatedly portrayed himself as merely a soldier whose duty was to obey. But the court concluded that obedience had limits. His position meant that he possessed both knowledge and responsibility. He saw the nature of the regime he served and repeatedly allowed his authority and his signature to be used to carry out brutal policies.
Keitel was not executed simply because Germany lost World War II, nor simply because he was one of Hitler’s generals. He was executed because the Nuremberg court found that he personally participated in aggressive war and helped issue and enforce orders that violated the laws of war. His execution became one of the clearest examples of the principle established at Nuremberg. Military rank and obedience to superiors provide no complete protection when an individual knowingly participates in war crimes.