Alfred Jodl

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Alfred Jodl
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-033-01, Alfred Jodl.jpg
Birth date 10 May 1890
Place of birth Würzburg, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
Death date 16 October 1946 (aged 56)
Place of death Nuremberg, Bavaria, Allied-occupied Germany
Allegiance  German Empire
 Weimar Republic
 National Socialist Germany
National Socialist Germany Flensburg Government
Service/branch Fahne der Bayerischen Armee.png Royal Bavarian Army
Iron Cross of the Luftstreitkräfte.png Imperial German Army
Freikorps Flag.jpg Freikorps
War Ensign of the Reichswehr, 1919 - 1935.png Reichswehr
Balkenkreuz.jpg Heer
Years of service 1910–1945
Rank Generaloberst
Battles/wars World War I
World War II
Awards Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
Relations ∞ 1913 Irma Gräfin von Bullion
∞ 1945 Luise von Benda
Ferdinand Jodl (brother)

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl (10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German military officer, commander and martyr for the National Socialism attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel. At the Nuremberg show trials, he was tried, sentenced to death and hanged.[1] In 1953, Jodl was posthumously exonerated by the German denazification court.

Life

Alfred Jodl as a child
Father Alfred Johannes Jodl, an artillery officer
Captain Alfred Jodl with cigarette in 1926, at his side brother 1st Lieutenant Ferdinand Jodl.
Alfred Jodl
General der Artillerie Alfred Jodl and Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (de) during a meeting in Mikkeli (Finland) on 4 September 1941
Albert Speer, Karl Dönitz and Alfred Jodl
Luise Katharina Jodl, née von Benda
Jodl Grab.jpeg
Jodl Grab II.jpg

Alfred Jodl attended elementary school from may 1896 to July 1900 in Landau and Münden. From August 1900 to July 1903, he attended Gymnasium in Munich. From August 1903 to July 1910, he attended the Royal bavarian Cadet Corps were he attained his Abitur. On 10 July 1910, he was transferred to the Royal Bavarian 4th Field Artillery Regiment "King" in Augsburg as an officer cadet. He was sworn-in on 3 November 1910. From 1 October 1911 to 20 August 1912, he attended the Royal Bavarian War School. Afterwards further artillery and officer courses would follow. On 19 September 1912, he received his certificate of maturity as a future officer, on 28 October 1912, he was commissioned. He then served as an officer in his regiment, from 13 to 25 January 1913, he received training as a weapons inspection officer at the Royal Bavarian Rifle Factory in Amberg. On 24 August 1913, serving in the 2nd Battery, he received permission to marry.

Well-trained, he was a lover of sports: athletics, gymnastics, and skiing. He was also a rider and horse lover. To escape the one-sidedness of the military, this lover of sports and music also found it helpful to study works of history and literature. He was fond of the scenic beauty of Bavaria, including Lake Chiemsee and Fraueninsel. As a mountaineer, he was drawn to the rugged Alpine peaks, according to Scheurig in his aforementioned Jodl biography, "Obedience and Fate." Above all, Jodl missed the mountains in Berlin, as well as in all his other mountain-free duty stations. Luise von Benda is said to have raved about the athletic major to a friend: the "son of the mountains" with the "bright eyes in his tanned face" and his "calm yet light movements."[2]

WWI

  • 8 August 1914: Into the field with the Königlich Bayerisches 4. Feldartillerie-Regiment „König“
  • 24 August 1914: Wounded (grenade fragment), military hospital
  • 1 November 1914: Return to his regiment in the field
  • 10 March 1915: Commanded to the Königlich Bayerisches 19. Feldartillerie-Regiment
  • 1 May 1916: Military hospital, abscess (former wound) removed
  • 1 July 1916: Replacement Battalion/Königlich Bayerisches 4. Feldartillerie-Regiment „König“
  • 1 December 1916: Battery leader with the Königlich Bayerisches 19. Feldartillerie-Regiment
  • 1 January 1917: Battery commander with the 72nd Hungarian (k. u. Honved) Field Cannon Regiment
  • 1 April 1917: Battery leader with the Königlich Bayerisches 19. Feldartillerie-Regiment
  • 26 May 1917: Adjutant of the Königlich Bayerisches 19. Feldartillerie-Regiment
  • 12 December 1917: Adjutant of the Bavarian Artillery Commandant 8

Interwar assignments

  • 23 December 1918: Return to the Königlich Bayerisches 4. Feldartillerie-Regiment „König“
  • 1 February 1919: Battery leader with the Königlich Bayerisches 4. Feldartillerie-Regiment „König“
  • 22 April to June 1919: Battery leader of Volkswehr-Batterie Augsburg
  • 15 June 1919: Battery leader in light Artillery Regiment 22
  • 1 October 1919: Battery officer (leichte Munitions-Kolonne) in I. Battalion/Reichswehr Artillery Regiment 21
  • 1 March 1920: Deputy Battery Commander in Reichswehr Artillery Regiment 21
  • 27 September with effect from 1 October 1920: Officer in Bavarian Motor Transport Battalion (Fahr-Abteilung) 7
  • 3 January 1921: "Leader Assistant" (Führergehilfe) course (secret general staff training) with 7th Division staff
  • 20 May to 19 June 1922: Officer with the 1st Company/7. (Bayerische) Fahr-Abteilung
  • 30 August with effect from 1 October 1922: Commander of the 4th Battery/Artillery Regiment 7; the battery was equipped with the mountan gun 7.5 cm Gebirgskanone M. 15
  • 15 September with effect from 1 October 1923: Attached to Berlin University
    • 21 June to 20 July 1924: Commanded to the Reichswehrministerium (subordinated to the Chef des Truppenamtes)
  • 30 August with effect from 1 October 1924: Transferred as an expert (Referent) to the intelligence staff of the 7th Division
  • 6 September with effect from 1 October 1927: Commander of the 5th Battery/Artillery Regiment 7
  • 10 September with effect from 1 October 1928: Instructor in general staff duties (Lehrer der Führergehilfen), 7th Division staff
    • 23 February to 3 March 1930 Gas protection course in Berlin
  • 23 April with effect from 1 June 1932: Commanded to the Defense Ministry
  • 1 October 1932: Appointed group leader in Troop Office, Defense Ministry (Reichswehrministerium (RWM))
  • November 1934 to May 1935: Attached to Turkish army
  • 21 May 1935: Expert in Defense Ministry (RKM)
  • 15 June with effect from 20 June 1935: Commanded to the Army Department (T 1) Landesverteidigung (L)
  • 20 June with effect from 1 July 1935: Department head (homeland defense) in Defense Ministry/Department Landesverteidigung (L)
  • 4 February 1938: Chief of Wehrmacht operations office/OKW
  • 20 November 1938: Artillery Commander 44, Vienna
  • 25 August 1939: Attached Wehrmacht Operations Office/OKW, WFSt
  • 27 August 1939: Chief of Wehrmacht Operations Office/OKW, WFSt

World War II

Jodl became acquainted with Adolf Hitler in 1923. As a vocal NSDAP 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 the Second World War, Jodl was nominally assigned as an Artilleriekommandeur of the 44th Division from 10 November 1938 to August 1939 during the Anschluss, but from then (26 August with effect from 18 October 1939) until the end of the war in May 1945 he was Chef des Wehrmachtsführungsstabes (Chef WFSt / OKW; Chief of Operation Staff OKW). Following the Hossbach Memorandum of 5 November in 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 wounded during the assassination attempt. Due to his proximity in July Plot, Jodl was awarded the wounded badge alongside several other leading figures.

Show trial and execution

Jodl was then arrested on 23 May 1945 and transferred to Flensburg POW camp and later put before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials. After more than 5,000 briefings and six years of military advisory work for Adolf Hitler, including a devastating world war, Jodl found himself before the IMT as a former member of the Wehrmacht's military elite.

Jodl was falsely 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 criminal 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 working camps. Although he denied his role in this case, the court sustained his complicity based on the given evidence.

His wife Luise Jodl managed to attach herself to her husband's defence team. Subsequently interviewed by Gitta Sereny, researching her biography of Albert Speer, Luise Jodl revealed that in many instances the Allied prosecution made charges against Jodl based on documents that they refused to share with the defense. Jodl nevertheless managed to prove that some of the charges made against him were completely 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'.

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 in 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.

Jodl's last words were reportedly "My greetings to you, my Germany." His remains were cremated at Munich, and his ashes raked out and scattered into the Wenzbach, 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 Mussolini's place of rest in Predappio, Italy). Jodl nonetheless possesses a cenotaph in the family plot in the Fraueninsel Cemetery, in Chiemsee, Germany.

Closing remarks

Alfred Jodl before the Nuremberg Tribunal (216th day). The statement in full:[3]

"Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Judges! It is my unshakable belief that future historiography will reach an objective and just judgment on the high-ranking military leaders and their assistants. For they, and with them the entire German Wehrmacht, faced an insoluble task. Namely, to wage a war they did not want, under a Commander-in-Chief whose trust they did not possess and in whom they themselves had only limited confidence, with methods that often contradicted their leadership principles and their traditional, tried-and-tested views, with troops and police forces that were not under their full command, and with an intelligence service that partly worked for the enemy. And all this in the full and clear knowledge that this war decided the existence or non-existence of our beloved Vaterland.
They did not serve hell or a criminal, but their people and their fatherland.
As for me, I believe no one can act better than by striving for the highest of the goals that seem attainable to them. This and nothing else has always been the guiding principle of my actions, and therefore, whatever judgment you, Gentlemen of the Court, pass on me, I will leave this courtroom with my head held high just as I entered it many months ago. But whoever calls me a traitor to the honorable tradition of the German Army, or whoever claims that I remained at my post for selfish, personal reasons, I call a traitor to the truth.
In a war like this, in which hundreds of thousands of children and women were carpet-bombed or killed by low-flying aircraft, in which partisans used every means of violence they deemed appropriate, harsh measures, even if they might appear questionable under international law, are not a crime against morality and conscience. For I believe and confess: duty to the people and the fatherland stands above all other duties. Fulfilling this was my honor and my highest law.
May this duty be replaced in a happier future by an even higher one: by a duty to humanity!”

Generaloberst Alfred Jodl’s confession in the face of his death on the Allied gallows is quoted:

“The Führer’s plan for the Western Campaign can only be compared in its magnitude to the Schlieffen Plan. It is now fashionable to portray Hitler as a hysterical lout, or as a failed art student who failed the academy, as an ignorant private of the First World War. But this failed art student put Germany back on its feet, transformed it from chaos and misery into a major European power. He transformed Germany into a country without unemployment. For six years, Hitler lived solely for this Germany of his. He was a fantastic man. He was unique.”

Generaloberst Alfred Jodl said this shortly before his death. His defense attorney at the Nuremberg Tribunal had so much responsibility that after Jodl's death he commented on it in the respected magazine "Nation Europa". This attorney was against National Socialism, otherwise he would not have been allowed to act as a defense attorney in Nuremberg.

Rehabilitation (1953)

Luise von Benda, Jodl's second wife, sought rehabilitation and ultimately secured a denunciation trial in Munich. Jodl was acquitted in these proceedings, and the main denunciation trial ruled that if Jodl were still alive, he should be classified neither in Group 1 ("Primary Guilty") nor in Group 2 ("Incriminated"). Furthermore, the confiscation of his estate, in whole or in part, should be waived. On 28 February 1953, Jodl was posthumously exonerated by the German de-Nazification court, which cited Nuremberg Trial judge Donnedieu's statements and found Jodl not guilty of crimes under international law. Thereby his hanging was posthumously declared to have been unjust The public prosecutor waived his right to appeal, and the verdict became final on 2 March 1953.

The decision of the main denunciation trial and the resulting extensive rehabilitation of Jodl were not accepted by the American occupation authorities, however, and the United States High Commissioner ultimately secured the annulment of the verdict, arguing that the denunciation trial violated the Nuremberg verdict.

Family

Alfred was the son of Bavarian Colonel Alfred Johannes Jodl (1853–1930) and his wife Therese, née Baumgärtler (1861–1928). He had four siblings. His oldest, sister Pauline (1885–1889), died young. His younger brother Ferdinand Alfred Friedrich (1896–1956) was also originally an artillery officer and later would become a General der Gebirgstruppe. Alfred was the nephew of philosopher and psychologist Friedrich Jodl at the University of Vienna. Jodl was raised Roman Catholic but rejected the faith later in spring 1942, now gottgläubig.

Marriages

Irma

On 23 September 1913, 2nd Lieutenant Jodl married Irma Pauline Karoline Gräfin von Bullion (1885–1944), daughter of Colonel Guy Heinrich Joseph Albert Arthur Graf von Bullion. The marriage was childless. Irma was the five-year-older daughter of his regimental commander (the daughter of his father's cadet commander, whom he had met in the first month of Augsburg in 1910). Irma was seriously ill with tuberculosis of the spine and died on 18 April 1944. Although she had undergone surgery in Königsberg shortly before Easter 1944, the night after the successful operation, bombing terror struck, and she had to be taken to an air-raid shelter, where she contracted pneumonia and lived only a few days.

Luise

Jodl's second wife and widow, Luise Katharina Jodl, née von Benda (1905–1998), whom he married on 7 March 1945 (as Irma also wished on her deathbed), worked after the war as an assistant at the Institute of International Law at the University of Munich, among other positions. In 1976, the Viennese publisher Fritz Molden published her book "Beyond the End – The Life and Death of Generaloberst Alfred Jodl," which had been written in the late 1940s. Mrs. Jodl, who served as a secretary to Adam, Beck, and Halder in the OKH during the war, participated in the negotiations in Nuremberg as a defense secretary. Before her marriage, she had been chief secretary to the Chiefs of Staff, Beck and Halder. Although the book is still very close to the horrific ending, it is considered a useful contribution, especially in rounding out the general's character.

Promotions

  • 10 July 1910 Fähnrich (Officer Cadet)
  • 28 October 1912 Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant)
    • 26 September 1919 received new Patent from 28 October 1910
  • 14 January 1916 Oberleutnant (1st Lieutenant) with Patent from
  • 28 September 1921 Rittmeister (Captain) with effect from 1 July 1921
    • 1 February 1922 received Rank Seniority (RDA) from 18 October 1918
    • 30 August 1922 renamed to Hauptmann with effect from 1 October 1922
      • He was initially promoted to cavalry captain (Rittmeister) as he was serving in Fahr-Abteilung 7 in 1920. He rank designation changed to Hauptmann on being accepted as a general staff officer and on return to the artillery branch.
  • 1 February 1931 Major with Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1 May 1929
  • 1 October 1933 Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel)
  • 1 August 1935 Oberst (Colonel)
  • 31 March 1939 Generalmajor (Major General) with effect from 1 April 1939
  • 19 July 1940 Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General) with Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1 July 1940
    • He was simultaneously promoted to Generalleutnant and General der Artillerie on the same day in effect skipping the former rank.
  • 19 July 1940 General der Artillerie with Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1 July 1940
  • 30 January 1944 Generaloberst with Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1 February 1944

Awards and decorations

Sources

  • German Federal Archives:
    • BArch PERS 6/42
    • BArch PERS 6/299941

Further reading

External links

References

  1. ↑ The Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust by Mark Weber
  2. ↑ Alfred Jodl (1890–1946)
  3. ↑ Two hundred and sixteenth day. Saturday, 31 August 1946
  4. ↑ Militär-Handbuch des Königsreich Bayern, 1914, p. 119
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