Execution of Alfred Jodl
- Hitler's Nazi General & War Criminal - Nuremberg Trials - World War 2

27 August 2022

Category: High Ranking Nazi Representatives

Alfred Jodl was born out of wedlock on the 10th of May 1890. In July 1910 Alfred Jodl joined the 4th Field Artillery Regiment of the Bavarian Army. In the following year he was assigned to the military school in Munich and in October 1912, he was promoted to lieutenant.

The First World War began on the 28th of July 1914 and ended on the 11th of November 1918 when the German leaders signed the armistice in the Compiègne Forest in France. The introduction of new weapons like the machine gun and gas warfare led to the enormous losses and the war claimed the lives of ten million soldiers. Property and industry losses were catastrophic. As a result, the victorious powers imposed a series of treaties upon the defeated powers. Among the treaties, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles held Germany responsible for starting the war and liable for massive material damages. In the new Weimar Republic Alfred Jodl continued his career as a professional soldier.

Alfred Jodl was significantly involved in secretly planning, reorganizing, and eventually enlarging the German army in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Even after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came into power in January 1933, German rearmament despite its scale, remained a largely covert operation, carried out using front organizations such as glider clubs for training pilots, sporting clubs, and Nazi SA militia groups for teaching infantry combat techniques.

One of the main objectives of the Nazi regime was to redraw the map of post-World War I Europe. After the Anschluss, as the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich became known, Alfred Jodl was transferred to Linz in annexed Austria to take charge of the 44th artillery regiment as a commander. On the 23rd of August 1939, just one week before the German invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler had appointed Jodl Chief of the Operations Staff of German Armed Forces High Command.

Start of World War 2

World War 2 started on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Alfred Jodl acted as a chief of staff during the invasion of Denmark and Norway which was codenamed Operation Weserübung. Alfred Jodl was then busy drawing up plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union which became known as Operation Barbarossa. Jodl was also involved in drafting the “Commissar order” which he had signed on the 6th of June, 1941, less than 3 weeks before Operation Barbarossa began.

Jodl also signed the “Commando Order” which ordered and authorized the killing of enemy special operations troops. The allied commandos were to be killed without trial, even when captured in uniform or if they attempted to surrender. On the 20th of July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Hitler. Alfred Jodl was present in the Wolf's Lair field headquarters, and he was slightly injured when the bomb exploded.

Surrender of German forces

Following regional surrenders of German forces in Europe, Karl Dönitz, who briefly succeeded Hitler as head of state, sent Alfred Jodl to sign the surrender which was limited to only those forces still fighting the Western Allies. However, American General Dwight Eisenhower demanded complete surrender of all German forces including those fighting in the East. If this demand had not been met, Eisenhower was prepared to seal off the Western front, preventing Germans from fleeing to the West in order to surrender, thereby leaving them in the hands of the advancing Soviet forces. Dönitz ordered Jodl to sign which he did on behalf of the German Armed Forces High Command on the 7th of May 1945 in Reims, France.

After the war, Alfred Jodl was arrested by the British Troops on the 23rd of May 1945 and tried at the Nuremberg Trials which were held against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany. On the 1st of October 1946 the International Military tribunal found Alfred Jodl guilty on all four counts and sentenced him to death by hanging.

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