Wilhelm Keitel

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (born 22 September 1882 in Helmscherode, Duchy Of Brunswick, Germany – died 16 October 1946 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany) was a German Nazi Army General and a field marshal, a Nazi war criminal and the chief of the Wehrmacht between 1938 and 1945 which controlled the Wehrmacht’s Nazi Heer (Army),Luftwaffe (Air Force),Kriegsmarine (Navy) . He was one of the 24 accused of the Nuremberg Trials and hanged in 1946.

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel was born on 22 September 1882 in Helmscherode in the Duchy Of Brunswick (today Lower Saxony). He joined the Imperial German Army in 1901, aged 19 .During World War I, Keitel served as a infantry soldier in the Military on the Western Front and took part in the fighting in Flanders, where he was gravely wounded.

From 1919 to 1933, under Weimar Republic, Keitel was part of the Reichswehr’s German Army as a Junior Army Officer In 1934, he was promoted to the Senior army officer rank of Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal or General) after serving as a Army Oberst (Colonel) (1928-1929) and a Army Generalmajor (equivalent to Brigadier General or Major-General) and Generalleutnant (equivalent to Major General or Lieutenant-General),Generaloberst (equivalent to Colonel General or full General) from 1930-1934 and appointed chief of the Reich Ministry of War's Armed Forces Office (Wehrmachtsamt). In 1938, he became the chief of the Wehrmacht between 1938 and 1945.Keitel was a Nazi, and he was one of Adolf Hitler's most loyal followers. As the chief of the Wehrmacht, he was responsible for many war crimes, such as sending millions of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust and ordered by Adolf Hitler,Joseph Goebbels,Hermann Goring to have Senior Heer (Army) and Luftwaffe (Air Force) Officers and junior officers including ordering infantry soldiers of the German Army and paratrooper soldiers in the Luftwaffe who served in the German Military to work with the SS troops to shoot wounded soldiers and execute POWS and civilians all over Europe during World War 2 from 1939-1945 .

During the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Keitel was convicted as a Nazi war criminal. He was executed by hanging on 16 October 1946, aged 64, for his war crimes.

Wilhelm Keitel appeared in the movie Downfall.