Execution of Alfred Jodl - Hitler's Nazi General & War Criminal - Nuremberg Trials - World War 2
Execution of Alfred Jodl - Hitler's Nazi General & War Criminal - Nuremberg Trials - World War 2
Execution of Alfred Jodl - Hitler’s Nazi General \u0026 War Criminal - Nuremberg Trials - World War 2. 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. 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. 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.
Disclaimer: All opinions and comments below are from members of the public and do not reflect the views of World History channel. We do not accept promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes such as: race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation. World History has right to review the comments and delete them if they are deemed inappropriate.
► CLICK the SUBSCRIBE button for more interesting clips: / @worldhistoryvideos
#worldhistory #hitler #worldwar2
Content
0.72 -> The 1st of October 1946, Nuremberg, Germany. After
more than 10 months on a trial, 21 defendants
9.42 -> who are among the most important political,
military, and economic leaders of Nazi Germany,
14.52 -> hear their sentences read. These high-ranking
representatives of the criminal Nazi regime have
20.76 -> to finally take responsibility for their crimes
and answer before an International Military
25.26 -> tribunal who would punish them for unspeakable
atrocities committed during the Second World War.
30.42 -> It is only the first of many war crimes trials
held after the Second World War and would become a
36.36 -> warning to war criminals and dictators everywhere.
Once the true extent of the German atrocities,
41.88 -> especially against Jews, are revealed,
12 defendants out of the 21 are sentenced
47.52 -> to death by hanging. One of them
is a German general Alfred Jodl.
53.34 -> Alfred Jodl was born out of
wedlock on the 10th of May 1890
58.2 -> in Würzburg then part of the German Empire.
His father, who came from a Bavarian military
64.2 -> family was not married to Alfred’s mother
Therese because, as a farmer's daughter,
68.7 -> she was considered not good enough to marry a
Bavarian military officer. They married only
73.62 -> in 1899, after his father had retired from
military service. It was only from then on,
79.08 -> that Alfred bore his name. Alfred grew
up with his younger brother Ferdinand
83.46 -> who would also become an army general. His
uncle Friedrich Jodl was a philosopher.
89.4 -> In July 1910 Alfred joined the
4th Field Artillery Regiment of
93.96 -> the Bavarian Army. In the following year
he was assigned to the military school
97.86 -> in Munich and in October 1912,
he was promoted to lieutenant.
102.72 -> In September 1913, Jodl married Countess
Irma von Bullion. The marriage was childless.
109.68 -> The First World War began on the 28th of July
1914. In August the same year, Jodl was took
116.46 -> part in the bottle of Saarburg but he was
wounded in the thigh and was not able to return
120.54 -> to the troops until March 1915. For gallantry in
action, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.
127.98 -> In the end of 1916 Jodl was transferred
to the Eastern Front where in 1917 he
133.8 -> became a battery commander of the 72nd
Hungarian Field Artillery Regiment. At
138.42 -> the beginning of 1918 he was transferred
back to the western front as a General
142.5 -> Staff officer and in March the same year
he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.
148.2 -> The First World War ended on the 11th
of November 1918 when the German leaders
153.42 -> signed the armistice in the Compiègne Forest
in France. The introduction of new weapons
158.1 -> like the machine gun and gas warfare led to
the enormous losses and the war claimed the
163.08 -> lives of ten million soldiers. Property
and industry losses were catastrophic.
168.96 -> As a result, the victorious powers imposed a
series of treaties upon the defeated powers.
174.48 -> Among the treaties, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles
held Germany responsible for starting the war
180.12 -> and liable for massive material damages.
The treaty imposed harsh penalties on the
185.52 -> Germans including the loss of 13% of its prewar
territories, extensive reparation payments and
191.64 -> demilitarization of the Rhineland. The Reichswehr
– the German Army – was restricted to 100,000 men.
199.02 -> In the new Weimar Republic, which was the
government of Germany from 1918 to 1933,
204.54 -> Alfred Jodl continued his career
as a professional soldier.
208.32 -> In 1924, Jodl was transferred to the Ministry
of the Reichswehr in Berlin. While between
213.96 -> 1928 and 1932 he was a teacher of tactics and
war history, in February 1932 Wilhelm Keitel,
221.76 -> his superior, appointed him as a major.
In June the same year Jodl was appointed
226.86 -> a group leader in the Operations
Department of the Truppenamt – an
230.28 -> agency which concealed the existence of
the proscribed German Army General Staff.
234 -> Alfred Jodl was significantly involved
in secretly planning, reorganizing,
238.92 -> and eventually enlarging the German army in direct
violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Even after
245.28 -> Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came into power in
January 1933, German rearmament despite its scale,
252.24 -> remained a largely covert operation, carried out
using front organizations such as glider clubs
258 -> for training pilots, sporting clubs, and Nazi
SA militia groups for teaching infantry combat
263.64 -> techniques. Later, however, this rearmament
policy was openly and massively expanded.
269.34 -> One of the main objectives of the Nazi regime
was to redraw the map of post-World War I Europe.
275.16 -> Hitler and the Nazis considered the postwar
international borders unfair and illegitimate.
280.98 -> They claimed that Germans had been denied the
right of self-determination. Redrawing Europe’s
286.74 -> borders would allow the Nazis to achieve two main
goals: unite all Germans in a Nazi German Empire;
292.8 -> and acquire Lebensraum meaning
“living space” in eastern Europe.
296.94 -> The annexation of Austria would help the
Nazis achieve the first goal. The Anschluss,
302.28 -> as the annexation of the Federal State of
Austria into the German Reich became known,
306.66 -> took place over three days between the 11th
and 13th of March 1938. The Anschluss was
313.32 -> supported by many Austrians, among them
Austrian Nazis, who saw it as a political,
318.18 -> social, and cultural reunification with their
brother country, Germany. Thousands turned
324.6 -> out to greet Adolf Hitler, the native son who was
returning to his homeland. Even though the leaders
329.76 -> of the West saw the Anschluss as an invasion, not
one government made a move to stop Hitler who,
335.34 -> without interference, felt free to embark upon the
next step in his scheme to conquer all of Europe.
341.28 -> At the end of 1938, Alfred Jodl was
transferred to Linz in annexed Austria
346.62 -> to take charge of the 44th artillery regiment
as a commander. On the 23rd of August 1939,
352.56 -> just one week before the German
invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler
356.1 -> had appointed Jodl Chief of the Operations
Staff of German Armed Forces High Command.
360.6 -> Established in 1938, the German Armed Forces
High Command was a unified military command
366.78 -> controlling Germany’s air force, navy, and army.
In reality, the establishment of the High Command
372.84 -> allowed Adolf Hitler to consolidate power as
commander-in-chief of the German military.
378.24 -> High Command was led by Wilhelm Keitel as
Chief with the rank of a Reich Minister,
383.34 -> which essentially made him the second
most powerful person in the Armed
386.88 -> Forces' hierarchy after Hitler. Alfred
Jodl became not only the next officer
391.5 -> after Keitel but also Hitler’s primary
military advisor in the High Command,
395.82 -> responsible in large measure for the
strategy and conduct of operations.
401.52 -> World War 2 started on the 1st of September
1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The campaign
408.12 -> in Poland ended on the 6th of October the same
year with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing
413.52 -> and annexing the whole of the country
Alfred Jodl acted as a chief of staff
418.5 -> during the invasion of Denmark and Norway
which was codenamed Operation Weserübung.
423.06 -> Nazi Germany invaded Denmark and
Norway on the 9th of April 1940.
429.12 -> Strategically, Denmark's importance to Germany
was as a staging area for operations in Norway.
435.48 -> In Norway, Germany sought to secure naval
bases for use against the British fleet
440.1 -> in the North Sea and to guarantee vital
iron-ore shipments from neutral Sweden
444.72 -> on which Nazi Germany was dependent.
While invasion of Denmark lasted less
449.34 -> than six hours and was the shortest military
campaign conducted by the Germans during the
453.72 -> war, Norway surrendered to Germany only
after 2 months on the 10th of June 1940.
460.32 -> In the great wave of promotions that followed
the “Fall of France” in June the same month,
465.36 -> Jodl rose directly to General, skipping
the rank of Lieutenant general.
470.1 -> During the upcoming months, Alfred
Jodl was busy drawing up plans for
473.82 -> the invasion of the Soviet Union which
became known as Operation Barbarossa.
478.68 -> Jodl was also involved in drafting
the “Commissar order” which he had
482.76 -> signed on the 6th of June, 1941, less than
3 weeks before Operation Barbarossa began.
488.88 -> This order instructed the Wehrmacht that
any political commissars were to be shot
493.62 -> on principle when captured either
in battle or offering resistance.
497.76 -> Political commissars were Soviet Communist
Party officials who oversaw its military
502.32 -> units and reported directly to party leaders.
Operation Barbarossa began on Sunday the 22nd
508.56 -> of June 1941. In May 1942, however, the Commissar
Order was cancelled at the urging of German field
515.88 -> commanders, who came up against much stronger
resistance when the routine shooting of the
520.68 -> commissars became known to the Soviet soldiers.
The Germans killed not only political commissars
526.98 -> but also Soviet prisoners of war
whom they regarded as an integral
530.64 -> part of the so-called Bolshevik menace
and killed them in massive numbers.
535.92 -> Jodl also signed the “Commando Order” which
ordered and authorized the killing of enemy
541.2 -> special operations troops. The allied
commandos were to be killed without trial,
545.7 -> even when captured in uniform or
if they attempted to surrender.
549.96 -> During the planning of Case Blue offensive
in Southern Russia in summer 1942, there were
555.9 -> repeated disagreements between Jodl and Hitler.
Jodl considered the German forces planned for the
560.94 -> invasion to be too weak. He severely criticized
Hitler's intervention in operational planning and
566.46 -> the associated splitting up of Army Group South in
early July 1942 but was ultimately unsuccessful.
573.84 -> When the German attack stalled in the run-up
to the Caucasus, Jodl countered the Führer’s
578.82 -> accusation that the local commanders
were to blame for the situation as they
582.42 -> had merely followed Hitler's orders.
In view of this open confrontation,
586.2 -> Hitler planned Jodl's replacement by
General Friedrich Paulus as soon as he
590.88 -> would conquer Stalingrad, which never happened.
Even though his criticism led to a cooling of the
596.7 -> relationship with the Führer, Jodl, the same as
with his superior Wilhelm Keitel, remained loyal
601.62 -> to Hitler praising him for his strategic foresight
and carrying out whatever the Führer ordered.
607.5 -> In February 1944, Alfred jodl was
promoted to the rank of Colonel
612.72 -> General. On the 18th of April 1944,
his wife Irma died. He remarried one
618.84 -> year later on the 7th of April 1945 when
he married Luise von Benda who had been
624.54 -> a close friend of his first wife Irma.
This marriage also remained childless.
629.94 -> On the 20th of July 1944, Claus von
Stauffenberg and other conspirators
635.64 -> attempted to assassinate Hitler.
Alfred Jodl was present in the
639.72 -> Wolf's Lair field headquarters, and he was
slightly injured when the bomb exploded.
643.68 -> In the days that followed, Hitler ordered a
massive hunt for conspirators which continued for
649.5 -> months. Many of them appeared before the notorious
People’s Courts for show trials, but this practice
655.44 -> was ended as it gave conspirators a platform
to condemn the regime. In the end more than
661.68 -> 7,000 people were arrested, and 4,980 were
executed, often on the barest evidence.
669.48 -> On the 28th of October, 1944, by teletype, Jodl
ordered the evacuation of the Norwegian population
676.32 -> and the destruction of all the houses east of the
Lyngenfjord in the course of Operation Northern
681.72 -> Lights so that they could not help the Russians.
The forced evacuation of more than 40,000 people
687.36 -> in Northern Norway took place shortly after
and thousands of houses were destroyed.
693.6 -> Adolf Hitler committed suicide
on the 30th of April 1945.
698.64 -> Following regional surrenders of German forces in
Europe, Karl Dönitz, who briefly succeeded Hitler
704.58 -> as head of state, sent Alfred Jodl to sign the
surrender which was limited to only those forces
709.86 -> still fighting the Western Allies. However,
American General Dwight Eisenhower demanded
715.32 -> complete surrender of all German forces including
those fighting in the East. If this demand had not
720.66 -> been met, Eisenhower was prepared to seal off the
Western front, preventing Germans from fleeing to
725.88 -> the West in order to surrender, thereby leaving
them in the hands of the advancing Soviet forces.
731.82 -> Dönitz ordered Jodl to sign which he did on behalf
735.42 -> of the German Armed Forces High Command
on the 7th of May 1945 in Reims, France.
740.88 -> A few hours later, a response was received
from the Soviet High Command stating that
745.98 -> the Act of Surrender in Rems was unacceptable.
They insisted that not Jodl, deputized by Dönitz,
752.34 -> a civilian head of state, but the supreme
commander of all German forces, Wilhelm Keitel,
757.44 -> should personally sign the document. One of
the reasons was a fear new stab-in-the-back
763.02 -> myth which maintained that the Imperial German
Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield,
768.12 -> but was instead betrayed by certain
citizens on the home front—especially
772.44 -> Jews and Communists – who they claimed had
surrendered German honor to a shameful peace.
777 -> As a result, a second signing was arranged in
Berlin. On the night of the 8th of May 1945,
783.42 -> Nazi Field Marshall Wilhelm
Keitel signed the definitive
787.2 -> German Instrument of Surrender which
was the legal document that effected
790.86 -> the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany
on all fronts and ended World War II in Europe
797.7 -> In the end, justice finally caught up
with Jodl when he was arrested by the
802.02 -> British Troops on the 23rd of May 1945 and
tried at the Nuremberg Trials which were
807.66 -> held against representatives of the defeated
Nazi Germany. He was convicted of conspiracy
813.36 -> to commit crimes against peace, planning,
initiating and waging wars of aggression,
818.28 -> war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Additional charges at his trial included
823.8 -> unlawful deportation and abetting execution. His
wife Luise joined her husband's defence team.
830.82 -> At the trial, Jodl claimed to have known nothing
of the death camps at which nearly six million
836.34 -> European Jews met their death and pleaded not
guilty before God, before history and his people.
841.98 -> However, his lies did not help him escape justice.
On the 1st of October 1946 the International
849 -> Military tribunal found Alfred Jodl guilty on all
four counts and sentenced him to death by hanging.
855.96 -> His request, as well as those of Wilhelm Keitel
and Hermann Göring, for a military execution by
861.84 -> firing squad was denied due to the criminal
rather than military nature of his acts.
868.2 -> He was executed by American Army sergeant
John C. Woods who had no documented pre-war
874.26 -> experience as a hangman. It is believed that he
was deliberately bad at his job to make the 10
879.6 -> Nazi war criminals that he executed on that day,
suffer as they all died in long agonizing death.
885.18 -> The Nazis executed by sergeant Woods fell from
the gallows with a drop insufficient to snap their
891.54 -> necks, resulting in their death by strangulation
that in some cases lasted several minutes.
897.9 -> With Alfred Jodl, it was even worse.
After he had said his last words “ I
903.3 -> salute you, my eternal Germany” , Jodl
was hanged but because he fell from the
908.4 -> gallows with insufficient force to snap his neck,
910.74 -> his horrible convulsing lasted 18 long
minutes before he died. He was 56 years old.
918.66 -> After that, his corpse was cremated and scattered
922.08 -> in the river Isar. There were
no tears shed for Alfred Jodl.
931.02 -> thanks for watching the World History
Channel please help us to create more
936.48 -> videos by clicking on the donation link thank
you and see you next time on the channel
