Biography

September 22, 1882 · Helmscherode, Germany

October 16, 1946 · Nuremberg, Germany (execution by hanging)

Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel

6′ 0¾″ (1.85 m)

He is referred to, by name, in Winston Churchill's V-E Day speech, 8 May 1945.

German military officer. Attained rank of Field Marshal.

He was one of the Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials after World War II. Charged with crimes against humanity, he was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, which was carried out in 1946.

He suffered a heart attack and double pneumonia in the autumn of 1932.

[Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl] and I were both present that night a--the only time during the war--[Adolf Hitler] came bursting in to us with the telegram in his hand. I gained the impression that the Führer felt that the war between Japan and America had suddenly relieved him of a nightmare burden; it certainly brought us some relief from the consequences of America's undeclared state of war with us.

Instead of attacking Russia, we should have strangled the British Empire by closing the Mediterranean. The first step in the operation would have been the conquest of Gibraltar. That was another great opportunity we missed.